MSI GeForce RTX 3050 GAMING X 8G Gaming Graphics Card - 8GB GDDR6X, 1845 MHz, PCI Express Gen 4 x 8, 128-bit, 3x DP v 1.4a, HDMI 2.1 (Supports 4K)

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is an ugly affair for the 6500 XT and it's disappointing to see that while the 4GB RX 570 can hit 60 fps and a very playable experience, the 6500 XT using PCIe 3.0 was reduced to 36 fps.

The same was true of the RX 6500 XT, with FidelityFX Super Resolution, too. But its severely restricted frame buffer means game performance is still pretty weak even with FSR enabled. It's also not as effective a solution as Nvidia's hardware-based DLSS tech. The RTX 3050 was 52% faster than the 6500 XT at 1080p using the second highest quality preset with 141 fps on average. PCIe 3.0 completely crippled the 6500 XT and now the RTX 3050 is seen to be 114% faster, and I should note I got the exact same result using PCIe 3.0 with the RTX 3050. Last up we have Cyberpunk 2077, and here the RTX 3050 managed to break the 60 fps barrier with the medium quality preset, averaging 66 fps which all things considered is quite a good result. Unfortunately, it was 18% slower than the RTX 2060, but it was also 40% faster than the 6500 XT, or 69% faster when using PCIe 3.0.

So, while the benchmarks highlight where the RTX 3050 is more or less akin to the GTX 1660 Ti in terms of its straight gaming performance, there is the promise of DLSS working those Tensor Cores to actually make the card a pretty capable 1440p gaming GPU where the technology is enabled. Details about the extent of our regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority are available from us on request.

I am a huge fan of DLSS, however, and it does mean that the RTX 3050 isn't just a good 1080p gaming GPU, it's actually capable of running happily on a 1440p display too. Though DLSS isn't in every game and Nvidia's new game-agnostic Nvidia Image Scaling (roughly analogous to FSR) is available to its older GPUs, too. The 6500 XT turns in one of its better figures in Far Cry 6 and as a result the 3050 was just 14% faster, though the issue for the 6500 XT is PCIe 3.0 and when compared to that configuration the 3050 was 37% faster. Yes, DLSS taps into the RTX 3050s Tensor Cores AI co-processors found exclusively on RTX 30 Series graphics cards to intelligently reconstruct supported games from a lower input resolution to a higher output resolution, 720p to 1080p for example, with fantastic results. DLSS produces images that are comparable to or sometimes even better than native resolution rendering. DLSS is a game-changer for performance and image quality, and lets the RTX 3050 punch ways above its weight. What PSU do I need for the RTX 3050? The RTX 3050 does not skimp out on video memory. Even though it is classed as an entry-level graphics card, the RTX 3050 is loaded up with 8GB of super-fast GDDR6 VRAM. This lets you enable high-res textures in games, arguably the most important graphics option, without experiencing judders as new textures are loaded into memory. In a compatible motherboard, the RTX 3050 runs over a PCIe Gen4 interface with eight lanes for high bandwidth. Read moreThough that is a little unfair because the Ampere architecture at the heart of the RTX 3050 is fundamentally better than that of the Turing GPU at the heart of the GTX 1660 Ti. Again, the same can be said of the RDNA 2 tech beating beneath the RX 6500 XT's oversized coolers, when compared to the Graphics Core Next (GCN) of the RX 480. This makes the RTX 3050 highly adept for esports on a high refresh rate gaming monitor, and cinematic, big-budget games running at a 1080p resolution as well. Ultra-high resolutions such as 4K in AAA games are off the cards for the RTX 3050, but it is more than adequate for 1080p, the most popular resolution for gaming by far. Does the RTX 3050 support DLSS? An advantage of this however is a 24% drop in power use to just 130 watts, meaning a basic 550-watt power supply will be more than sufficient to power an RTX 3050 gaming system.

And here's a look at the 12 game average data, which has been calculated using the geomean. The RTX 3050 averaged 108fps at 1080p, which made it just 5% slower than the GTX 1660 Super, 10% slower than the RTX 2060, and 23% slower than the Radeon RX 6600. Klarna Bank AB (publ) is Authorised by the Swedish Financial Services Authority (Finansinspektionen) and is subject to limited regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority. Moving on to Far Cry 6, we find an average of 96 fps using the GeForce RTX 3050 at 1080p with the medium quality preset. As we've seen multiple times already, it's basically delivering 1660 Super performance, though it wasn't a great deal slower than the 2060 in this one, at least when looking at the average frame rate. Those 2,560 CUDA cores in the RTX 3050 are split between 20 SMs which also then delivers 20 RT cores and 80 Tensor cores. It's those last two specs that separate the RTX 3050 from its GTX 1660 Ti brethren and ought to make it a far more tempting choice for the mainstream gamer. The RT cores are what allow for ray tracing and the Tensor Cores then allow you to enable DLSS to make ray tracing actually playable at a decent frame rate, all thanks to the magic of AI-powered super sampling.Next up we have Death Stranding, and this is another game that isn't terribly demanding, despite looking quite nice. The GTX 3050 was good for 108 fps using the default quality preset at 1080p and that placed it directly between the 1660 Super and GTX 2060, a great result. Whereas the 6500 XT dropped performance by 13% with PCIe 3.0, we see no change for the RTX 3050. So gamers limited to a PCIe 3.0 platform (which as of writing is likely a majority), the RTX 3050 is going to be significantly faster. If you are after one of the best budget graphics cards, you are looking in the right place. Even as the cheapest graphics card in the RTX 30 Series, the GeForce RTX 3050 offers up NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) for AI-enhanced image reconstruction in games, real-time raytracing and more. The Watch Dogs: Legion results are quite good for the 6500 XT when using the medium quality preset. Here the RTX 3050 was good for 88 fps and that only made it 17% faster than the 6500 XT, or 28% faster when compared to the PCIe 3.0 configuration, which remains a big win. It is also notable that AMD's latest GPU, the Navi 24 silicon inside the RX 6500 XT is a 107mm2 chip, while the GA106 is something in the region of 276mm2. That's something which will likely come into play when it comes to manufacturing and the numbers of GPUs that each company can produce to fulfil the demand for their cards.