ASUS RTX 3050 OC Dual Review

Conclusion

Whenever you're dealing with cards at this end of the market there are really two things to take into consideration. The performance, how does it do in most games at a good level of detail at the most popular resolution, and how much does it cost.

We know that price is the hot button topic, the thorny issue, the cause of a thousand comments, and with a price point around the £360 mark it can be easy to forget how quickly things have changed on that side of the fence. Yes, you might have been able to get a flagship GTX 980 for that, but that was a long time ago when you could have a night at the pictures, a fish supper and still have change for the tram home out of a quid. Not only is a flagship card the thick end of two grand, but the RTX 3050 will smash that GTX 980 in performance terms. So things have moved on, you just need to forget the past and look at the now. Whether a particular retailer exercises their right to charge whatever they want, or whether someone is scalping on Ebay, is really besides the point. Just vote with your wallet, be patient, and the ASUS RTX 3050 OC Dual should be available to you at the price ASUS are asking.

With that out of the way the other point is much simpler to prove. No matter what game you're running the RTX 3050 OC Dual has enough performance to give you a smooth gaming experience at 1080P. The only times it was a bit below the magical 60 FPS mark at those games which are right at the leading edge of current gaming visuals - Cyberpunk 2077 for example - and making the most of Ray-Tracing. As we know even the high end AMD cards aren't Ray-Tracing easily, and neither are the current generation of consoles. It's the kind of tech that's nice to see, but not sufficiently game changing to be worth compromising your frame rate to achieve. Like the old days where even 2xMSAA meant halving your FPS, so Ray-Tracing is the current technology that is really only usable on more expensive hardware. Think of it as an added bonus. Something nice to see so you can plan for a future where more affordable cards can handle it better, or the software designers have refined it to be less performance heavy. If you just want to crank up all the other settings and run at over 60 FPS at 1080P the RTX 3050 has got you covered.

Removing scalpers and Ray-Tracing from the equation and the ASUS RTX 3050 OC Dual is the perfect card for those who are gaming on a budget, giving you smooth gameplay with lovely image quality, whilst also having enough technology to show you what the future holds, and wins our OC3D Value For Money Award.

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