Today, due to the pandemic, shortages of goods and the impact of the mine tide, gamers have fallen into a strange circle. When you look through the entire e-commerce market, you will find that there is not a single entry-level graphics card priced at the thousand yuan level on the market today, the latest generation of entry-level graphics cards such as RTX 3060 has been sold to the price of 4,000 yuan, and even the new old entry-level graphics card GTX1660S/GTX1660Ti is priced around 3,000 yuan.
In contrast, the price of the PS5/Xbox Series X series, which is also facing stock-outs, is generally around four thousand. In other words, the launch price of today's entry-level graphics card is close to the price of a full next-generation console. Even the hardcore computer players, with such a huge price difference between the two sides, have to think hard about whether to switch to the console camp.
I don't know whether it is because Lao Huang and Su Mama finally saw through the pain of players, or because players are not willing to buy high-priced graphics cards on the market, at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2022) held in January this year, NVIDIA and AMD have released two entry-level new graphics cards, and both manufacturers hope to pry open the pockets of entry-level players through RX6500XT and RTX 3050.
After two years, players have finally ushered in the first iteration of the NVIDIA 50 model entry-level graphics card, which is more or less emotional. Compared with the previous generation of products, this RTX 3050 not only improves the stream processor and video memory configuration, but also can natively support ray tracing, DLSS super sampling technology, the overall parameters are very eye-catching, and naturally attracted the attention of many players.
Recently, Xiao Lei successfully grabbed the Rainbow Tomahawk RTX 3050 DUO graphics card in the Jingdong Mall. The official price of this graphics card is 1899 yuan, and the overall parameters are also consistent with the official data of RTX 3050. In the case that Nvidia did not launch a public graphics card, it can be said that this graphics card can more intuitively show the actual performance of the RTX 3050. Taking this opportunity, let's take a good look at this graphics card to see if NVIDIA's latest entry-level light-chasing graphics card is worth buying.
Appearance: red and black color, double fan double heat pipe
This Rainbow Tomahawk RTX 3050 DUO graphics card follows the traditional design of the Rainbow "Tomahawk" series, the front of the graphics card uses a red and black contrast design, the plastic panel is somewhat cheap, the front is equipped with 2 blade fans with a diameter of 90mm, the left and right fans use counterclockwise, clockwise rotation, increasing the air convection of the graphics card, which can bring more cooling airflow to the radiator.
Flip to the back and you can see that the back of this graphics card is a simple painted integrated metal backplane that can assist in heat dissipation and reinforce the PCB board.
In the top view view, this graphics card uses a single 8Pin power supply interface, which is more than enough for the power supply needs of the RTX 3050.
In the bottom view view, you can see that this card is a typical double-slot card.
Fan close-up, standard nine-blade fan.
Unlike the RX6500XT, the RTX 3050 does not have a castrated output, and this graphics card provides three DP 1.4a and one HDMI 2.1 interface.
A dual fan, dual heat pipe cooling system is sufficient for the 130W RTX 3050.
The PCB board is very small and compact, there are a lot of blank spaces, and it can be made into an ITX form factor with a small radiator. In fact, even the high-priced three-fan RTX 3050, which is currently on the market, is basically this version, and the overly luxurious stacking is just a reason for the price increase.
It is worth mentioning that this graphics card adopts a 5+1 power phase circuit design, and the half of the PCB board is 5-phase core power supply, and there is 1-phase core power supply on the other side.
Traditional performance testing: Beyond the 1660 Super
Before we start testing, let's introduce the specifications of this graphics card. The Rainbow Tomahawk RTX 3050 DUO graphics card features a GA106-150 core, the most streamlined ampere core to date, with 2560 stream processors, 8GB of GDDR6 video memory, a graphics card base frequency of 1552MHz, an acceleration frequency of 1777MHz, and a TDP power consumption of 130W.
