NVIDIA RTX 3050 review: A great $250 GPU (in theory)

engadget.com:

The idea of a $250 graphics card seems like a pipe dream today, when unprecedented demand, scalpers and the global chip shortage have driven GPU prices into the stratosphere. Still, that's not stopping NVIDIA from trying with the new RTX 3050. It's the company's cheapest GPU yet with ray tracing, and it's meant to take on AMD's even cheaper Radeon RX 6500 XT, which has a suggested retail price of $200. While it's unclear if the 3050 will actually sell for $250 once it hits stores, it'll at least come in less than the RTX 3060, which launched at $329 but now goes for around $1,000 (not a typo) at Newegg and other retailers.

Like NVIDIA's wildly popular GTX 1050 and its other 50-class GPUs, the 3050 is meant to be an affordable way to reach 1080p/60fps while playing modern games. With newer titles like Control demanding more power from our systems, it makes sense for NVIDIA to finally deliver a budget 30-series entry. The 3050 features 2,560 CUDA cores, a boost speed of 1,777 MHz and 8GB of GDDR6 RAM, putting it well below the 3060's 3,584 CUDA cores and 8GB of RAM (not to mention its vastly faster memory interface). Still, as a 30-series GPU, it also has ray tracing and tensor cores, allowing it to tap into more realistic lighting, as well as the company's DLSS technology to boost performance.

NVIDIA is positioning the new card as a major update to the GTX 1650, which had just 896 CUDA cores and no ray tracing or tensor capabilities. (There was no RTX 2050 desktop GPU, though the company surprised us all when it announced a laptop version at CES this year.) The RTX 3050 is also more compelling on paper than the Radeon 6500 XT, which only has 4GB of memory, a much slower memory bus, and only taps into 4 PCIe lanes instead of