The RTX 3060 might be the mid-range flagship of the latest Ampere set of graphics cards, but their prices keep them out of the reach of most entry-level PC gamers. On the other hand, the RTX 3050 is closer to being reasonably affordable at a price tag of $ 200. The good news is, with the release of the RTX 3050 Ti, the RTX 3050 's price is getting more discount.
NVIDIA ’s xx50 cards have always been defined by entry-level prices with performance that knocks on the door of mid-range graphics cards – especially when overclocked. After taking the time to fully test the Ampere graphics card inside the RTX 3050, we can say without a doubt that it continues the trend. The RTX 3050 is much more expensive than the GTX 1650 as it costs a whopping $ 200. Compare this to the GTX 1650, which came originally at a price of $ 149. Meanwhile, the AMD closest equivalent card is the RX 5500 XT 4GB which costs $ 169.
Spec for spec, this RTX 3050 leapfrogs its direct predecessor, the GTX 1650, by boasting 63 % more fps. In our synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 3050 blows past the GTX 1650 and, amazingly, even the GTX 1660 as well.
Compared to its AMD 's closest rival, RX 5500 XT 4GB, the RTX 3050 was 40.1 % faster. Fortunately, gaming performance was quite impressive. The RTX 3050 consistently delivers great frame rate increases over the GTX 1650 and it really justifies an upgrade.
For 1080p Full HD, we were able to play Baldur's Gate 3, Armored Core VI, F1 22, Borderlands 3, Anthem at 60 fps to 63 fps and kept frame rates hovering around 61 fps. For 1440p Quad HD, we were able to play World War Z, GreedFall, Hitman 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Spider-Man Remastered at 63 fps to 68 fps and kept frame rates hovering around 65 fps.
For 2160p 4K, we were able to play Overwatch 2, Valorant at 64 fps to 138 fps and kept frame rates hovering around 101 fps.
AMD ’s xx90 cards have always been defined by high-end prices with performance that knocks on the door of extreme graphics cards – especially when overclocked. After taking the time to fully test the GCN 4.0 graphics card inside the RX 590, we can say without a doubt that it continues the trend. Compared to its NVIDIA 's closest rival, GTX 1070, the RX 590 was -13.8 % slower.
For 1080p Full HD, we were able to play Far Cry 6, Resident Evil 4, Monster Hunter: World, Hitman 3, Godfall at 62 fps to 66 fps and kept frame rates hovering around 64 fps. For 1440p Quad HD, we were able to play Apex Legends, Resident Evil 2, Forza Horizon 4, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Overwatch 2 at 60 fps to 67 fps and kept frame rates hovering around 64 fps.
For 2160p 4K, we were able to play Valorant at 107 fps to 107 fps and kept frame rates hovering around 107 fps.
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 242 mm 9.5 inches | 9.5 inches 241 mm |
| Outputs | 1x HDMI 3x DisplayPort | 1x HDMI3x DisplayPort |
| Power Connectors | 1x 12-pin | 1x 8-pin |
| Slot Width | Dual-slot | Dual-slot |
| TDP | 90 W | 225 W |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| Boost Clock | 1740 MHz | 1545 MHz |
| GPU Clock | 1545 MHz | 1469 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1750 MHz 14 Gbps effective | 2000 MHz 8000 MHz effective |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| Bus Interface | PCIe 4.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| Generation | GeForce 30 | Polaris (RX 500) |
| Launch Price | 200 USD | 279 USD |
| Production | Active | Active |
| Release Date | 2021 | Nov 15th, 2018 |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| DirectX | 12 Ultimate (12_2) | 12.0 (12_0) |
| OpenCL | 2.0 | 2 |
| OpenGL | 4.6 | 4.5 |
| Shader Model | 6.5 | 6 |
| Vulkan | 1.2.140 | 1.1.82 |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ampere | GCN 4.0 |
| Die Size | unknown | 244 mm² |
| GPU Name | GA107 | Polaris 30 |
| GPU Variant | GA107-300-A1 | Polaris 30 XT (215-0922006) |
| Process Size | 8 nm | 12 nm |
| Transistors | unknown | 5,700 million |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| Bandwidth | 224.0 GB/s | 256.0 GB/s |
| Memory Bus | 128 bit | 256 bit |
| Memory Size | 4096 MB | 8192 MB |
| Memory Type | GDDR6 | GDDR5 |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| ROPs | 40 | 32 |
| Shading Units | 2304 | 2304 |
| TMUs | 72 | 144 |
| RTX 3050 | RX 590 | |
|---|---|---|
| FP16 (half) performance | 8.018 TFLOPS (1:1) | 7,119 GFLOPS (1:1) |
| FP32 (float) performance | 8.018 TFLOPS | 7,119 GFLOPS (1:1) |
| FP64 (double) performance | 125.3 GFLOPS (1:64) | 445.0 GFLOPS (1:16) |
| Pixel Rate | 69.60 GPixel/s | 49.44 GPixel/s |
| Texture Rate | 125.3 GTexel/s | 222.5 GTexel/s |
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