Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Review: Availability is not guaranteed

Slower and more expensive than a 2060 that launched a few years ago. Pain.
This is what the future looks like. The Turing price increase stuck and the 4000 series price increase will stick. Entry level jumped from $110 to $150 to $200 to $300 to $350.
PAIN
 
Which means the RTX 3050 is relatively slow but does exactly what you'd expect it to for it's specs. The price may suck but the product is competent. And the 6500 XT is garbage. It should be a whole lot better with a few design changes, but it's not. In the distant past I've owned products like this and it sucks. One or two changes and it would be a competent product like the 3050. If it still ended up a bit slower than the 3050, who cares as long as it's competent?
If the 3050 ends up retailing for the same money as a 6600 it - and I am sad to say tech reviewers - end up looking much less competent. We‘ll find out very soon.

I thought of the 6500XT as an RX560 successor at current prices but looking at RX550 reviews, it does not even deserve to be called that. Not even a 550 successor.

The 550 (for sub 75W) and 560 (> 75W) were much more rounded, feature complete and well thought out packages built for purpose but not stupidly gimped like Navi 24, which makes the 6500XT even more disappointing.

However, I stand by that in the current market where it competes against $250+ 1050Ti it‘s sadly still one of the better deals near msrp. That is, unless the 3050 is available near msrp but I‘d be surprised if nVidia really released a widely available GPU at reasonable prices.
 
Solid strategy I can say, take from all die what's still good and make some cards.

I wonder if Nvidia will get from actual chipped GPU dies (trash), cards like: SE, GT.
Just imagine the RTX 3040 SE, or RTX 3010 GT, dah funk!
 
These releases are a joke. Asus has a triple fan cooled simular model, charging 500$.

Thats like 25% on top of a casual RX580, which was at launch 200$ to 280$ depending on which model you bought. Wth is going on these days with inflated prices.
 
Wow Nvidia equips their bottom barrel card with 8GB RAM, the same as their $3000 3070 ti and little less than the their $3500 3080 10GB a few months ago, which has nowhere near enough VRAM for todays games at 4k with RT etc let alone tmrw's games. No worries, we'll just buy Buy another $3000 card within 6 months this time with a non pathetic VRAM allocation says the Nvidia boys.

What a middle finger to the customer.
 
I just feel sorry for youngsters today wanting to built a PC
all those that a few years ago that bought a any of the variations of
1660 , even a 1650, 2060, 5600, 5700 - probably at a discount , maybe even bundled with game or 2 . Would be feeling very lucky - they saved up their $200 to $350 and got a card they could use at 1080p or 1440p on nearly every game .

AMDs card crap - can only be saved by price .
This card ok - needs to be offloaded in large numbers to keep price down.
Well its certain the pendulum with swing again in our favour - but that's 2 or 3 years away at least.- Helped by Intel and maybe new budget entrants from China
 
Interesting review and conclusion, thanks.

If pricing ends up where you suspect, the 3050 looks more like a 6600 competitor rather than a 6500XT competitor.

Just like the 6600XT ended up being a 3600 rather than a 3060Ti competitor based on real price.

I think it was very nice to show that the x8 PCIe bus limitation is not an issue for the 3050 rather than what you wrote for the 6600 review without testing if there is an effect. That‘s definitely preferrable.



One thing I would have liked to see for the review of an entry level graphics card is at which CPU level driver overhead is still a thing.
For the target 1080p resolution and with 8GB VRAM, chances is that the card won't run out of VRAM and need to tap on the system RAM. So that alleviates the PCI-E bus being cut by 50%. AMD's RX 6500 XT is badly thought out in almost every aspect. While I do agree that the pricing is the only upside of the RX 6500 XT, but I certainly won't buy it as well. In my opinion, the card is too severely gimped and with limited use + runway in its lifetime.
 
If the 3050 ends up retailing for the same money as a 6600 it - and I am sad to say tech reviewers - end up looking much less competent. We‘ll find out very soon.

I thought of the 6500XT as an RX560 successor at current prices but looking at RX550 reviews, it does not even deserve to be called that. Not even a 550 successor.

The 550 (for sub 75W) and 560 (> 75W) were much more rounded, feature complete and well thought out packages built for purpose but not stupidly gimped like Navi 24, which makes the 6500XT even more disappointing.

