Nvidia's new trimmed-down entry-level gaming GPU fails to outperform rivals — RTX 3050 6GB lags behind five-year-old GTX 1660 Ti

TechPowerUp reviewed Nvidia's new entry-level GeForce RTX 3050 6GB and found its performance to be good and bad, depending on how you view it. The review outlet found that the RTX 3050 6GB is the fastest GPU on the market and does not require a dedicated supplementary power connector. Still, compared to other GPUs, the RTX 3050 6GB was a whopping 20-30% slower than its 8GB counterpart and slower than Nvidia's five-year-old GTX 1660 Ti based on the Turing architecture.

Despite what its name suggests, the RTX 3050 6GB comes with more cut hardware specifications than just its memory capacity. Clock speed, power draw, memory bus width, and memory capacity have all been neutered, making this card more of an "RTX 3040" than an offshoot of the RTX 3050 8GB.

Compared to the RTX 3050 8GB, the RTX 3050 6GB comes with 11% fewer CUDA cores and SMs, a 21% lower boost clock, 33% less memory bandwidth and memory capacity, and an 85% lower TDP.

The RTX 3050 6GB's heavily neutered specifications explain why it is much slower than its 8GB counterpart. TechPowerUp's benchmarks reveal that the RTX 3050 8GB is 28% faster than the RTX 3050 6GB on average at 1080P. At 1440P, the 8GB card is 30% quicker on average, and at 4K, the 8GB card extends its performance lead by 40%. Even more embarrassing, the RTX 3050 6GB was outpaced by Nvidia's GTX 1660 Ti 6GB in all three resolutions, according to TechPowerUp's testing. At 1080P, the 1660 Ti was 18% quicker than the 3050 6GB on average, 20% quicker at 1440P, and 15% faster at 4k.

The only cards Nvidia's 3050 6GB could beat on TechPowerUp's list were Nvidia's ancient GTX 1060 6GB, AMD's RX 580 8GB, and RX 6500 XT 4GB. It is worth mentioning that the GTX 1650/1650 Super and GTX 1660/1660 Super were not on this chart. But based on TechPowerUp's results, the 6GB Ampere GPU would probably be close to the GTX 1650 Super in terms of performance, sadly.

Unsurprisingly, in-game performance was also lackluster. TechPowerUp found that the RTX 3050 6GB could not achieve 60FPS at 1080P in most games. In many of the latest AAA titles, such as A Plague Tale Requiem, Jedi: Survivor, Alan Wake 2, and older ones, such as Cyberpunk 2077, the Ampere GPU could barely achieve playable FPS (30 FPS) at 1080P. Granted, in-game settings could probably be brought down to achieve higher FPS, but these results are not fantastic for a brand-new GPU launched in 2024.

The only area in which the RTX 3050 6GB was competitive was TechPowerUp's efficiency results. The review outlet found that the 3050 6GB was on par with Nvidia's Ada Lovelace GPU architecture in terms of efficiency and was just 3% worse than the RTX 4060. The Ampere GPU was also 32% more efficient than the RTX 3050 8GB. This makes a lot of sense, considering the RTX 3050 6GB is clocked significantly lower than the 8GB variant, which means the GPU is probably operating in a more efficient part of its voltage curve.

Nonetheless, TechPowerUp's review confirms that the RTX 3050 6GB's performance is terrible, and for $180, it is probably one of the worst GPUs you can buy in the entry-level market. AMD's RX 6600 costs $20-$30 more than the 3050 6GB and is 60% faster, according to TechPowerUp's benchmarks. The same goes for Intel's Arc A750.

The only saving grace the RTX 3050 6GB has is its 75W power envelope, enabling it to work in systems that don't have a dedicated supplementary PCIe power cable. For these systems, you have no choice but to go with a 75W GPU like the 3050 6GB.