Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 review: the typical performance upgrade spectrum

Metro Exodus, Dirt Rally 2, Assassin's Creed Unity.

Review by Will Judd Deputy Editor, Digital Foundry

Additional contributions by Richard Leadbetter

Updated on Jan. 26, 2022

We conclude our testing of traditional, rasterised game performance with AC Unity, released in 2014 and currently enjoying a new lease of life on Xbox Series X's back-compat catalogue - plus two fresher titles, Metro Exodus (note: not the Enhanced Edition!) and Dirt Rally 2.0.

In order to deliver precise results, our performance data is more than just a readout of an average frame-rate at the end of a test. Instead, we use the FCAT tool built into Rivatuner Statistics Server (RTSS), which overlays a coloured border to the left side of the screen. Each new frame is represented by another coloured box in the sequence - and its height signifies the time it took to generate. We capture a direct feed of the game footage and border from the graphics card we're testing, analysing the resultant video file with our own tools to essentially write down the frame-time for each frame. This metadata is uploaded to the Eurogamer site, then rendered by the server into the live widgets you see below, allowing us to choose the comparisons you'll find most interesting - while giving you the power to make your own selections too.

Metro Exodus

The Metro Exodus benchmark is a convenient way to test different cards or find the right balance of settings; you can find it as a standalone program ('Benchmark.exe') in the game's install directory. From here, you can choose from a wide range of presets, settings and resolutions, plus run the game several times in a row to guarantee accurate results - you even get a nice frame-time graph at the end. We're using the Ultra preset here, if you want to play along, and we have RT results on the next page.

The RTX 3050 doesn't manage to hit the 1080p 60fps standard we were hoping for, falling short by 12fps on average. Meanwhile, the RTX 2060 hits the brief exactly. The RTX 3050 is faster than the RX 6500 XT, but only by 18 percent - less of a margin than you'd expect given the 25 percent price premium commanded by the Nvidia card.

Metro Exodus: Ultra, DX12, TAA

Dirt Rally 2.0

Dirt Rally 2.0's benchmark is hard to set up, but runs a treat once you've got the XML files figured out. It's also plenty long, encompassing an a full section of a point-to-point rally race, making it one of the longest repeatable stretches of actual gameplay in an integrated benchmark. This game is also kind to AMD hardware, with the RTX 3050 outperforming the RX 6500 XT by only 15 percent. The RTX 2060 is 28 percent faster than the 3050 here, a pretty big gap. The good news is that we're running at Ultra settings with 8x MSAA, and we're still getting 100fps at 1080p - more than enough leeway to guarantee good results at 1440p (66fps) and playable results at 4K (34fps) too. Interestingly, the GTX 1660 Super and RTX 3050 offer nearly identical performance here.

Dirt Rally 2.0: DX12, Ultra, TAA+8x MSAA

Assassin's Creed Unity

AC Unity made its DF reputation by showcasing CPU limitations and highlighting issues with driver limitations, and this venerable member of the 2022 GPU test suite still has the power to trip up modern graphics hardware. The RX 6500 XT failed spectacularly on this test, so the 3050 doesn't have to do much to be by far the better value option. It's nearly twice as fast at 1080p, 52fps to 101fps, which makes the 25 price premium for the Nvidia option seem pretty reasonable. The RTX 2060 again outperforms the 3050, but this time by just 13 percent. Finally, the 3050 is four percent faster than the GTX 1660 Super - a pretty narrow margin!

AC Unity: High, DX11

So that's the standard benchmark suite out of the way. Now, let's see how the RTX 3050 performs in RT workloads - this ought to be its best chance of coming close to the RTX 2060, so fingers crossed if you're pulling for the newcomer.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 analysis