The first NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 video cards should appear on sale in Ukrainian electronics stores literally today (global sales started on January 27, 2022). However, it is already clear that real retail prices will be at least twice as high as the recommended level of $249/7000 UAH . On the eve of the first purchases, we decided to study the materials of Western resources that have already tested new video cards and answer the question – is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 worth the money.

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Characteristics, positioning

Recall that Nvidia presents the new RTX 3050 as the most affordable graphics card with ray tracing. Let me take a look at its features below:

• The amount of video memory – 8 GB GDDR6,
• Memory bus – 128 bits,
• Bandwidth – 224 GB / s
• Power consumption – 130 W
• Base frequency – 1550 MHz
• Frequency with acceleration – 1777 MHz
• Graphics chip – GA106
• CUDA cores – 2560
• Tensor Cores – 80 (third generation)
• RT cores – 20 (second generation)
• Connectors – two DisplayPort 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 feels like a breath of fresh air after the unremarkable launch of AMD’s Radeon RX 6500 XT last week. On paper, there is no need to talk about any serious gaps from competitors. But the most attractive thing is the initial price. It is simply impressive and is 249 dollars.

Unfortunately, retail GPU prices will continue to be extremely inflated. Although cryptocurrency prices have plummeted, this does not mean that we will see recommended prices for video cards anytime soon.

NVIDIA did not provide a reference version of the video card, so the reviewers used graphics accelerator models from different manufacturers. Judging by the results of benchmarks, there is no significant difference in performance between them.

Tom’s Hardware tested the RTX 3050, RTX 2060, GTX 1650 Super, and RX 6500 XT as competitors in the same price segment. It is quite expected that the real price will be 50-100% higher than the recommended values, but this is unlikely to change in the near future.

The key difference between the RTX 3050 and its predecessors, the GTX 1650 and GTX 1650 Super, is that the 3050 uses 2nd generation RT cores and 3rd generation Tensor cores. Now Nvidia’s ray tracing and DLSS support is taking it to the next level compared to its competitors.

Obviously, the actual price and availability of a physical copy will be the deciding factor when buying any current graphics card from Nvidia. The manufacturer said that it is working on stocking the RTX 3050 before launch because it is confident that this video accelerator will be in very high demand due to its low price.

The review uses an Nvidia EVGA RTX 3050 Black, which comes with a slightly higher factory overclock to 1845MHz. For comparison, the reference Nvidia RTX 3050 runs at the reference 1777 MHz.

Gaming Performance

Average performance in Borderlands 3, Far Cry 6, Flight Simulator, Forza Horizon 5, Horizon Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Watch Dogs Legion on “medium” settings

As you can see, the RTX 3050 performs significantly better than the RX 6500 XT even at low settings. This is a decent performance step up from the GTX 1660 Super, which also easily outperformed AMD’s graphics card in its day.

Thus, serious competition awaits the RTX 3050 only in the more expensive segment, for example, in the form of the RTX 3060 and RX 6600. But the RTX 2060 and RX 5600 XT showed only slightly better performance, and this is due to the presence of 192-bit memory interfaces.

Overall, the RTX 3050 averaged 98fps on medium settings. It was 26% faster than the AMD RX 6500 XT and 69% faster than the previous generation GTX 1650, and 56% faster than the previous generation GTX 1060 6GB.

The GTX 1660 Super only managed to outperform by 6%. At the same time, the RTX 2060 was 9% faster than the RTX 3050, the RTX 3060 was ahead of it by 33%, the RX 5600 XT was also faster on average by 18%, and the RX 6600 was faster by 41%.

In other words, the RTX 3050 doesn’t radically change the graphics card market. Were it not for miner demand for graphics cards, the RTX 3050 would rank just below the three-year-old RTX 2060 6GB. On the other hand, if not for the supply chain and other factors, this could have been a great card for $199 or $229, and not for $249 (which, as we remember, in real life easily turn into completely different numbers).

Maximum graphics settings

The RX 6500 XT and other cards with 4GB of VRAM can really struggle with ultra settings in many modern games, but the RTX 3050 continues to perform well enough. The average performance in the test set was still 58 fps.

More importantly, the RTX 3050 outperformed the AMD RX 6500 XT by 53% and increased its lead over other GPUs with 4GB VRAM.

Yes, the RTX 3050 can beat the RX 6500 XT, but it’s only slightly behind the old RTX 2060. If you’re willing to forgo ray tracing, then the RX 5600 XT would be a better deal for you, clocking in at 14% faster.

The RTX 3050 trails the RTX 3060 by 26% and the RX 6600 by 36%. Although objectively these cards cannot be compared, because the RTX 3060 has 50% more memory and 61% more memory bandwidth. All this gives it 36% better performance at Ultra settings.

At 1440p and ultra graphics settings, the RTX 3050 is definitely not the best solution. While most cards started running 30 fps less, the RTX 3050 dropped 44 fps. But it’s still more than twice as fast as the RX 6500 XT.

Power, temperature and noise

The GeForce RTX 3050 has an official TDP of 130W. Data was collected during a run of Metro Exodus at 1080p/1440p Ultra and a FurMark stress test at 1600×900. Computer used with Core i9-9900K

Power consumption is one of the few downsides of the RTX 3050 compared to the RX 6500 XT. The graphics card consumed an average of 124 watts during the Metro Exodus test, compared to 90 watts for the 6500 XT. The power consumption of the RTX 3050 was slightly higher in FurMark, averaging 134W.

The video card during testing reached a peak noise level of 45.3 dB at a fan speed of 71%. In general, this is typical of low cost EVGA cards with weaker heatsinks that require higher fan speeds.

The graphics card will be available in several custom models at launch from all major NVIDIA partners:

• MSI GeForce RTX 3050
• ASUS GeForce RTX 3050
• Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3050
• ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3050
• GALAX GeForce RTX 3050
• PNY GeForce RTX 3050
• Palit GeForce RTX 3050
• Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050
• EVGA GeForce RTX 3050
• Colorful GeForce RTX 3050
• GeForce RTX 3050 by Gainward

Conclusion

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 theoretically has a very good price – much better than the AMD RX 6500 XT. It comes with plenty of video memory and supports PCIe 4.0 x16. But it’s slower than the RTX 2060, and based on the graphics market, there’s very little chance that the RTX 3050 will sell at the suggested retail price.

Choose NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 on Hotline.ua