However, I stand by that in the current market where it competes against $250+ 1050Ti it‘s sadly still one of the better deals near msrp. That is, unless the 3050 is available near msrp but I‘d be surprised if nVidia really released a widely available GPU at reasonable prices.

On paper, the RX 6500 XT was meant to be the successor of the RX 5500 XT. In reality, it is not even close. They may perform about the same, but the 6500 XT is so severely gimped that it is treated more like a GT 1030, or RX 530/ 540 class of card. If one is to change from a RX 5500 XT, I would be expecting to see some improvements. However, we can hardly find any improvement over the 5500 XT, and regressions in every single aspect.
My opinion is, if one planning to get the RTX 3050, it may be worthwhile to consider the RX 6600. The latter is not a great card in my opinion, but knowing the steep premium associated with Nvidia cards, I am not hopeful it will be better in value. While the RTX 3050 have an advantage in terms of using DLSS, but the RX 6600 outperforms it anyway, so negating the need to resort to any upscaling technology. In addition, while both cards support RT and Nvidia cards having better RT performance, RT is really not meant for a card at this level. At least not for now.
 
For the target 1080p resolution and with 8GB VRAM, chances is that the card won't run out of VRAM and need to tap on the system RAM. So that alleviates the PCI-E bus being cut by 50%. AMD's RX 6500 XT is badly thought out in almost every aspect. While I do agree that the pricing is the only upside of the RX 6500 XT, but I certainly won't buy it as well. In my opinion, the card is too severely gimped and with limited use + runway in its lifetime.
My PCIe scaling remark was actually comparing what was stated for the 6600 review (‚oh, you could potentially lose lots of performance due to the x8 interface on a PCIe 3 system‘ with no further tests) vs the 3050 review (having an x8 interface is no issue whatsoever, we tested it and there is no performance penalty).

The approach used for the 3050 and 6500 XT review is imho the correct one - make a statement and back it up with tests.
 
Who is stupid enough to buy one of these.
Since you haven't been able to get a GPU easily for a year and a half, many people that want to be able to play the latest games, but don't want to pay $500.00 plus for a midrange GPU. A low end 1080p card might be just the thing, that is, if you can get it at MSRP.
 
On paper, the RX 6500 XT was meant to be the successor of the RX 5500 XT. In reality, it is not even close. They may perform about the same, but the 6500 XT is so severely gimped that it is treated more like a GT 1030, or RX 530/ 540 class of card. If one is to change from a RX 5500 XT, I would be expecting to see some improvements. However, we can hardly find any improvement over the 5500 XT, and regressions in every single aspect.
My opinion is, if one planning to get the RTX 3050, it may be worthwhile to consider the RX 6600. The latter is not a great card in my opinion, but knowing the steep premium associated with Nvidia cards, I am not hopeful it will be better in value. While the RTX 3050 have an advantage in terms of using DLSS, but the RX 6600 outperforms it anyway, so negating the need to resort to any upscaling technology. In addition, while both cards support RT and Nvidia cards having better RT performance, RT is really not meant for a card at this level. At least not for now.
Assuming you have PCI 4.0 the 6500XT performs about the same as the 5500XT, but that is a big assumption for those purchasing a budget card. By far there are more PCs out there still running PCI 3.0. And the 6500XT was embarrassingly bad on that platform. It's like AMD forgot that people might actually not want to upgrade their motherboards and processors just to buy a budget GPU. AMD's decision process with the 6500XT definitely is suspect. They almost need to formally apologize to their customers.
 
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Assuming you have PCI 4.0 the 6500XT performs about the same as the 5500XT, but that is a big assumption for those purchasing a budget card. By far there are more PCs out there still running PCI 3.0. And the 6500XT was embarrassingly bad on that platform. It's like AMD forgot that people might actually not want to upgrade their motherboards and processors just to buy a budget GPU. AMD's decision process with the 6500XT definitely is suspect. They almost need to formally apologize to their customers.
just deal with it, that this radeon is just for PCIe 4.0 configurations. And just one question for you. Whichone gpu for >300$ is better than that 6500XT?
 
Oh also anyone who claims this card is being bought by miners is lying, this 3050 has been gimped big time when it comes to mining, it mines at less than half the rate of a Radeon 6600 (which by the way is a very good mining card for the money apparently). The scalping done these days is mostly by OEMs and retailers. But if they didnt do it then some shmuck on ebay would.

Yeah man, Miners totally aren't buying this card. I wonder why it's already hit 600 EUR here just as I said.

