NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 6 GB

[alwayssts]

I guess they had to get rid of these before Strix bc that will/would make this card look literally amusing?

I absolutely respect that there are use-cases for these...I guess...but somebody really needs to wake nVIDIA up and tell them that discrete below PS5-level is just not a thing anybody wants/needs to buy new.

They *should* put them in <$500 (720-900p) laptops, imo. IDGAF if nVIDIA has some weird stigma about being in cheap laptops. At least then they could actually be useful and still get rid of them.

This just looks like another product to confuse people that don't know any better, or they'd buy a 6600 or (preferably, perhaps used) 6600xt. IMO, everyone has a WAY to get to one working 6/8-pin power connector if they're using a board with a PCI-e slot. It might use a tiny bit more power under load, but c'mon. Maybe connector-less is convenient for slipping in/out and diagnosing, but this card is just wasteful imo; there are much cheaper/non e-waste ways to go about doing that.

Use your basic iGPU for simple tasks, buy an APU if this perf level works for you (I guess, but wouldn't recommend it), or buy a used card. A 6600xt isn't great, but it's perfectly 'usable' for a 1080p normie.

This is not.

I will not use the crying indiginous person video, but please...don't buy this shit. It's e-waste that will make literally nobody (that plays anything modern) happy vs so many other options.

Hell, buy a used Xbox Series S (or PS4 Pro + SSD) or something. You (or the person you're buying it for) would likely be much happier imho.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

My 980ti likely lands around the 1660ti performance level, so still faster than the 30506g.

Been looking for an upgrade for about $100 used for a while but this doesn't look like it will cut it nor will it put pressure on anything in the used market either.

 

[willcf15]

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.

Eh. I actually think the original 3050 should have been a slot-powered card. Then again, I guess my standards for what counts as a slimeball move by NVidia have been set astronomically high due to what they've been trying to pull in recent years. The originally intended naming of the "4080 12 GB" despite using different silicon from the actual 4080, absurd pricing throughout the range, and don't even get me started on the 1630...

I agree pricing is steep. However, I checked to see what the launch price of the GTX 1650 was (NVidia's previous slot-powered card), and that launched at $149 in 2019. Unlike all the other atrocities that are being chalked up to inflation, this one comes close to the actual inflation rate. That said, the old one wasn't based on an architecture 4 years old when it launched, but meh. I'm just struggling to get that mad about this one.

I also noticed that they used a PCIe 4.0x8 bus instead of the RX 6400's PCIe 4.0x4 according to TPU's database, which will make it run better on older systems. Honestly, I'm hype for a decent slot-powered card that I'll be able to pick up for $100 in a couple years. Much more hype than I would be for a $2000, 600W behemoth I can't afford for sure lol

Wizz, thanks for the review as always! Would be cool to see a faceoff between this, an RX 6400, and a GTX 1650 on a system that uses PCIe 3.0

 

[Prima.Vera]

So you basically paying 100$ nGreedia tax, since no way this garbage is worth more than 80 bucks.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I agree pricing is steep. However, I checked to see what the launch price of the GTX 1650 was (NVidia's previous slot-powered card), and that launched at $149 in 2019. Unlike all the other atrocities that are being chalked up to inflation, this one comes close to the actual inflation rate. That said, the old one wasn't based on an architecture 4 years old when it launched, but meh. I'm just struggling to get that mad about this one.

I also noticed that they used a PCIe 4.0x8 bus instead of the RX 6400's PCIe 4.0x4 according to TPU's database, which will make it run better on older systems. Honestly, I'm hype for a decent slot-powered card that I'll be able to pick up for $100 in a couple years.

Agreed on all points. I'll end up with this card at some point but only after a significant price drop or used.

Wizz, thanks for the review as always! Would be cool to see a faceoff between this, an RX 6400, and a GTX 1650 on a system that uses PCIe 3.0

Yes! And please some tests at low/minimum settings as that's the only way these cards can play current games. W1zz did that for the 1630 review and it was welcome, but I get not doing it as it's a ton of extra work for a conclusion that's kind of obvious:

The 3060 6GB will clearly be fastest, the 1650 will be next, the 6400 will be behind the 1650 in those games that need more PCI slot bandwidth.

