What is the upgrade in GeForce RTX 3050? Due to the immense popularity of cryptocurrency mining, graphics cards have been in painfully short supply for years now. The ZOTAC GAMING GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge gives rise to amplified gaming. It features 2nd Gen Ray Tracing Cores, 3rd Gen Tensor Cores, IceStorm 2.0 Advanced Cooling, Active Fan Control, Metal Backplate and FireStorm Utility. Find more ZOTAC gaming GeForce RTX 3050 twin edge review.
Pros & Cons – ZOTAC gaming GeForce RTX 3050
Pros
- Memory Bus 128-bit
- Video Memory 8GB GDDR6
- CUDA Cores 2560
- Engine Clock Boost: 1777 MHz
Cons
- Cooling fan issue
Specs – ZOTAC gaming GeForce RTX 3050 twin edge
- GPU GeForce RTX 3050
- Video Memory 8GB GDDR6
- Memory Bus 128-bit
- CUDA Cores 2560
- Memory Clock 14 Gbps
- PCI Express 4.0 8x
- Engine Clock Boost: 1777 MHz
- Recommended Power Supply 450W
- Power Consumption 130W
- Display Outputs 3 x DisplayPort 1.4a (up to 7680×4320@60Hz)
- HDMI 2.1* (up to 7680×4320@60Hz)
- *Ultra High Speed HDMI Cable is required to support 8K/60FPS or 4K/120FPS
- HDCP Support 2.3
- Multi Display Capability Quad Display
- Cooling IceStorm 2.0
- Slot Size Dual Slot
- Power Input 8-pin
- DirectX 12 Ultimate
- OpenGL 4.6
- SLI Not Supported
- Supported OS Windows 11 / 10 (64-bit, April 2018 update or later)
- Card Length 224.1mm x 116.3mm x 39.2mm / 8.8″ x 4.6″ x 1.5″
- Accessories Manual
Price
It’s available for sale at $489.99 (where you can find it, anyway). This is by far the highest-priced RTX 3050 card available at launch, and it’s hard to justify that price in the face of other cards like Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 3050 Gaming OC 8GB, which also has a triple-fan cooler and is priced at just $379.99.
ZOTAC gaming GeForce RTX 3050 twin edge review
Design
Asus opted for a compact single-fan design that’s only slightly longer than the PCI-E x16 slot that it plugs into. (It measures just 6.97 inches long.) It also features a metal backplate for added stiffness and heat dissipation, but it lacks LED enhancements or other card decor. It’s a plain one well suited to a compact PC.
Ports
It comes with 8K Ready, 4 Display Ready, HDCP 2.3, 3 x DisplayPort 1.4a, 1 x HDMI 2.1, DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan RT API, OpenGL 4.6.
Memory
All GeForce RTX 3050 graphics cards have 2,560 CUDA cores that connect to 8GB of GDDR6 RAM over a 128-bit memory interface. The RAM is clocked at 14,000MHz, and so far none of the OEM graphics cards has deviated from this spec. The GPU core has a base clock of 1,550MHz and a boost clock of 1,777MHz.
Frame rates
Still not much test is accomplished. The card pushes right over 60FPS into 67FPS average in modern games, which the RTX 2080 SUPER lags behind big time in with 45FPS average. It doesn’t beat NVIDIA’s own GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition — but it comes close.
Clock boost
Asus’ best RTX 3050 is clocked at 1,890MHz, and the reference design specifies a clock of 1,777MHz. The Dual GeForce RTX 3050 8GB will almost certainly fall somewhere between these two, but it’s more likely to be close to the reference design. It might even ship clocked at 1,777MHz without any factory overclock.
Power Consumption
It consumes a total of 130W, where GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Trinity OC consumes 420W, 10W less than the GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition. When overclocked, the power consumption jumps by 20W up to 440W total.
Alternate of ZOTAC gaming GeForce RTX 3050 twin edge
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Specs
CUDA cores: 4,864Base clock: 1,410MHzBoost clock: 1,665MHzTFLOPs: 16.20Memory: 8GB GDDR6Memory clock: 14GT/sMemory bandwidth: 448GB/s
Pros
+Finally! Something a little more affordable+2080 Super performance+Under $400
Cons
-Annoying 12-pin power connector-Not quite good enough for 4KAdvertisement
The best value Ampere to date, the RTX 3060 Ti is very closely related to the RTX 3070. Both utilize the same GA104 GPU (the RTX 3060 Ti has fewer SMs enabled), with the same 8GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit bus.
While 17% less capable in core count, the RTX 3060 Ti makes up for it with some judicious GPU Boost frequencies. That partially explains why the RTX 3060 Ti can be within 17% to just single digits off the pace of the RTX 3070, despite operating at a silicon disadvantage. Not bad for a $399 card (if you can find it for that price).
If you haven’t already done the maths: At $399, the RTX 3060 Ti is 20% cheaper than the RTX 3070, so performance per dollar is on the up with the diminutive graphics card. That’s why we love it so; it’s a great GPU for the full stack of resolutions and has decent ray tracing capability to boot, courtesy of second-generation RT Cores.
If the RTX 3080 or RTX 3070 seem out of reach, the RTX 3060 Ti certainly makes for a decent stand-in. Perhaps most impressive of this graphics card is how it stacks up to the 20-series generation: It topples the RTX 2080 Super in nearly every test.
