Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Review: Is It Worth The Money?

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti will now be the mainstream GPU for most gaming laptops out there. Previously, this legacy was carried out by either the GTX 1660 or 1660 Ti. By introducing the RTX 3050 Ti laptop graphics card, Nvidia looks more concerned about budget gamers who want to taste ray-tracing and DLSS. The RTX 3050 Ti is less powerful than other RTX 3000 Series GPUs, but it’s more affordable as well. Is it worth going with RTX 3050 Ti-based laptops to save a few bucks when there are laptops with RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 graphics cards?

Currently, the RTX 3050 Ti-based machines are slightly cheaper than the ones that come with the RTX 3060. For example, an RTX 3050 Ti-based laptop costs roughly $800 whereas laptops with RTX 3060 cards are priced at around $1,000. 

Yes, the RTX 3050 Ti is cheaper and it blows past the previous generation cards like the GTX 1650 and GTX 1660 in 1080p gaming, but placing the RTX 3050 Ti alongside the RTX 3060 shows you that it’s still an entry-level card with just ray-tracing and DLSS on it. 

By enabling the RTX 3050 Ti in gaming notebooks, Nvidia is making those machines affordable to get. Yet at the same time, going with the RTX 3050 Ti instead of the RTX 3060 is limiting your machine to only 4GB of VRAM and we all know that the sweet spot for VRAM these days is 6GB to 8GB.

Before we get into details, here’s my honest advice to you: if you are low on cash and need a laptop with a recent-generation graphics card like the RTX 3050 Ti that can give you a taste of ray-tracing and DLSS in less demanding games, then it’s worth your money.

However, if you are a professional gamer, then you should not expect the RTX 3050 Ti to perform like other RTX 3000 Series graphics cards in modern game titles. To me, an RTX 3060 performs way better than an RTX 3050 Ti in most games that I’ve played.

Now for the detailed part!!!

Specs of the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti

Video Memory	4GB GDDR6
Base Clock	735 MHz
Boost Clock	1035 MHz
Memory Bus	128-bit
Memory bandwidth	192.0 Gbps
CUDA Cores	2560
DirectX Version	12
TDP	75W
Ray-Tracing/DLSS	Yes, 2.0

Even on paper, the RTX 3050 Ti looks like an entry-level chip natively meant for less-intensive workloads. With just 4GB of VRAM on board, you can expect this card to play many titles at 1080p medium-high settings. 

But for 1440p and 4K, you might not be able to hit the 60fps milestone with RTX 3050 Ti. Yes, if it’s just about playing games like Valorant, CS: GO, and Overwatch 2 at 4K settings, you can expect the RTX 3050 Ti to throw playable frame rates on your screen. 

However, for GPU-intensive titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, Metro: Exodus, and Far Cry 6, you’ll have to do a lot of graphical tweaks to play them even at 1080p settings. 

Testing the Performance of the RTX 3050 Ti in Gaming

We bought HP Victus 16 that comes with the RTX 3050 Ti, Core i5-11400H CPU, and 32GB DDR4 Ram. Although this is a budget-oriented laptop, it’s good enough for us to test the performance of RTX 3050 ti in modern games.

1080p Settings

To see how much juice an RTX 3050 Ti has got, we played a few games at 1080p settings (Ray-Tracing off). We took our start from Resident Evil: Village maxed out at 1080p. In such a demanding game, the average frame rates were around 45-55 most of the time, but as soon as you turn on the ray-tracing, the average fps drop below 35.

If you need want to play most modern games at Max settings at 1080p, and you don’t care about ray-tracing, then the RTX 3050 Ti gives you the most bang for your buck. With the laptop version of the RTX 3050 Ti, you cannot expect a high-end performance in gaming. Till the desktop version of this GPU arrives, we cannot if this GPU would be the right fit for low-budget gaming PCs.

In most games, the RTX 3050 Ti performs way better than the RTX 2060 (laptop-version). For example, while playing Borderlands 2 at High Settings, the RTX 3050 Ti lets you hit 15% more frame rates than the RTX 2060.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the RTX 3050 Ti is a bit faster than the older GTX 1660 Ti chip. However, the Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti performs still less than that of an RTX 3060 in RDR2 at 1080p settings.

In FPS games like Call of Duty: Black OPS Cold War, Battlefield 2042, Borderlands 2, CS: Go, and Half-Life 2, the RTX 3050 Ti easily climbs over the 60fps goal at 1080p settings. 

