ASUS ROG GeForce RTX 3050 STRIX OC review - Final words and conclusion

Final words

Last week's release of the Radeon RX 6500 XT from AMD was a drama, vital choices made by AMD were the wrong ones for that card series. This week the GeForce RTX 3050 launches, for 50 bucks more (MSRP) you'll receive a product with double the graphics memory, double the memory bus double the bandwidth, double the number of shaders, double the Raytracing performance. And where it can be applied, nearly double the performance thanks to DLSS as this card has Tensor cores as well. In that respect, the 6500 XT is shot down and p0wned by NVIDIA with the release of the 3050. There is a problem though, the board partners will want to push the more premium designs, and they can easily pass 300 even 350 USD. The proof is in the pudding, as the first 3050 that we received was actually an ASUS STRIX. The card oozes premium in design and cooling, but that does come at a price, and let's not forget this, ... a 3050 is supposed to be entry-level to mainstream domain gaming. We'll have to wait and see how prices pan out and what model actually will become available. The reality is that the world is a place where component shortages and cryptocurrency both miners and gamers have hogged every GPU they can get their hands on, also COVID is driving higher demand for home PC gaming. All of these elements combine to create an absurd concoction of shortages and price increases. The GeForce RTX 3050 as a product series compared to the competition, is a complete win though. We are happy to recommend the card series if that price is right, we would not recommend you to spend more than 300 to 350 USD.

From a performance positioning, the 3050 will hover at GTX 1660 TI / GTX 1070 and Vega 64 / 5600 XT performance. The card series is much faster than AMD's Radeon 6500 XT plus you get the added benefit of 8GB GDDR6 memory at a much wider bus. The  6500 XT will cave in performance quickly once its 4GB VRAM runs out. Far Cry 6 you can enable the HD texture pack as an example, and still have enough graphics memory to run the game properly at the highest image quality settings. So it's a no-brainer really. Gaming with hybrid raytracing is still possible at Full HD, albeit at this level you'll quickly run into performance issues. The lifesaver here is DLSS, once you combine the two technologies you'll still be able to game properly in Full HD. 

Cooling & acoustic levels

You've seen the FLIR images; the card is hardly even lighting up, nothing to be concerned about at this point. Temperatures under stress load are around sub-55degrees Celsius, which is excellent. Acoustics; you can not hear the card, even at the performance BIOS mode.

Energy

More recently, we changed the way we measure power consumption to bring you more precise numbers. Pulling manufacturer registers with 3rd party software creates the problem that you never know precisely what you are measuring. Then there's the TGP versus TDP versus TBP. With our new methodology, we accurately measure the graphics card's power feeds, that's the PCIe PEG connectors and PCI-Slot. As such, we display the total board power. I mean, you can measure the GPU solely (TGP), but you also need to feed other components, like Memory, ICs, and let's not forget cooling and RGB.  This card reveals a typical gaming power draw of roughly 130 Watt (typical). 

Coil whine

The card exhibits only insignificant amounts of coil squeal, very little, and it's hard to hear. In a closed chassis, that noise would fade away in the background. Graphics cards all make this in some form, especially at high framerates; this can be perceived.

Pricing

The generic MSRP of the GeForce RTX 3050 sits at the 249 USD marker. Albeit we are still awaiting the MSRP; this card costs 349,- The market however is complicated with shortages and retailers dictating final pricing, there's little else we can say here.  Our advise is to not overspend money on a x050 generation card.

Tweaking

It is possible to manually push the card beyond its factory clock frequencies. Memory speeds of 16 to 16.5 Gbps are achievable, with Boost speeds of 100+ MHz or more, and for the lucky few, even a notch higher (this is on top of the factory optimization). Unfortunately, the power limiter is locked. Increased power budget typically enables the GPU to perform what it does best: accelerate the process of rendering images.

When combined with the changes mentioned on the OC page, you should be able to achieve a boost frequency in the range of ~2100 MHz. It prefers more air to breathe since the 3050's memory bandwidth is limited by the 128-bit wide memory bus on which it operates. With the 1.60 Gbps (effective data rate) optimization, we were able to implement, you will notice a significant increase in performance. When used in conjunction with that dynamic turbo in the ~2100 MHz range. Keep in mind that values vary depending on the workload and, consequently, the game title. Remember that in order for our change to be considered real, it must pass four games in a full benchmark run at WQHD in order to be considered reliable.

Conclusion

Straightforward, the GeForce RTX 3050 generally speaking does not disappoint even the slightest bit. NVIDIA did things right with the spec configuration. The proper choice to make was 8GB gDDR6 graphics memory at a decent enough memory bus. It makes gaming in Full HD absolutely great and even at WQHD, most games should run fine. The fun thing is that Raytracing performance at Full HD is within reach as well once you enable DLSS. That level of performance for GeForce RTX x050 series graphics card does make it tick all the right boxes if you ask us. While we don't care about raytraced shadows at all, it's the clarity of the raytraced reflections that make the difference for us. Drive through London in Watch Dogs: Legion or looking at water and fire reflections in Battlefield; these are the types of things that create a noticeable difference. In order to get the most out of it, you'll get DLSS in your video games as well (if supported). Certainly, the card is not a powerhouse, but it is very capable of allowing you to frag along at respectable framerates. The STRIX edition GeForce RTX 3050 is perhaps an overkill design for its product positioning, however, you can make that call all by yourself. It's an exemplary built piece of hardware though, as in the performance mode BIOS setting you're at 50 Degrees C temperatures in complete silence. It's a premium design though, pricing and availability remain its biggest challenge. But as far as gaming graphics cards in the Full HD domain go, this one comes very much recommended.

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- Hilbert, LOAD"*",8,1.