 

[theouto]

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.

Alright, there is often discussion about if a 4060ti or even 4070 can reasonably do RT to consider it a selling point at its price, but come on man, RT cannot be considered usable with this card. Between the already poor performance in raster and the 6GB of VRAM, it's not even worth noting.
Though it enables nvidia broadcast, so there's that I guess.

Back on the talk of the gpu,
The lack of AV1 encode means that you won't be able to use this in your jellyfin home server (or similar), so it loses on what could be an actually big selling point.

Womp womp.

 

[DBGT]

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.

4x RT performance of 6500 XT, is there onyone who will turn on RT with this!

 

[Isaak]

Weird that the price is listed as a pro and then the price-to-performance is listed as a con. What's the point of being sub-200$ if it's a wasted 200$?

 

[Fietser]

This card is only 30% faster than my previous slot only powered card, the GTX1650, which is not a lot.
If low power is a concern, you could undervolt a 4060.
I'm doing that right now with a 4060ti, and it drops from 150 >> 120 watts.
Possibly you could drop with a 4060 from 130 >> 100 watts.

 

[Scircura]

The subheadings on the Conclusion page are super helpful. Is this a new formatting style? I only see it here and on the 4080 Super reviews.

Would it make sense for, say, the Heat & Noise section of the conclusion to be on the Temperatures and Fan Noise page? Perhaps, but I prefer it this way with all the reviewer's insights in one place instead of scattered about.

Also W1zzard, I can't say enough good things about how helpful it is to have so much measurement data in a standardized format. I recently wondered, what would be the performance and fan noise of Ampere and Ada cards if they were undervolted to ~200W? While no one on Earth has tested this specifically, thanks to TPU's standardized format I can compare fan speed ramps, voltage/frequency curves, and other measurements to make a decent guess. Only TPU makes this detailed data available, and moreover it's easy to locate in every review going back at least five years.

 

[Nostras]

The subheadings on the Conclusion page are super helpful. Is this a new formatting style? I only see it here and on the 4080 Super reviews.

Would it make sense for, say, the Heat & Noise section of the conclusion to be on the Temperatures and Fan Noise page? Perhaps, but I prefer it this way with all the reviewer's insights in one place instead of scattered about.

Also W1zzard, I can't say enough good things about how helpful it is to have so much measurement data in a standardized format. I recently wondered, what would be the performance and fan noise of Ampere and Ada cards if they were undervolted to ~200W? While no one on Earth has tested this specifically, thanks to TPU's standardized format I can compare fan speed ramps, voltage/frequency curves, and other measurements to make a decent guess. Only TPU makes this detailed data available, and moreover it's easy to locate in every review going back at least five years.

It's especially great because coolers are typically comparable if they are in the same tier-ish.
The 7800XT Hellhound is a great example.

PowerColor Radeon RX 7800 XT Hellhound Review - Amazing Noise Levels

PowerColor's Radeon RX 7800 XT Hellhound is an amazing custom-design for AMD's new release. It sells at the $500 baseline price, yet has the best cooler of all cards tested today, with whisper-quiet fan settings, dual BIOS and RGB illumination.

www.techpowerup.com

Even though W1zzard hasn't reviewed the 7900XTX card it doesn't matter because you can extrapolate the performance and/or just use a power draw that's present on both charts.
If I wanted to check it against the 7900XTX it looks like the Hellhound is much much better.

Sapphire Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse Review

Sapphire's Radeon RX 7900 XT Pulse is one of the more affordable RX 7900 XT custom designs out there. For $860 you get impressive 4K gaming performance and a triple-slot, triple-fan thermal solution that achieves amazing noise levels with good temperatures. Overclocking worked very well, too.

www.techpowerup.com

The XTX is actually 12mm thicker so it should perform even better

Some more reasonable examples are the 7700XT/7800XT and 7900XT/7900XTX, but unless they're power normalized it's hard to compare due to massive TDP differences.

Thanks W1zzard, keep doing it

 

[Baum]

GeForce RTX™ 4060 OC Low Profile 8G Besonderheiten | Grafikkarten - GIGABYTE Germany

i do hope the headline is a joke "The Fastest Slot-Powered GPU"..

is a 4060 8GB with GDDR6@128 bit faster than this 3050 thing with 64bits memmory interface?

