The RTX 3050 is built on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture. It marks the first time that ray-tracing has been available on an entry level (50-series) card. Second generation ray tracing cores can be switched on for more realistic light simulation, albeit at a hit to performance. The 3050 features 2560 CUDA cores, a boost clock frequency of 1.78 GHz, 8 GB of the latest GDDR6 memory and NVIDIA’s DLSS. DLSS technology uses the 3050’s tensor cores to scale up resolutions whilst maintaining high frame rates and without losing significant image quality. The 3050 also includes an encoder (NVENC) for sharper images and smoother capture whilst recording/streaming. The MRSP of entry models is $249 USD, however, street prices are closer to $600 USD. Early benchmarks show that the 3050 only headlines around 50% faster than AMD's 6500 XT whilst street prices for the 3050 are over 100% higher. Many experienced users simply have no interest in buying AMD cards, regardless of price. AMD’s neanderthal marketing tactics seem to have come back to haunt them. Their brazen domination of social media platforms including youtube and reddit resulted in millions of users purchasing sub standard products. Experienced gamers know all too well that high average fps are worthless when they are accompanied with stutters, random crashes, excessive noise and a limited feature set. [Jan '22GPUPro]
Out of the box the reference 5700 XT has high burst speeds but under load it overheats and therefore drops frames to the extent that it is more or less unusable for demanding games like PUBG. In order to settle the card it was under volted by 120 mV and the maximum clock was lowered to 1,980 MHz (the stock BIOS and 19.9.1 driver defaulted the card to 2,030 MHz). The fan curve also had to be turned up to around 50% power at 75 degrees (which is a lot noisier than stock). After making these changes the card delivered far more consistent performance albeit with a reduced top speed and unacceptable (hair dryer) levels of noise. There were also incompatibilities with GTAV: enabling reflection MSAA resulted in very poor, almost matt, reflection fidelity (the same bug appeared on several Navi and Vega cards). The reference 5700 XT is great for beating cherry picked benchmarks, but it is not so great for playing games. Thousands of people, duped by sponsored marketing material, purchased the reference card expecting flagship performance, instead they got a shopping trolley with a V6 engine. It appears that the same marketing tactics were employed for the reference Vega 56 and 64 series of graphics cards which we will purchase for our gaming lab and generate effective Fps gaming metrics as soon as possible (results here). AMD appear to have very short term marketing strategists at the helm, they seem more concerned with this years bonuses than the longevity of the brand. [Jul '19GPUPro]
We calculate effective 3D speed which estimates gaming performance for the top 12 games. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield value for money. Our figures are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top GPUs. [GPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.