New Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050 benchmark scores do little to assuage performance concerns

Despite being announced last year (2021), laptops featuring an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050 are yet to hit shelves. So far, only the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G4+ and ThinkBook 16 G4+ are slated to run it. The glimpses previous reports offered into its performance paint an equally grim picture. Newly leaked 3D Mark Fire Strike scores pretty much reconfirm that speculation.

ITHome reports that the GeForce RTX 2050 scored 9,673 in the benchmark. It did well compared to the GeForce GTX 1650 (7,891 points) and the GeForce MX450 (4,131), but that isn't saying much. It could probably outshine the GeForce MX550, but that's about it. It sits squarely between the Turing-based GeForce GTX 1650 Ti and GTX 1660 Ti in the 3D Mark Fire Strike benchmark. The GeForce RTX 2050's low VRAM and memory bandwidth will limit its performance to GeForce MX570 levels.

It also severely impacts the GeForce RTX 2050's ability to encode video and gets outdone by an Intel Iris Xe iGPU with 96 Execution Units. Then again, leaked benchmarks should always be taken with a grain of salt, although it is unclear how much performance the GeForce RTX 2050 will gain with proper driver support. Besides, AMD Rembrandt Ryzen 6000 series' RDNA2-based iGPU look extremely promising and could easily trounce the GeForce RTX 2050 in the real world.

Strictly speaking, it wouldn't be completely wrong the declare the GeForce RTX 2050 to be dead on arrival based on its spec sheet alone. However, the graphics card does have dedicated RT and Tensor cores, meaning that it can take advantage of Nvidia DLSS to squeeze out a few more frames in more demanding titles. On the other hand, its raytracing capabilities will be next to non-existent, especially when its better-specced sibling, the GeForce RTX 3050, can't get it right.