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

or go onboard gpu which is sometimes availble even when youtube hangs

 

[Fietser]

Any hints, nVidia is working on a 4050 or a 5050?
I mean, it's 2024, with these lower end cards something like frame generation would be nice.

 

[Daven]

Any hints, nVidia is working on a 4050 or a 5050?
I mean, it's 2024, with these lower end cards something like frame generation would be nice.

It looks like Nvidia and AMD are abandoning the budget market for the current and upcoming discrete GPUs. I think this performance bracket will be left to iGPUs and/or Intel discrete GPUs.

 

[Chrispy_]

Oh JFC, what a turd.

RX6600 all the way. If you 'need slot-powered only' then this likely isn't a match because slot-powered only usually come with additional restrictions of half-height, single slot, or both. I don't think half-height is even possible with the size of GA107's minimum package+trace footprint.

It looks like Nvidia and AMD are abandoning the budget market for the current and upcoming discrete GPUs. I think this performance bracket will be left to iGPUs and/or Intel discrete GPUs.

At least AMD are offering APUs that perform like entry-level GPUs used to.

It sucks that you can't get new, cheap add-in cards any more but they've never been good value and at least in modern game engines that might actually warrant a GPU upgrade in the first place, there's no point upgrading your GPU if you're running an ancient CPU. Even esports titles like CS2 now actually want a half-decent CPU. So a new APU with modern RDNA3 graphics is a better fit that some low-end dGPU paired with a CPU bottleneck - that way you also get modern security, support for NVMe etc.

 

[Macro Device]

So a new APU with modern RDNA3 graphics is a better fit that some low-end dGPU paired with a CPU bottleneck - that way you also get modern security, support for NVMe etc.

12700F + GTX 1660 is both faster in everything and not more expensive. Also doesn't require a hefty PSU. I dunno, man, I dunno...

 

[Chrispy_]

12700F + GTX 1660 is both faster in everything and not more expensive. Also doesn't require a hefty PSU. I dunno, man, I dunno...

LOL, that's a current-gen (LGA1700) platform and was a $350 CPU.
Why, with money like that, would you be scrounging around for an entry-level 5-year old GPU?

People buying low-end GPUs are typically (not always) looking for something to breathe more life into a platform where the GPU is now struggling but the CPU might be passable. Common gaming PCs that meet those kind of requirements would be things around the spec of a Skylake i5 quad-core and GTX 1050/1060. Maybe first-gen Ryzen 5 1600 and an RX470/480 - though those GPUs have aged far better thanks to driver improvements and more VRAM....

I'm not saying that the APUs are better than dGPU and CPU, but at least that's what AMD are doing to satisfy the entry level. That 1660 you're talking about has been abandoned - Nvidia aren't serving that market any more, and I'm not sure you can even find 1660 cards new in many regions - they're long discontinued, right?

 

[Daven]

LOL, that's a current-gen (LGA1700) platform and was a $350 CPU.
Why, with money like that, would you be scrounging around for an entry-level 5-year old GPU?

People buying low-end GPUs are typically (not always) looking for something to breathe more life into a platform where the GPU is now struggling but the CPU might be passable. Common gaming PCs that meet those kind of requirements would be things around the spec of a Skylake i5 quad-core and GTX 1050/1060. Maybe first-gen Ryzen 5 1600 and an RX470/480 - though those GPUs have aged far better thanks to driver improvements and more VRAM....

I'm not saying that the APUs are better than dGPU and CPU, but at least that's what AMD are doing to satisfy the entry level. That 1660 you're talking about has been abandoned - Nvidia aren't serving that market any more, and I'm not sure you can even find 1660 cards new in many regions - they're long discontinued, right?

The lowest priced 1660 on Newegg is $260. I bet its worse outside the US. So I’m not sure what Beginner Micro Device is talking about except a used one on ebay and even then its probably the same price as a new RX6600 which is almost double the performance at 1080p.

