Nvidia’s RTX 3050 release is here, know this about its cost and performance

pcinvasion.com:

Mainstream PC gamers have likely taken notice of the recent announcement for Nvidia’s RTX 3050 graphics card. The latest Ampere card offers a taste of the latest tech, at the supposed starting price of $250 USD. The release for the Nvidia RTX 3050 is now officially here, but before you spring for one of these cards, it’s best to know what kind of gaming performance you’ll really get, and to consider if it really outclasses what you already have.

If you caught our reveal coverage during CES 2022, you know the specs of the RTX 3050 are fairly cut down from this gen’s high end equivalents that have garnered so much praise. It comes in with 2560 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR6 memory capable of 14Gbps, all on a 128-bit bus. Its reference boost clock goes up to 1.78GHz, and it consumes a total TDP of 130W. The 8nm GPU die is also just 274 square millimeters.

We weren’t able to review this card ourselves, but we did inspect the numbers from other reviewers and encourage you to do the same. At face value, this sounds pretty decent compared to the 16-Series cards it’s meant to replace. However, the specs only add up to a card that’s decent for 1080p gaming on high settings, with some high refresh capabilities in certain lightweight and esports titles. All at a much higher price than the previous generation entry-level cards Nvidia’s decided to compare it to in its marketing.

As you’ve likely surmised, the Nvidia RTX 3050 doesn’t really bring new performance tiers to mainstream gaming with respect to pricing. Users will experience performance uplifts in certain titles, but the results aren’t consistent enough to call it a definite upgrade over previous entry-level offerings. However, it is the best option that’s on today’s crazy market