My review of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 shares an overview of the graphics card itself, its GPU Engine specs, and games you can expect to play. I will provide an overview of the graphics quality and settings per each game you should expect to receive. I will also show you how the GeForce RTX compares to the system requirements of newly released AAA game titles, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 / Warzone 2 and Elden Ring.
Overview of the GeForce RTX 3050
NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card is the lowest end model of the 30 series RTX line. It would be a comparable upgrade from previous generations, 1050 and 2050 graphics cards based on Pascal and Turing architectures, respectively. The RTX 30 series has been built on the Ampere architecture, which has more consideration for Ray Tracing technology. Ray Tracing determines light, shadows, and reflections.
The GeForce RTX 3050 comes at a higher price point than its competitor, the AMD Radeon RX 6400 and 6500 XT, but it is also a more powerful graphics card. The RTX 3050 will be able to meet recommended and competitive system requirements from modern AAA gaming titles in 2022 and prior, as well as 2023.
The GPU engine specs below show us that it has a boost clock ratio of 1.78 GHz, base clock of 1.555GHz, 2,560 CUDA cores and 8GB of VRAM on GDDR6 memory. So how does this GPU compare to modern AAA games?
| GPU Engine Specs | |
| Boost Clock (MHz) | 1780 |
| Base Clock (MHz) | 1555 |
| CUDA Cores | 2560 |
| Memory Type | GDDR6 |
| VRAM | 8GB |
Review of System Requirements for Modern AAA Games
The system requirements of today’s and tomorrow’s games will vary quite a bit. Therefore, we need to narrow the scope and focus only on those games that require a lot of horsepower, like Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption 2, Far Cry 6, Halo: Infinite and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (COD MW2). Out of all the games previously listed, Elden Ring is perhaps the most demanding and COD MW2 the least demanding. That being said, if you value performance for first person shooters as well as graphics, you could make the argument they are both very demanding.
Looking at these games you will see that their recommended requirements land between 6-8GB of VRAM. You can expect to play all the latest games in 2022 and years past with the RTX 3050. It is very likely that this trend will continue, given the fact that 85% of gamers today have 8GB of VRAM or less, according to the Steam Hardware Survey for November, 2022. Game developers will want to leverage the existing market’s appetite for graphics quality so they can sell more.
System Requirements for COD MW2
System Requirements for Halo: Infinite
System Requirements for Elden Ring
System Requirements for Red Dead Redemption 2
System Requirements for Far Cry 6
Performance Review for the RTX 3050
Let me start off by saying that the RTX 3050 does not play games on 4K resolution very well. The primary use for this GPU would be 1440P and 1080P gaming. That being said you can play games like Red Dead Redemption on 4K but you need to tweak your graphics settings and you’re still not going to get great performance. You even need to tweak your graphics settings on 1440P resolution to get good performance. 1080P resolution is not a problem for this graphics card and you should be pushing tons of frames per second on high graphics settings.
Ideal Games and Settings – RTX 3050
The list below represents my thoughts on the games you can expect to play along with their ideal resolution and graphics settings. FPS results will vary greatly depending on your system build, newly released game patches, and drivers. That being said, I feel confident that this list is a close representation of what you can expect.
| Game | Ideal Resolutions | Ideal Graphics Settings |
| Elden Ring | 1080P-1440P | Medium-High |
| Modern Warfare 2 / Warzone 2.0 | 1080P-1440P | High-Ultra |
| Fortnite | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Halo: Infinite | 1080P-1440P | Medium-High |
| CS:GO | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| PUBG | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Minecraft | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 1080P-1440P | Medium-High |
| Far Cry 6 | 1080P-1440P | Medium-High |
| Dota 2 | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | Ultra |
| Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| World of WarCraft | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| CyberPunk 2077 | 1080P-1440P | Medium-High |
| RUST | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Civilization VI | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Overwatch 2 | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| League of Legends | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Valorant | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Battlefield V | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Team Fortress 2 | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Apex Legends | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Lost Ark | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| War Thunder | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| New World | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | Medium-High |
| Terraria | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Battlefield 1 | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
| Unturned | 1080P, 1440P, 4K | High-Ultra |
My Final Review of the RTX 3050
Overall, I like NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 3050. It is meant to be a little bit more than an entry level graphics card with some future-proofing. 3-5 years from now it is likely that 8GB of VRAM could be a minimum requirement on some games that are demanding on graphics quality. That being said, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 is a great card for games released in 2022 and prior, as well as games that will be released in 2023.