What could it be except miners? Ah I got you, it's "console gamers who go PC for the first time", totally not Miners.

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This whole review might as well be pointless. The fact that you guys slag on the 6500XT which is actually available right now from all retailers for $260-280 and can actually play games (especially esports games) at 100+fps.... this is an actual card available for actual gamers wanting to play actual games.
The RTX3050 is another vaporware product without any real supply, without any real availability and prices that will be $400-600. Really you can get a RX6600 for the price of the 3050, which as the graphs show; mean that the RTX3050 has no reason to exist. Since even the RX6600 (which you guys also said was terrible) literally destroys this card in every possible title.
 
The 3050 launch looks like a giant joke.

Could not find any cards at my usual retailers (Alternate, Mindfactory, Notebooksbilliger) in Germany, in the US only a few Microcenters had them in stock (and only the premium models, most above $400).
Newegg: Cards available via Newegg Shuffle only.
Yup... Same situation in the USA. The RTX3050 doesn't exist, just like the rest of the RTX cards. Might as well get a RX6600 or a RX6500XT... Those are actually available. And as "terrible" as the RX6500XT is.... it plays games and does better than the RX570 (especially 4GB model) in basically every title...
There are some benchmark videos out on Youtube right now and it shows that as "bad" as the RX6500XT is; it actually is totally fine for people looking to play games today.
 
Assuming you have PCI 4.0 the 6500XT performs about the same as the 5500XT, but that is a big assumption for those purchasing a budget card. By far there are more PCs out there still running PCI 3.0. And the 6500XT was embarrassingly bad on that platform. It's like AMD forgot that people might actually not want to upgrade their motherboards and processors just to buy a budget GPU. AMD's decision process with the 6500XT definitely is suspect. They almost need to formally apologize to their customers.
Honestly if you have a PCI-E 3.0 system and you are just playing games that don't fill the 4GB VRAM or turn the textures so it fits in 4GB.... the performance is actually just fine. These cards are actually available for $260-300 where the RTX3050 doesn't exist again....
 
The GTX 1650 is around £250-£280 with most UK retailers with the GTX 1050 Ti being £200-220. The current retail prices in the UK make the RX 6500 XT seem decent price the performance. I'm hoping the RTX 3050 isn't anymore than £300. I think over that price point it loses any real world value. I think it has its benefits but it barely matches the 2060 and that was considered a bad card for the money when it launched.

Hopefully there's plenty of stock of the 3050 but let's be real Nvidia will pump numbers out for a couple of months max and then this will be another unicorn card with silly prices at retail and on eBay.
This is another paper launch from Nvidia. There isn't likely to be any real stock and these cards are likely to never go below $400.
I think it’s disgusting that Techspot didn’t compare the 3050 to a 6500XT in the ray tracing tests because they didn’t want to “be so cruel”. You mean you don’t want to see AMD get its *** handed to it? I’ve seen 6500XTs on sale in shops now and they have “ray tracing capable” written on the back of the box. It’s the biggest lie I think I’ve ever seen written on the side of a graphics card box and Techspot for some reason isn’t calling that bullshit out. Especially as I have no doubt Techspot would call it out if it was the other way around. They would “be so cruel” to Nvidia, their beef with them is highly publicised.
This is literally some BS from your part. This RTX3050 gets a good review despite being literally terrible. Not faster than their 4 year old cards either, and actually selling for $400-500 which is the same or more than the 4-5 year old cards. In high resolutions I'm sure the Vega56 will kick its *** (which they didn't put on any charts, probably for that reason) and cost less than this card will actually cost on the street.
The RX6500XT gets a bad review despite being actually available, actually selling for near its MSRP and actually being able to play games in 1080p despite its framebuffer issues. A very interesting video came out yesterday comparing the 570 4GB and the 6500XT and you can see the 6500XT smash the 570 in almost every game. The 6500XT has newer texture compression technology, that lets it use less VRAM at the same settings.... Meaning that overflowing the framebuffer is harder than it was on older 4GB cards. Nobody even talks about that, yet the video shows it.
If you don't play games with settings that overflow the 4GB buffer then it works fine... Want to play Esports titles? You can do so at 144+FPS with the 6500XT...
Is it the ideal card? No. Is it available? Yes. Can it play games? Yes.
 
