They’re hard to find, yes: Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 budget graphics cards rolled out from its card partners on Jan. 27. We took a comparative look at them all to help you in your hunt.
Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 3050 family of low-end graphics cards is finally «here.» If you’ve been shopping for a graphics card anytime in the last two years, you know why those quote marks are there: You’ll have hunt hard to find any of them. From most sources, initial RTX 3050 card stocks sold out almost instantly on Jan.27, and availability is sure to remain tight in the coming days and weeks. Nonetheless, the new cards are out there, like rarely spotted nocturnal animals, and some interesting trends have emerged with this launch that we should discuss. (Some, we hope, will not continue.) The RTX 3050 in a Twisted Market Due to the immense popularity of cryptocurrency mining, graphics cards have been in painfully short supply for years now. Miners buy up most models any chance they get; so have opportunists who have been buying them for resale at steeply elevated prices. This has created what will probably be remembered as a dark age for PC gamers and builders. Base cards in the RTX 3050 line, according to Nvidia, are supposed to sell for $249.99, with models ranging up from there. Its card-making partners, faced with these market trends, have set the MSRPs on many of their step-up cards much higher.
