NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB

[W1zzard]

Priced at $180, the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB offers an accessible entry point into PC gaming. Operating solely on PCIe slot power, it's compatible with all PCs, including older OEM models, eliminating the need for power connectors. While noise levels are impressive, the price-to-performance ratio may leave some wanting more.

Show full review

 

[MaMoo]

A perfect fit for a during-RMA GPU or diagnostics GPU. A bit pricey.

 

[ShurikN]

I'm a bit conflicted about this card.
On one hand it slot powered only, on the other the performance for the price is garbage.

The question is, what's the use case and how much of a niche is it?
You are not putting it into old optiplexes, as the cpus will quite likely bottleneck it.
Perhaps some weird SFF with a flex psu that doesn't have pcie 8pins...

 

[thepath]

At least it faster than 6500XT, and support superior media capabilities.... which make it better for small home theater PC

Price a bit too high though

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

I just don't see the customer for this.....I guess a person with "X" amount of money with an irrational fear of used hardware? Even in my most financially destitute moments I wouldn't buy this....I'd just hold off and save more money or go used...I feel like this was designed to make uneducated consumers feel like they got a better pre-built than they actually got or it's for uneducated relatives buying a gift for their [disappointed] niece/nephew/grandchildren

*by "uneducated" I mean with respect to PC hardware

 

[Dr. Dro]

It's been selling quite well here in Brazil, as far as I'm aware. The performance's a bit under the standard but, if you look at it, it's GA107, and essentially a mobile RTX 3050 Ti. It's not so bad. RX 580 average performance with up to 4x the 6500 XT's RT performance, plus a fully featured NVENC being present complete with AV1 decoding. Once the prices begin to settle, excellent for breathing some new life on your old Haswell box.

 

[xorbe]

I think listing "no backplate" in the summary cons is a bit much. No small card in the sub-75W segment is expected to have a backplate.

 

[Onasi]

Honestly, at 120 bucks this card would be a no-brainer option for some applications. But at 180 (if it even sells for that) this is a meme.

 

[theglaze]

Overpriced by a mile.

CS2 gave my friend an itch to frag again, but the old GTX 670 couldn't do it. So I found him a used GTX 1060 6GB for $66 USD... this RTX 3050 is just 3% faster at CS2 amd cost almost 3x more.

Don't buy a new graphics cards, unless you want to pay for the bleeding edge.

 

[docnorth]

Well it's like the title says, the best slot-powered GPU (Quadros excluded), so the high price might be acceptable if you need one. It also beats 1060, 1650s, rx580 easily and with lower consumption, which might be important for it's use. For the first time after many years I don't have a prebuild at the office, but slot-powered GPUs gave extra life to 3 ex-office PC's and some peace of mind for me at home. Funny thing, it seems to be the most efficient Ampere card...Imagine what Ada could offer (except for the higher price of course).

 

[Selaya]

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB Review - The Fastest Slot-Powered GPU

Priced at $180, the GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB offers an accessible entry point into PC gaming. Operating solely on PCIe slot power, it's compatible with all PCs, including older OEM models, eliminating the need for power connectors. While noise levels are impressive, the price-to-performance ratio...

www.techpowerup.com

we can has rtx a2000 comparison? (maybe on a separate, low profile 3050-6gb review?)

 

[Zareek]

I can't be the only one who thinks calling this a 3050 is a total slimeball move by Ngreedia. How hard would it be to simply name it RTX 3040??? Every time I think maybe I'm being too harsh in refusing to buy another Nvidia product; they find a way to remind me of why I'm taking that stance.

 

[Macro Device]

excellent for breathing some new life on your old Haswell box.

I'd still pretty much prefer extending budget to 300 dollars and going 4060, or extending it no bit and going RX 6600 non-XT (or used 3060/6700 series GPUs). At 180 dollars, it only makes sense if you can't afford anything above 70 W for whatever reason.

This GPU is ~10 percent faster than I anticipated but that's still not enough for it to justify its ridiculous price.

 

[Beermotor]

At least it faster than 6500XT, and support superior media capabilities.... which make it better for small home theater PC

Price a bit too high though

Most HTPC software is Linux-based so I'd still go with an AMD or Intel card, probably the latter if I was just doing video decode.

I can't be the only one who thinks calling this a 3050 is a total slimeball move by Ngreedia. How hard would it be to simply name it RTX 3040??? Every time I think maybe I'm being too harsh in refusing to buy another Nvidia product; they find a way to remind me of why I'm taking that stance.