Here are the average fps at 1080p settings:

Overwatch 2	90 fps
Borderlands 2	70 fps
GTA V	85 fps
Call of Duty: Black OPS Cold War	73 fps
Battlefield 2042	68 fps
Metro: Exodus	47 fps
Residen Evil: Village	48fps
Red Dead Redemption 2	43 fps
Valorant	180 fps

1440p Settings

Overwatch 2	71 fps
Borderlands 2	60 fps
GTA V	56 fps
Call of Duty: Black OPS Cold War	51 fps
Battlefield 2042	40 fps
Metro: Exodus	34 fps
Residen Evil: Village	38 fps
Red Dead Redemption 2	32 fps
Valorant	101 fps

4K Settings

Overwatch 2	46 fps
Borderlands 2	45 fps
GTA V	23 fps
Call of Duty: Black OPS Cold War	27 fps
Battlefield 2042	23 fps
Metro: Exodus	28 fps
Residen Evil: Village	27 fps
Red Dead Redemption 2	25 fps
Valorant	69 fps

So, from the above results it’s clear that the RTX 3050 Ti is meant for entry-level or 1080p gaming. It’s not the type of chip that’s meant for scaling games to 4K resolution. 

Even being part of Nvidia’s Ampere architecture, the RTX 3050 Ti fails to beat any other RTX 3000 family chip in gaming. Yes, having more CUDA cores, ray-tracing, and DLSS 2.0 does put this card at the front of previous-generation GTX 1600 Series GPUs. 

But ray-tracing comes more into play if you are interacting with games that natively support this technology. And not every game supports ray-tracing at the moment, and the ones that do, eat a lot of VRAM out of your graphics card. 

For example, the Metro: Exodus does support ray-tracing, but it’s hardly playable with the RTX 3050 Ti at ultra 1080p settings. Turning on the DLSS might help you to fill that extra FPS gap to reach the 60fps target, but turning on the ray-tracing would then pull you back where you were before. 

Everyone knows that the culprit behind this limited performance in AAA games is the lower amount of VRAM on this card. With just 4GB capacity, the RTX 3050 Ti cannot deliver the type of performance that an RTX 3060 could. 

So, going with the RTX 3050 Ti just for ray-tracing and DLSS isn’t a wise choice. But for just 1080p gaming alone, the RTX 3050 Ti is a decent choice to go with at least for now. 

However, upcoming games are more GPU intensive and demand more VRAM. Therefore, sooner or later, you’ll struggle to play the latest titles even at 1080p settings.

Verdict

Compared to a GTX 1660 Ti-based laptop, we can say that there is a slight gain in performance especially when you are playing demanding titles like Resident Evil: Village or Metro Exodus. For 1080p gaming, this is one of the best graphics cards that you get for the money, but for 1440p gaming, it’s a no-go GPU. This might be due to the fact that it has less VRAM (4GB) which isn’t sufficient enough to handle higher resolution.

However, the reason people are going after RTX 3050 Ti is because of ray-tracing and DLSS. With ray-tracing on, you will suffer from lower frame rates in most advanced game titles. So, if you are buying this GPU for just the sake of enhancing your game visuals through ray-tracing, it’s a no-go GPU.

The VRAM limitation of the RTX 3050 Ti makes it a disastrous choice for 1440p gaming or even 1080p Ultra-High settings in some games. Even the older GTX 1660 Ti with 6GB of VRAM performs way better than this GPU in high-resolution gaming.

All in all, the RTX 3050 Ti is a decent card for gaming at 1080p resolution with the in-game settings not too high. But as you scale up the resolution to 1440p, the frame rates fall below 60 fps in most game titles. So, it’s not the type of card that you can expect to game at 1440p or 4K. But on other hand, the RTX 3050 Ti comes with second-generation ray-tracing and DLSS 2.0 making it a great deal for gaming geeks.

DLSS 2.0 is an amazing feature when it comes to upscaling the frame rates in demanding PC games. And in our opinion, this is the only reason we would suggest going with the RTX 3050 Ti instead of any other entry-level card. After all, it’s the performance that matters the most when you are playing demanding titles, not the reflections and shadows.

Also Read About: Is it Worth Buying an RTX Series GPU?

Is the RTX 3050 Ti good for video editing?

Most of the graphics cards in the Nvidia Ampere Series use NVENC video encoders for H.264 and H.265 format. This is an advanced feature that takes off the load from your CPU and shifts it to a dedicated part of your GPU for video encoding. This overall process makes video editing or streaming much faster as compared to older generation graphics cards.

The GeForce RTX 3050 Ti is also blessed with all the features that make a GPU great in the video editing process. Therefore you can rely on an RTX 3050 Ti-based laptop to retouch your video projects or create animations.