Nvidia RTX 3050 review: Budget GPUs are officially back
Nvidia RTX 3050 review: Budget GPUs are officially back
RRP $249.00
"The RTX 3050 is a return to budget GPUs for Nvidia, with solid performance backed by DLSS."
benefits
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Solid 1080p gaming performance
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Low list price
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Supports DLSS
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Decent ray tracing
disadvantage
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Prices will likely be high
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Slight stuttering in memory intensive games
2022 is the year that budget GPUs will make a comeback – or at least it looks like it. I assumed that GPU class was dead; Nvidia eventually skipped the RTX 2050 and prices for the best graphics cards continue to rise. The $249 RTX 3050 is a return to form and could be the most affordable GPU this year.
I had a chance to test the card and while it holds its own against the rest of the Nvidia lineup and AMD's competition, it's its features that set the RTX 3050 apart from the rest. With rumors of increased supply and an attractive list price, the RTX 3050 could be an antidote to the GPU shortage that budget-conscious gamers have been waiting for.
Prices and Availability
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
Nvidia hasn't released a reference design for the RTX 3050, but the company has still set a list price of $249. There are a number of options from board partners including graphics cards from EVGA, PNY, Colorful and Asus. I got my hands on the EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black, which is available now for $249.
My card arrived with the wrong BIOS intended for the slightly more expensive EVGA RTX 3050 XC. This BIOS offers a 68MHz boost clock speed. It's a difference, but no more than 3% at most, and you can easily compensate for it with manual overclocking.
Like all graphics cards in 2022, expect the RTX 3050 to sell out right away. The saving grace is that models are available at list price on launch day. That's cheaper than you can currently buy almost any graphics card, including options that are several years old.
On paper, the RTX 3050 is $50 more expensive than the recently released AMD RX 6500 XT. I haven't had a chance to test AMD's card yet, but the amount of benchmarks I've seen shows that the RTX 3050 deserves its higher price tag. Not only does the extra $50 buy you a more powerful GPU, it also gets Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) and ray tracing, which isn't bad.
The RTX 3050 is cheaper than the RX 6500 XT.
If you can get an RTX 3050 for $250, you should – there's no better value in today's GPU market. However, that is not the reality for most. Once the starting stock gets into the hands of scalpers, you can expect to pay twice the list price. The RTX 3060, for example, costs around $750 on the used market.
For the RTX 3050 I expect used prices to be around $500. In that case, the RX 6500 XT is about $100-$150 less. Still, the RTX 3050 is better value for money in my eyes. The performance of the RTX 3050 isn't nearly as important as the fact that it's a 30-series GPU. Even as nothing more than a vessel for DLSS and ray tracing, it's still more impressive than AMD's competing graphics card.
specifications
The RTX 3050 is a true budget graphics card and has the specs to match. The card, which sits at the bottom of Nvidia's current lineup, slices off a number of cores from the RTX 3060, cutting power consumption by almost half and capping the amount of video memory. However, unlike some newer GPU versions I've seen, the RTX 3050 has no issues based on the spec sheet.
| CUDA cores | increase speed | storage capacity | TDP | price | |
| RTX3050 | 2.304 | 1.74GHz | 8GB GDDR6 | 90W | $249 |
| RTX3060 | 3,584 | 1.77GHz | 12GB GDDR6 | 170W | $329 |
| RTX 3060Ti | 4,864 | 1.67GHz | 8GB GDDR6 | 200W | $399 |
| RTX3070 | 5,888 | 1.73GHz | 8GB GDDR6 | 220W | $499 |
The most noticeable change compared to the RTX 3060 is the 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The RTX 3050 pushes that memory through a smaller 128-bit bus, reducing memory bandwidth to 224 GB/s. Also, the RTX 3050 drops about 36% of the RTX 3060's CUDA cores.
In return, the card runs at a much lower wattage. 90W is all you need for the base spec, meaning you can buy with a 250W power supply. Performance limits continue to rise and for the first time we have an RTX 30 series graphics card running under 100W.
The EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black includes three DisplayPort connectors and a single HDMI. Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
Compared to AMD, the RTX 3050 stands out with its PCIe interface. Like most current generation GPUs, the RTX 3050 supports PCIe 4.0. The RTX 3050 supports 16 tracks – in contrast to the recently released RX 6500 XT. That should give systems bound to PCIe 3.0 – any platform below 12th Gen Intel and AMD Ryzen 5000 – uninterrupted bandwidth.
gaming performance
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
The RTX 3050's main competitor is AMD's RX 6500 XT. I don't have an RX 6500 XT to test at the moment – although I'll update this review with benchmarks once my unit arrives – but I still wanted to get an idea of how Nvidia's latest budget attempt stacks up. I used AMD's RX 580. It's an older GPU, but the benchmarks I've seen show that it's about on par with an RX 6500 XT.
To eliminate the CPU, I ran my tests on the latest build of Windows 10 with a Ryzen 9 5950X and 32GB of memory. Here are my results at 1080p with the highest graphics preset:
| RTX3050 | RTX3060 | RX6600 | RX580 | |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 6,749 | 8,629 | 8,071 | 4,820 |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 52 fps | 65 fps | 59 fps | 35 fps |
| Fourteen days | 79 fps | 132 fps | 98 fps | 56 fps |
| Assassin's Creed Valhalla | 55 fps | 64 fps | 71 fps | 42 fps |
| Battlefield V | 92 fps | 123 fps | 120 fps | 74 fps |
Outside of the suite, the RTX 3050 only managed over 60 frames per second (fps) in Battlefield V and Fortnite. It's no big surprise, but the card failed to meet that coveted framerate target in Red Dead Redemption 2 or Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The RTX 3050 is a 1080p graphics card, but it doesn't target the highest graphics preset.
Lower graphics presets were much more impressive – 64 fps in Assassin's Creed Valhalla and 134 fps in Battlefield V. In 2022, most graphics cards won't let you choose a lower graphics preset with the right resolution. The RTX 3050 does, but that's not a bad thing. If anything, it shows how little the highest preset does and how much performance you can gain by turning the settings down.
Compared to the RX 580, you can see how much faster a budget GPU should be in 2022. The RTX 3050 was approximately 40% faster in 3DMark Time Spy, 41% faster in Fortnite, and 24% faster in Battlefield V. I haven't had a chance to test the RX 6500 XT yet, but I've seen enough to say that the RTX 3050 is the faster card.
The RTX 3050 is about 20% slower than the RTX 3060, but 25% cheaper.
That's what you see at the bottom of the barrel options though. Conversely, the RTX 3050 was about 20% slower than the RTX 3060 in Red Dead Redemption 2. In Battlefield V, the difference was even greater at 25%. The RTX 3060 hits a sweet spot that the RTX 3050 can't handle. However, the RTX 3050 is about 25% cheaper and only 20% slower.
There were issues outside of raw performance. Storage caused issues that aren't reflected in average frame rates. In Battlefield V, my first few runs resulted in minimum frame rates in the single digits, which manifested as stuttering during the playthrough. It depends on the smaller memory bus and 8 GB of VRAM. Titles with many high-resolution textures experienced stuttering when loading the game and assets were dragged into memory.
Still, the RTX 3050 lands where it should. And compared to the competition AMD is presenting right now, that's great. I still think the RTX 3060 and RTX 3060 Ti hit the price/performance mark better than the RTX 3050; However, there's a good chance the RTX 3050 will sell for significantly less than these cards on the used market.
Content Creation Performance
The RTX 3050 is a gaming graphics card and you should get something more powerful if you plan on using it primarily for 3D modeling or rendering. I still wanted to throw the card on a few content creation benchmarks to see how it fares, and while the results aren't terrible, they're not great either.
| RTX3050 | RTX3060 | RX6600 | RX580 | |
| Blender BMW (lower is better) | 76 seconds | 45 seconds | 86 seconds | 168 seconds |
| Blender Classroom (lower is better) | 279 seconds | 208 seconds | 167 seconds | 370 seconds |
| Blender Koro (lower is better) | 227 seconds | 162 seconds | 156 seconds | N / A |
| Pugetbench for Premiere Pro | 766 | 703 | 605 | 603 |
On the three Blender renders, the RTX 3050 was about 32% slower than the RTX 3060 and similarly slow compared to the RX 6600. It had better performance in PugetBench for Premiere Pro, but as is the case with the RX 6600 and RTX 3060 , this benchmark relies heavily on the CPU and system memory.
