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#91 of 131
Overall rank

GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB

4 · 2,359 votes
Best for 1080p esports gaming

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VRAM
8 GB
CUDA
2,560
FP32
9.098 TF
Bandwidth
224 GB/s
TDP
130W
Boost
1777 MHz
Strengths at a Glance

How it stacks up to the flagship

Each metric is shown as a percentage of the GeForce RTX 5090 D, the strongest card we track.

FP32 compute9.098 TFLOPS9%
vs RTX 5090 D: 104.8 TFLOPS
Memory bandwidth224 GB/s13%
vs RTX 5090 D: 1790 GB/s
VRAM capacity8 GB25%
vs RTX 5090 D: 32 GB
Shading units2,56012%
vs RTX 5090 D: 21,760
Power efficiency22/10038%
vs RTX 5090 D: 58/100
Synthetic Benchmarks

Estimated benchmark results

Each result is shown as a share of the RTX 5090 D's score in the same test.

3DMark Time Spy10,800pts
vs RTX 5090 D: 36,000 pts
3DMark Port Royal (RT)5,580pts
vs RTX 5090 D: 18,000 pts
Blender (samples/min)1,560spm
vs RTX 5090 D: 5,200 spm
Geekbench Compute74,400pts
vs RTX 5090 D: 240,000 pts

Performance breakdown

Gaming30
Ray tracing31
AI / Compute31
Creator / 3D30
Power efficiency22
Real-World Gaming

FPS Across Resolutions

1080p · Ultra preset1440p · Ultra preset4K · Ultra preset
Cyberpunk 2077avg 26 fps
1080p
35
1440p
26
4K
16
Call of Duty: MW IIIavg 37 fps
1080p
50
1440p
37
4K
23
Alan Wake 2avg 21 fps
1080p
29
1440p
21
4K
13
Forza Horizon 5avg 38 fps
1080p
52
1440p
38
4K
24
Baldur's Gate 3avg 31 fps
1080p
42
1440p
31
4K
19
Community Feedback

What Owners Say

Owners like it for 1080p gaming on a budget, calling it a decent upgrade from old cards. The usual gripe is it struggles with modern titles unless you turn settings way down.

Pros
  • Sips power, stays whisper quiet
  • Handles 1080p gaming smoothly
  • Plays modern games at medium settings
  • Great for budget PC builds
Cons
  • Too slow for modern 1440p gaming
  • VRAM limits some texture-heavy titles
  • No ray tracing worth using

Supported technologies

Ray TracingDLSSNVENCAV1 Encode

Full specifications

Graphics processor
Architecture
Ampere
Process node
8 nm
Transistors
12 B
SM Count
20
Release date
2022
Launch price
$249
Core configuration
CUDA Cores
2,560
RT Cores
20
Tensor Cores
80
TMUs
80
ROPs
32
L2 cache
2 MB
Memory
Size
8 GB
Type
GDDR6
Bus width
128-bit
Bandwidth
224 GB/s
Memory clock
1750 MHz
Clocks & throughput
Base clock
1552 MHz
Boost clock
1777 MHz
FP32 (float)
9.098 TFLOPS
FP16 (half)
9.098 TFLOPS
Pixel rate
57 GPixel/s
Texture rate
142.2 GTexel/s
Board & power
TDP
130W
Suggested PSU
250W
Power connectors
1x 8-pin
Bus interface
PCIe 4.0 x8
Length
242 mm
Slot width
2-slot
Display & outputs
Max resolution
7680×4320
Outputs
1x HDMI 2.1, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a

API and SDK support

DirectX
12 Ultimate (12_2)
Shader Model
6.6
OpenGL
4.6
OpenCL
3.0
Vulkan
1.3
CUDA
8.6
Verdict

Our verdict on the RTX 3050 8 GB

A budget-friendly 1080p card that’s quiet and efficient, but its performance barely beats older, cheaper options.

Get it if you need a basic, new graphics card for 1080p gaming in a tight budget build with no used market access. Skip it if you want modern performance for newer games, or can find a used card with better value for similar money.

Buy it if…

  • You are upgrading a prebuilt Dell or HP with no extra power cables.
  • You need a basic ray tracing card for cheap on a tight budget.
  • You play esports titles at 1080p and want a simple, low-power card.
4.0

2,359 votes

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