NVIDIA RTX 5050 Laptops Expected with GDDR7 Memory
Good news for gamers who need a powerful but budget-friendly laptop. It appears that companies are gearing up to launch new laptops with NVIDIA's latest RTX 5050 Blackwell GPU. And this is particularly interesting: these budget monsters should come with even faster GDDR7 memory.
Unraveling the Memory Mystery: GDDR7 for Laptops
There's been some chat online about what kind of memory the RTX 5050 would feature. Some guessed it would be the only GPU in the new RTX 50 series to keep legacy GDDR6 memory, while its bigger brothers get the GDDR7 treatment. The RTX 5050 is NVIDIA's bottom rung in their new Blackwell lineup, coming out after the RTX 5060 release.
But recent leaks, like one for an ASUS gaming laptop, have strongly suggested that the laptop version of the RTX 5050 will, in fact, feature the quicker GDDR7 memory. Now, more evidence is coming to support this.
LG and Lenovo are now throwing their hats into the GDDR7 ring
Thanks to sharp eyes online (shoutout to @momomo_us), we're seeing spec sheets from LG and Lenovo that show new gaming laptops with the RTX 5050 featuring GDDR7. A good sign for performance.
Specifically, LG's upcoming Gram Pro 16, which is a laptop powered by the Core Ultra 7 255H processor, comes with an NVIDIA RTX 5050 tagged with the specific "GDDR7 8GB" memory. The spec sheet also provides us with a peek at other details like system memory, display, and connectivity options.
Lenovo is not lagging behind at all. They've got at least two gaming laptops featuring the RTX 5050. One among them is the Legion 5 15IRX10 model, and its spec sheet also exclusively references "RTX 5050 8 GB GDDR7 memory." While the official product page is not yet up, it is showing up in search results, which is always a good indication.
Lenovo also has another model, the IdeaPad Pro 5i, already up on their website with the RTX 5050 GPU mentioned. Quirks there, though - the live page specifications don't even mention "memory type" but just state the GPU as RTX 5050 with an 8GB capacity. But now we have a few leaks that suggest it's probably going to be GDDR7 in the mobile RTX 5050.
What About Desktops. And What Else Do We Know.
Hopefully, the trend of applying GDDR7 continues to the desktop variant of the RTX 5050 as well. GDDR6 is significantly slower and might bottleneck performance. The RTX 5050 is said to be based on the GB207 GPU die, perhaps sporting 2560 CUDA cores and a TDP of about 130W. We will certainly hear more in the next few weeks and months, particularly after NVIDIA finally launches the RTX 5060.