Why the hell you use medium setting in many of these games???! LOL
to make 6500XT cost per frame not look too bad??

I pretty sure you can easily use high or max texture in Cyberpunk with very small penalty on performance (on 8GB GPU). Why stick to medium texture on 8GB GPU ?? Funny thing is that in RTX 3050 Ti 4GB laptop review, Techspot tested all games on ultra/max setting to make it look bad.
https://www.techspot.com/review/2297-geforce-rtx-3050-ti-laptop/

But faster desktop RTX 3050 GPU with larger memory, you use medium settings. LOOOL It should be the other way around.

In laptop RTX 3050 Ti review, techspot concluded that 4GB memory is not enough for modern games. Obviously when you test all your game on max setting (including demanding games like cyberpunk), then yea you are going to have problems. Have you used medium setting (at least when running demanding games) like this review, you would not have the same conclusion

I feel techspot has been unfair toward nvidia. RTX 3050 Ti laptops are not as bad as the review make it. A lot of these issues could have been fixed by just lowering a few settings (memory hungry settings).

On other hand, you use medium setting on faster GPU, desktop RTX 3050 8GB, even on games that not too demanding (Hitman, far cry 6, and watchdogs RTX 3050 still have enough headroom for higher setting on 1080p). I mean in Hitman at 1080p medium, RTX 3050 got 112fps.. Seriously, why the hell you would use medium setting for this game ??! RTX 3050 8GB is not benefiting from its larger memory at those settings
I find it hilarious that you think they aren't fair to nvidia. They give Nvidia a better review every single time and typically scrutinize AMD over anything and never recommend Radeon cards. Here you are as a Nvidia fanboy saying that they are being unfair? It is amazing how you can fanboy a company like this and spend all day defending them.
Trade in facts, not feelings.
The RTX3050 doesn't exist and likely won't ever exist. The stock will be miniscule and go straight to miners. Nobody will purchase this for gaming at $400-500. They turned the Graphics settings down for these tests because they were testing older GPU's. It makes sense.
This isn't the same as the laptop testing where they test against all the other modern laptops.
 
This is another paper launch from Nvidia. There isn't likely to be any real stock and these cards are likely to never go below $400.

This is literally some BS from your part. This RTX3050 gets a good review despite being literally terrible. Not faster than their 4 year old cards either, and actually selling for $400-500 which is the same or more than the 4-5 year old cards. In high resolutions I'm sure the Vega56 will kick its *** (which they didn't put on any charts, probably for that reason) and cost less than this card will actually cost on the street.
The RX6500XT gets a bad review despite being actually available, actually selling for near its MSRP and actually being able to play games in 1080p despite its framebuffer issues. A very interesting video came out yesterday comparing the 570 4GB and the 6500XT and you can see the 6500XT smash the 570 in almost every game. The 6500XT has newer texture compression technology, that lets it use less VRAM at the same settings.... Meaning that overflowing the framebuffer is harder than it was on older 4GB cards. Nobody even talks about that, yet the video shows it.
If you don't play games with settings that overflow the 4GB buffer then it works fine... Want to play Esports titles? You can do so at 144+FPS with the 6500XT...
Is it the ideal card? No. Is it available? Yes. Can it play games? Yes.
The BS is your comment. Where I live the RTX 3050 is available and only slightly above MSRP. But then that’s the same with the 6500XT. The difference being is that the 3050 is a good product with a bad price but the 6500XT is a tragically poor product at a bad price. In the UK right now you can buy a 3050 for £249. The cheapest 6500XT is £199. You have to be as dumb as a bag of rocks to pick the Radeon part over the geforce At these prices.

Fortunately other tech journalists have published the ray tracing benchmarks for these cards so we know. The Radeon part is laughably poor and AMD should be called out for advertising ray tracing on it as it really can’t deliver a playable RT performance.

Every single reviewer has come out and said the same as I have. The 6500XT is a heap of garbage but the 3050 is actually quite decent. If you think otherwise you probably just dont understand graphics cards. Your comments smell of desperation to protect AMD and hide the truth. Why? Why are you defending this absolute joke of a product from AMD?
 
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So many words to tell how 6500 is not a better value, when it is much cheaper per frame. That's hilarious and salty.

If you want a NEW card for the new system to be able to play most games - go 6500XT low-medium settings fullhd.

Have some money - there is 6600 for you.

3050 sits in nowhereland, too slow to invest substantial money.
 
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