Nvidia RTX 4050 and 4060 Ti GPUs are great news for us, bad news for AMD

If you’ve been waiting for Nvidia to finally release RTX 4000-series desktop graphics cards that won’t have your bank ringing you up in a panic if you buy them, then you’ll be pleased to see a new rumor that suggests Team Green could finally be preparing to launch affordable Lovelace GPUs.

As the VideoCardz website spotted, a well-known graphics card leaker on Twitter posted what they claim is Nvidia’s upcoming GPU launch schedule.

As you can see from the tweet below, MEGAsizeGPU suggests that Nvidia will release the RTX 4060 Ti desktop GPU at the end of May, then the 4050 in June. According to the leaker, a desktop 4060 GPU is also coming, but a launch date has not been decided yet.

About time

If these launch plans are real, then this is good news for PC gamers – and bad news for AMD, Nvidia’s rival, which has been cornering the market when it comes to the best cheap graphics cards this generation.

While Nvidia’s current crop of RTX 4000 series desktop GPUs, the RTX 4090, RTX 4080 and RTX 4070 Ti, are undoubtedly impressive bits of kit, they are all high-end cards that come with big price tags, and that has left gamers on a budget to feel a bit neglected by Nvidia.

Nvidia has released more modest GPUs for laptops, so we’ve been eagerly awaiting their desktop counterparts. Above all, it’s important for Nvidia to understand that not everyone can afford high-end GPUs, and bringing Lovelace technology to more affordable GPUs means gamers can enjoy features such as DLSS 3.

In the past, some of the most popular GPUs in the world have been the Nvidia GTX 1060, RTX 2060 and RTX 3060 – due to their balance of value and performance. I can imagine the RTX 4060 and 4060 Ti in particular could be big hits when – and if – they launch.

Nvidia turning its attention to the entry-level market will surely put the pressure on AMD and Intel. While Nvidia’s market share lead remains huge, AMD’s tactic of releasing more affordable GPUs has been sound, winning over gamers who simply can’t afford Nvidia’s offerings.

Meanwhile, Intel, which is a relatively new player in the desktop GPU market, has managed some moderate success in this market as well. Both have wisely avoided trying to compete with Nvidia on raw power. But, if Team Green really is about to launch an assault on the entry level market, things could start to get very interesting.