The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050, Nvidia’s latest and cheapest graphics card in its RTX 3000 lineup, has ray tracing and DLSS now. But, is it right for you?
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 arrives at the perfect time – maybe even a little late – as the best graphics cards keep getting more and more expensive. And because GPUs keep selling out even the few that are reasonably priced haven’t exactly been worth the price tag – just look at the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT. However, with the RTX 3050, you’re not getting much lower performance than the next up Nvidia’s lineup, the RTX 3060. The RTX 3050 has no problem hitting 60 fps in any 1080p game you throw at it, though it might start to struggle in the most demanding games of the generation – think Cyberpunk 2077. While that all sounds good, it’s hard to ignore how much prices have changed generation-on-generation. While a price tag of $249 (about £185, AU$350) might not seem high when you’re used to seeing graphics cards at $1,000 or more these days, it’s still significantly more expensive than xx50 cards of the past. For instance, the GTX 1050 Ti launched at $139 (£139, about AU$200), and the GTX 1650 launched at just $149 (£149, about AU$200). So, likely due to an ongoing silicon shortage that’s seeing computing prices rise dramatically across the industry, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 is nearly double the price of its last-generation sibling. That drastic price increase does come with a huge increase in performance. However, people that were hoping to see a graphics card at actual budget prices will have to keep waiting – or turn to the used market. We just hope the RTX 4000 series has something more budget-friendly, assuming the shortage lets up any time soon. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 is available now, starting at $249 (about £185, AU$350), with prices going up from there for more advanced third-party boards. We’re not sure what the aftermarket situation will look like once the boards become available, but if it’s anything like the RTX 3060, there may not be many graphics cards available at that starting price – instead prices might start to climb. For instance, the EVGA GeForce RTX 3050 XC Black we’re reviewing here costs $249 (about £185, AU$350) and it’s a pretty basic version of the graphics card. If you want something with fancy RGB lighting and overclocking-friendly cooling setups, you’re going to have to spend quite a bit more. Nvidia isn’t making a Founders Edition of the GeForce RTX 3050 – just like it didn’t with the RTX 3060 – which is the major reason that graphics cards at the low end of the pricing scale for this GPU will be incredibly rare. Hopefully, as the RTX 3050 isn’t going to be very good for crypto mining, it won’t see massive price increases after release. Only time will tell with that one. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050, just like the rest of the RTX 3000 series, is built on Nvidia’s Ampere core.
