A few days ago, NVIDIA surprised us all with its new RTX 2050 and MX500 laptop graphics cards, which we weren’t expecting at all. Both are GPUs of what we call entry-level, designed for modest computers, but that require a greater graphic capacity than an integrated one. What is the performance of the NVIDIA RTX 2050 and MX550?
Integrated GPUs typically have three issues that affect performance. The first of these is that they operate at lower clock speeds than what the architecture allows them so as not to thermally choke the CPU that is on the same chip, secondly, the fact of having to share access to the RAM and to finish, we have the little space they have for larger configurations.
However, we tend to mentally associate dedicated graphics cards with the user who is fond of video games on PC or for creators of high-caliber multimedia content. Of course, not everyone needs that power, however, at the same time the performance of an integrated is not enough. So entry-level or very low-end GPUs are designed for that potential audience, and the MX550 and RTX 2050 are a case in point.
NVIDIA RTX 2050 and MX550 GPU performance
Although we will have to wait for the spring of 2022 to see laptops with the RTX 2050 and the MX550, we finally know what their performance will be. Specifically through the benchmark TimeSpy included in 3DMark where the RTX 3050 has obtained a graphical result of 3369 points and the 2510-point MX550.
The RTX 2050 makes use of the GPU GA107, the one with the fewest features with GeForce Ampere architecture, so it has technologies such as Ray Tracing and DLSS. Its configuration is 2048 CUDA cores and it can be found paired with 2 or 4 GB of GDDR6 memory through a 64-bit bus. On the other hand, the MX550 is still a GTX 1650 with another name, since its graphics chip is a TU117, so you do not have access neither to Ray Tracing and neither to DLSS. The configuration of the MX550 and RTX 2050 is 16 SMs, but as the former is based on the shortened version of the Turing architecture it only has 64 CUDA cores per SM, reaching a total of 1024.
Of the RTX 2050 we do not know the clock speed on which it has been tested in TimeSpy, let’s not forget that it is common to see different variations for different TDP. However, of the MX550 we do know the clock speed at which the TimeSpy benchmark has been run, 1320 MHz.
An ideal generation for Lapsed Gamers
The appearance of the Intel ARC A300, AMD Radeon RX 6500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 GPUs is an opportunity for the so-called Lapsed Gamers to renew their equipment. These are users who are fond of video games who do not buy the latest news and tend to buy old games that they can enjoy with their computers at leisure.
The RTX 2050 and to a lesser extent the MX550, are not high-end GPUs that are going to move you with a next-generation game, but if you are one of those who has a good collection of classic games for Steam, they will be a good alternative. . Especially considering that laptops equipped with more powerful GPUs are going to suffer a price increase due to shortages of components and mining.