 

[Macro Device]

was a $350 CPU

Very long ago. Now, it's available for 200 on used market. Used 1660s are just above 100 USD. LGA1700 motherboards are cheaper than AM5 ones and DDR4 is cheaper than DDR5.

If you're a CS2 kinda guy and don't mind buying used stuff then APUs make negative sense. Especially considering the fact the RAM is used as both RAM and VRAM causing additional latency and inflicting borderline game breaking penalty for competitive gamers.

I'm not sure you can even find 1660 cards new in many regions - they're long discontinued, right?

IMHO you need to damage your brain even heavier than I did to consider buying 2.5 gen old GPUs brand new. They are at least 1.8 times cheaper 2nd hand.

the CPU might be passable

Skylake i5 quad-core

Does not calculate (pun intended). Anything quad-core below i3-10100 is effectively eugh. Regardless, 180 dollars buy you an RX 6600 or a 2nd hand 3060 series GPU. No matter how old your CPU is this is still much faster in the GPU demanding games.

 

[wNotyarD]

GeForce RTX™ 4060 OC Low Profile 8G Besonderheiten | Grafikkarten - GIGABYTE Germany

i do hope the headline is a joke "The Fastest Slot-Powered GPU"..

is a 4060 8GB with GDDR6@128 bit faster than this 3050 thing with 64bits memmory interface?

The 4060 you linked to is faster and it's not even a contest. It does require a PCIe power connector, though. The 3050-6G does not.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

If you 'need slot-powered only' then this likely isn't a match because slot-powered only usually come with additional restrictions of half-height, single slot, or both. I don't think half-height is even possible with the size of GA107's minimum package+trace footprint.

My dude, both MSI and Gigabyte have low profile versions.

 

[Chrispy_]

Very long ago. Now, it's available for 200 on used market. Used 1660s are just above 100 USD. LGA1700 motherboards are cheaper than AM5 ones and DDR4 is cheaper than DDR5.

If you're a CS2 kinda guy and don't mind buying used stuff then APUs make negative sense. Especially considering the fact the RAM is used as both RAM and VRAM causing additional latency and inflicting borderline game breaking penalty for competitive gamers.

IMHO you need to damage your brain even heavier than I did to consider buying 2.5 gen old GPUs brand new. They are at least 1.8 times cheaper 2nd hand.


Does not calculate (pun intended). Anything quad-core below i3-10100 is effectively eugh. Regardless, 180 dollars buy you an RX 6600 or a 2nd hand 3060 series GPU. No matter how old your CPU is this is still much faster in the GPU demanding games.

Oh, you're comparing used vs new.
Thanks for those apples and oranges, but that's not what we're discussing - we're discussing a lack of new GPUs and how new APUs have replaced new entry-level dGPUs.

You can pick up entire gaming PCs on ebay/craigslist with an i5 10th gen and RTX 2060S for less than just the CPU+Mobo+GPU would sell for in parts on the same site.

My dude, both MSI and Gigabyte have low profile versions.

Holy crap - so they do!
I didn't think they'd bother doing a full custom PCB layout to solve the footprint problem at this price tier but happy to be wrong.

 

[Chaitanya]

or go onboard gpu which is sometimes availble even when youtube hangs

For AM4 and Intel F series CPUs you do need some GPU to debug in case of emergency. Also with Gt 710 its old enough that it will boot with anything unlike newer GPUs which might get Temperamental with non UEFI systems(granted they are very rare these days coming in for repairs).

 

[geniekid]

Will be interesting to see how the 1650 KalmX compares to the upcoming 3050 KalmX. I've always had a (mostly irrelevant) fascination with passive cooling.

 

[Tomgang]

The only things i like about this GPU is this:

Low power consumption and can run on pcie power alone.
Has 6 GB vram (better than GTX 1650/RX 6400 4 GB)
The low power allow for LP or low profile cards.
The overclock headroom is good and it simular to the RTX A2000 i had before.

With that said, i am not impressed with this card. i ´m glad i chose Gigabyte RTX 4060 LP over rtx 3050 6 GB as a LP card. It´s just to weak and price is to high.
Don´t get me wrong RTX 4060 is not a great card either and is also more exspensive, but at least offer usable gamings performance.