The test platform configuration is as follows:
1、3DMarkFireStrike
In the 3DMark FireStrike Extreme (2K rendering) test, the Rainbow RTX 3050 Tomahawk achieved a graphics score of 7420 points, a core temperature of up to 59.5°C, a Hot Spot up to 72.6°C, a core running frequency of 1957MHz, a maximum fan speed of 1699RPM, and a GPU power consumption of 127.5W.
In the 3DMarkFireStrike Ultra (4K rendering) test, the Rainbow RTX 3050 Tomahawk achieved a graphics score of 3465 points, a core temperature of up to 59.3°C, a Hot Spot up to 71.9°C, a core running frequency of 1957MHz, a maximum fan speed of 1679RPM, and a GPU power consumption of 127.5W.
2、3DMarkTimeSpy
In the 3DMark Time Spy (2K rendering) test, the RTX 3050 Tomahawk Duo graphics score reached 6236 points, the core temperature was up to 60°C, hot Spot was up to 73 degrees, the GPU power consumption was 127.5W, and the core operation frequency was 1950MHz.
In the 3DMark Time Spy Extreme (4K rendering) test, the RTX 3050 Tomahawk Duo graphics score reached 3070 points, the core temperature was up to 61°C, hot Spot was up to 73 degrees, the GPU power consumption was 127.5W, and the core operating frequency was 1950MHz.
To sum up, the performance of the RTX 3050 is indeed far superior to the previous generation OF GTX 1650, and the silent frequency performance can even surpass the GTX 1660 SUPER. If you look at the standards of the entry-level "50" series graphics card, the performance of this graphics card has indeed been greatly upgraded. Not only that, but the nearly 130W full-load power consumption is also an improvement in energy consumption ratio compared to the GTX 1660 SUPER's nearly 160W full-load power consumption.
Raster performance test: Play 1080P high image quality
In the following game performance test, we will test the performance of ultra-high image quality at 1080P or 2K resolution.
1、F1 2020
2. Tomb Raider: Shadow
3. Cyberpunk 2077
4. Horizon: The Dawn of Zero
5、CS:GO
6. Borderlands 3
To sum up, at 1080P resolution, the RTX 3050 has a frame rate of more than 55FPS in other games except for Cyberpunk 2077, and if you adjust the graphics options slightly, the RTX 3050 can basically get a stable frame rate of 60FPS or more in all games.
However, at 2K resolution, the RTX 3050 has a frame rate of only 30 to 40FPS in many mainstream games, and the overall performance is not satisfactory. If you want to play the latest games at 2K resolution, in addition to reducing some of the image quality, starting DLSS may also be a solution.
Overall, the RTX 3050 is much stronger than the GTX 1660 SUPER, 8% to 12% ahead of the latter, but compared with the RTX 3060, there is a performance gap of nearly 30%, and the overall game performance is still inferior to the previous generation of mainstream game graphics card RTX 2060.
Light chasing, DLSS performance testing: 2K light chasing can also work?
As the latest RTX 30 series graphics card, RTX 3050 will naturally support a series of practical functions such as ray tracing and DLSS depth sampling, and we have also tested various functions of this graphics card here.
1. Light chasing performance
In the 3DMark Port Royale test, the RTX 3050 Tomahawk Duo graphics score reached 3506 points, and the core operated at a maximum frequency of 1950MHz.
2. Actual experience
For comparison, we decided to test the frame rate performance of the graphics card running Tomb Raider: Shadow with DLSS turned on, light chase, and both on at the same time.
With light tracking turned on, the RTX 3050 has a frame rate of 59FPS at 1080P maximum quality.
After turning on DLSS (Quality) and RTX (Ultra High) at the same time, the frame rate returned to 77FPS.
In addition, at 2K resolution, the RTX 3050 returned to 56FPS after turning on the frame rate of 37FPS when light tracking was turned on, and after turning on DLSS (quality) and RTX (ultra high).
In general, at 1080P resolution, the frame rate will increase by 30% after DLSS is enabled, and nearly 50% at 2K resolution. Most importantly, after turning on RTX + DLSS at the same time, users can get a 2K light chasing game experience of close to 60FPS, which is also valuable.
