Although Nvidia has yet to provide a specific launch date for its new GTX 1050 graphics card, speculations suggest that the new GPU will release soon, quite possibly as early as October.
While Nvidia has yet to come out with confirmed details on the GTX 1050, the recent supposed leaks on its specs and features suggest that fans will not have that long to wait. Reportedly, the new GTX card may debut as early as late September, placing its release in the market by mid-October.
In terms of price, The Motley Fool surmised that the new card, as an entry-level GPU, will sell below $200. The current basic model in the GTX 10 family, the GTX 1060, has a price tag of at least $199 for its most basic configuration. The upcoming GTX 1050, on the other hand, may have a price break of at least $119 for the basic 2-GB VRAM version. The higher-end of the GTX 1050 lineup, a configuration with 4 GB VRAM, can fetch a price tag of around $159.
Meanwhile, some observers are saying that the GTX 1050 serves to broaden Nvidia's market base for its new GTX 10 cards. The new entry-level GPU has an aggressive price break that pits it directly with AMD's new RX series, priced at around the $200-range. In addition, having an entry-level GTX 1050 also gives switch and/or upgrade buyers another GTX 10 option, given that the other iterations in the series remain in tight supply.
The upcoming new card will supplant the GTX 1060 as the entry-level GPU with Pascal architecture in the current Nvidia lineups. According to its leaked specs, the GTX 1050, although having the newer Pascal architecture, will be positioned as a refreshed GTX 950. Indeed, both cards share the same CUDA count, though the GTX 1050 — having a newer architecture — has higher clock speeds. The upcoming GTX 10 card features 1316MHz (base) and 1380MHz (boost) clock speeds, against the GTX 950's 1,024MHz and 1,188MHz.