One of my laptops has a 7840HS + 3050 6GB laptop + 1080/144hz screen: based solely on this review - the laptop version seems to be faster.

Edit: the laptop version has 80TMUs and the desktop version only has 72. That explains some of it.

 

[mechtech]

I got an RX6600 for 165USD for my son for Christmas, so the card is a not a very good deal for gaming. Could be decent for an HTPC or something, albeit still a tad expensive for what it is...........

 

[Athlonite]

I can't be the only one who thinks calling this a 3050 is a total slimeball move by Ngreedia. How hard would it be to simply name it RTX 3040??? Every time I think maybe I'm being too harsh in refusing to buy another Nvidia product; they find a way to remind me of why I'm taking that stance.

Nope you're not the only one who thinks nGreedia are again playing fast and loose with naming their cards Jaz2c has put up a rant video about it aswell

 

[sLowEnd]

That's a lot of overclocking headroom. Nice.

 

[Gaojibao]

It's overpriced at $180. Also, the fastest slot-powered GPU is the RTX A2000.

 

[Lew Zealand]

The question is, what's the use case and how much of a niche is it?
You are not putting it into old optiplexes, as the cpus will quite likely bottleneck it.

Any Haswell or later i7 will easily keep up with this card and is a good match. Especially because nobody will be playing 2023 and 2024's $50-70 CPU-killing games on it. You'd spend that money on a better PC first. A Coffee Lake i5 will do even better as well as a 10th gen i3 or better. Lots of office PCs with those specs, I have 4 Haswell i7s.

But if you can replace the PSU (can't in all of them), then a used 5600 XT, 2060, etc. is overkill for much cheaper (I have 2 5600 XTs).

As everyone has said, the freakin' price. $150 is maybe OK for a use-specific card to drop in a decent office PC with a custom PSU, and ~$125 makes it a good option in any old PC, but $180? No way.

 

[Nostras]

Any Haswell or later i7 will easily keep up with this card and is a good match. Especially because nobody will be playing 2023 and 2024's $50-70 CPU-killing games on it. You'd spend that money on a better PC first. A Coffee Lake i5 will do even better as well as a 10th gen i3 or better. Lots of office PCs with those specs, I have 4 Haswell i7s.

But if you can replace the PSU (can't in all of them), then a used 5600 XT, 2060, etc. is overkill for much cheaper (I have 2 5600 XTs).

As everyone has said, the freakin' price. $150 is maybe OK for a use-specific card to drop in a decent office PC with a custom PSU, and ~$125 makes it a decent idea any old PC, but $180? No way.

Honestly exactly my thought.
Nvidia has an "interesting" offering where this is the fastest consumer card that is exclusively slot powered.
But you're paying a LOT of money for a very suboptimal experience to be "done quick".
I could never in good conscience recommend this card and would always strongly push for someone to just get it over with and fix the problem for good.

Unless Nvidia drops the prices. Lol who am I kidding

 

[Selaya]

It's overpriced at $180. Also, the fastest slot-powered GPU is the RTX A2000.

no, the RTX AD4000 SFF is the fastest (and also most expensive at an eye-watering $1,500 but i digress)

 

[Garrus]

This card is a sad joke. Sure it is the fastest slot powered card, but that is very artificial. The RTX 4060 could have been downclocked slightly and made a one slot card also, with almost no performance loss.

Try it, buy an RTX 4060 and limit it to 75W and voila you have the RTX 4050 that should have released already.

---

in fact I wish a third party would power limit and release a slot powered RTX 4060, but I guess that would tick NVidia off..

 

[Dr. Dro]

This card is a sad joke. Sure it is the fastest slot powered card, but that is very artificial. The RTX 4060 could have been downclocked slightly and made a one slot card also, with almost no performance loss.

Try it, buy an RTX 4060 and limit it to 75W and voila you have the RTX 4050 that should have released already.

---

in fact I wish a third party would power limit and release a slot powered RTX 4060, but I guess that would tick NVidia off..

Yeah, about that. You "can" do it, but you can't get rid of its need for the dedicated power cable. So... yeah

 

[Chaitanya]

A perfect fit for a during-RMA GPU or diagnostics GPU. A bit pricey.

you can get GT 710 based GPUs for fraction of cost and are even better for RMA/Diagnostic purposes compared to this ewaste.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

Such a shame Nvidia still hasn't released a reasonably priced GPU sold mostly for its encoding and decoding engine with AV1 encode support.