Other tests: The temperature is good, there is still room for overclocking
1. Temperature test
The Rainbow Tomahawk RTX 3050 DUO was tested with Furmark at a current room temperature of 20°C.
We directly started the one-button grill, after 30 minutes of operation, the temperature of the RTX 3050 was maintained at about 61 °C, the power consumption of the graphics card was maintained at around 130W, and the full load fan speed was 1845 RPM, and there was no noise.
2. Overclocking test
Consumers who have a little understanding of graphics cards should be aware that the previous RTX 30 series graphics cards have been pressed to the limit, and there is no room for overclocking, so it was once called "factory is ashes" by consumers. However, unlike other RTX 30 series graphics cards, the RTX 3050 has a small core size and is well controlled in temperature and power consumption, so we can expect the overclocking capabilities of this graphics card.
After testing, the RTX 3050 does have a certain amount of overclocking space, and after repeated attempts, we finally passed various graphics card tests with the core frequency increased by 250MHz, at this time the Boost frequency of the graphics card has reached 2012MHz.
After overclocking, 3DMark TimeSpy's graphics score is 6741 points, which is more than 505 points higher than the 6236 at silent frequency, an increase of nearly 10%.
3DMark Port Royale's graphics score reached 3815 points, which is 309 points higher than the 3506 at silent frequency, and the improvement is also close to 10%.
We also tested the frame rate performance of the overclocked graphics card in Tomb Raider: Shadow.
After overclocking, the RTX 3050 can run out of the frame rate of 97FPS at 1080P resolution ultra-high quality, which is 10 frames higher than the 91FPS of the silent frequency, and the actual improvement is about 10%, which is a very good result.
Summary: If the price is reasonable, it is indeed worth buying
merit:
1. Support latest characteristics
RTX 3050 is the first time that Nvidia has equipped the 30 series graphics card with ray tracing and DLSS functions, and from the actual tests, we can see that although it is not realistic to turn on ray tracing alone, it is indeed possible to turn on ray tracing and DLSS functions at the same time to bring players a good gaming experience.
2. The pricing is reasonable
The suggested retail price of the RTX 3050 is 1899 yuan, for comparison, the first price of the GTX 1660S is also 1899 yuan, while the starting price of the GTX 1660Ti is 2199 yuan. From the perspective of performance and positioning, the pricing of the RTX 3050 is indeed reasonable.
shortcoming:
1. Performance is less than expected
If consumers are most disappointed with the RTX 3050, it must be the raster performance of this graphics card. The performance of about the GTX 1660Ti may have caused a sensation three or four years ago, but it is indeed a bit unwatchable in the current era of high-definition materials and ray tracing.
2. Manufacturers deliberately raise prices
Although the initial pricing of the RTX 3050 is reasonable, the current RTX 3050 on the market has a widespread premium problem. Considering the mining capacity of this "lock computing power" graphics card, the product premium on the market is obviously caused by the deliberate price increase of the manufacturer.
Compared to the so-called "latest GeForce RTX 30 series entry-level graphics card", the RTX 3050 is more like the RTX 2050 that we never waited for. This is a GTX 1660Ti with an increase of 2GB of video memory, real-time light chasing, DLSS technology, even if its performance is pulled to the limit, it is still unable to touch the tail of the RTX 2060, let alone the RTX 3060.
But the problem is that the price of graphics cards on the market today is not the same as it was three or four years ago. Flipping through the e-commerce platform slightly, you will find that the new GTX 1660 Super on the market is now generally priced at 2500 to 3500 yuan, the new RTX 2060 will be sold for more than 3000 yuan, and the price of RTX 3060 is even higher. For comparison, the RTX 3050 is indeed much cheaper.
Overall, as long as the price is reasonable and you don't mind the 1080P game yourself, then this graphics card is still worth buying. Of course, there have been frequent rumors that graphics card prices are about to fall, and if you're not in a hurry to play the game, you can wait.