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
Compared to the RX 580, it's no competition. The RTX 3050 can use CUDA for rendering, unlike the RX 6600 and RX 580, resulting in faster render times than OpenCL. I've seen significantly higher render times with the RX 580, and in the case of the Koro renderer, I couldn't even complete the test.
Make no mistake: the RTX 3050 is not a good graphics card for content creation. It holds its own, but upgrading to a higher class of graphics card — either from AMD or Nvidia — will pay off exponentially.
DLSS and ray tracing
Jacob Roach / Digital Trends
For the first time in a while, Nvidia differentiates itself not with raw performance but with a list of features. DLSS is an essential feature for the most demanding games, and last but not least, the RTX 3050 offers a way to use DLSS in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Control. It also offers hardware-accelerated ray tracing, which works significantly better than AMD's competition.
| RTX3050 | RTX3060 | RX6600 | |
| Control (no RT) | 58 fps | 76 fps | 67 fps |
| control (high RT) | 35 fps | 47 fps | 27 fps |
| Control (High RT + DLSS) | 62 fps | N / A | N / A |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (no RT) | 47 fps | 59 fps | 46 fps |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra RT) | 23 fps | 28 fps | 10 fps |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra RT + DLSS) | 47 fps | N / A | N / A |
My results above were run using the same testbench at 1080p with the highest graphics preset. I've included the RTX 3060 and RX 6600 for reference, not as competition for the RTX 3050. These two cards are in a class above the RTX 3050, and unsurprisingly they perform better across the board.
However, I didn't expect how close the RTX 3050 would be to the RX 6600. With ray tracing enabled, you can see how quickly the RX 6600 is falling apart. In Control, where the two GPUs hit almost identical average frame rates, the RX 6600 sunk much lower than the RTX 3050 with ray tracing turned on.
DLSS is the best feature of the RTX 3050 – no competition.
It's a testament to how solid Nvidia's ray tracing cores are, but really, you wouldn't play any of the above games at their ray tracing frame rates. This is where DLSS comes into play. Even in modest Balanced mode, the RTX 3050 maintained performance as if ray tracing was turned off. In the case of Control, the average framerate was actually higher.
DLSS isn't present in every game, but the list of supported titles keeps growing. For a large chunk of major AAA releases that wouldn't otherwise be playable on the RTX 3050, DLSS makes it possible to play new games with all the visual bells and whistles. It's the best feature of the RTX 3050 – no competition.
Our opinion
The RTX 3050 is a graphics card that wins by default. Compared to the tragic RX 6500 XT, Nvidia could have released almost any graphics card and prevailed. On its own, the RTX 3050 is a good graphics card that manages to deliver performance that scales with its price, and that's all I can ask for.
It earns an extra point on the back of DLSS, which catapults the RTX 3050 from a good – but not great – GPU into a top choice for gamers on an extreme budget. Prices are inflated now, but hopefully we'll see plenty of $250 RTX 3050s by the end of the year – quite unlike Nvidia's recently released 12GB RTX 3080.
Are there alternatives?
Not now. Nvidia jumped that price point with the previous generation, and AMD's RX 6500 XT falls woefully behind the RTX 3050. The only alternatives are the premium GPUs from Nvidia. Hopefully by the end of 2022 you can find something like an RTX 2070 or RTX 2060 Super for around the same price.
How long it will take?
The RTX 3050 is not built for the future. It barely hits the mark for 1080p AAA gaming right now, and within a few years you'll be struggling to hit sustained frame rates at the highest graphics settings. If you're okay with turning your settings down, or you mostly play less demanding games, it should last four to five years.
DLSS also helps a lot. Assuming the list of DLSS games continues to grow, you'll be able to enjoy the power of the RTX 3050 for many years to come.
should you buy it
If you can find the RTX 3050 at list price, buy it. After launch, it comes down to what price you can find the RTX 3050 at. It's a solid graphics card, but you're better off with the RTX 3060 or RTX 3060 Ti if you can find one for a reasonable price.
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