Our expectations were greatly exceeded by this powerful little graphics card.
What’s in the box:
- 1x ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3050 OC Edition 8GB graphics card
- Set of cable ties
- Manual and thank you card
Features:
- Discrete graphics adapter memory: 8 GB
- Maximum resolution: 7680 x 4320 pixels
- Cooling type: Active
- Number of fans :3
- Illumination colour: Multi
Specifications:
- Memory Speed: 14Gbps
- Graphics Coprocessor: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050
- Chipset Brand: NVIDIA
- Graphics Card Ram Size 8 GB
- Item Weight: 2.47 pounds
- Product Dimensions: 11.81 x 5.26 x 2.11 inches
- Item Dimensions: LxWxH 11.81 x 5.26 x 2.11 inches
- Bus Standard: PCI Express 4.0
- OpenGL: OpenGL 4.6
- Graphics adapter memory type: GDDR6
- Memory bus: 128 bit
- Engine Clock:
-OC mode: 1890 MHz (Boost Clock)
-Gaming mode: 1860 MHz (Boost Clock)
- CUDA Core: 2560
- Interface:
-Yes x 2 (Native HDMI 2.1)
-Yes x 3 (Native DisplayPort 1.4a)
-HDCP Support Yes (2.3)
- Maximum Display Support: 4
- Power Connectors: 1×8-pin
- Slot: 2.7 slot
- Aura Sync: ARGB
Introduction:
The ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3050 OC is said to be ASUS’s most premium custom-design graphics card based on the RTX 3030 NVIDIA. It was designed to look more “premium” than its predecessors and they have certainly achieved this.
The GeForce RTX 3050 is the most affordable GeForce “Ampere” GPU available for desktop use and is marketed as an entry-mainstream product.
Performance:
This card runs at 130watts which is quite high for a card in this range.
A nifty feature here is that the middle fan spins in the opposite direction to the other two fans to help reduce turbulence and to improve cooling efficiency.
A stop mode turns off all fans when the system is idle and the GPU temperature drops below 42°C in order to reduce overall noise levels.
The card boasts a DirectCU III triple-slot cooling system, which is 30 cm long and has an extensive aluminium fin-stack heatsink that is cooled by three Axial Tech fans. Below the fans, a large heatsink with a greater height and more surface area for heat dissipation helps absorb heat from the GPU.
The PCB of the card has updated chokes, capacitors, and MOSFETs that were all chosen for more dependable power delivery. The company’s automated Auto-Extreme production method is used to solder the Super Alloy II components to the PCB. This eliminates the risk of human error when soldering and results in smoother solder joints on the back of the PCB.
Additionally, there are two 4-pin FanConnect II connections on the back of the PCB that you may use to connect your chassis fans. The connected fans may be tweaked with a curve based on your CPU and GPU temperatures, giving you more freedom when mounting your system fans.
You can choose between Perf and Silent modes via a BIOS switch; both offer comparable performance except for the FAN RPM; the temperature difference is negligible, and the acoustic difference is about the same; You won’t even hear the card configured in either Perf or Silent mode, so toggle it to Perf mode and move on.
Testing Bench:
3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when the Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time-inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system – most importantly, your CPU and GPU – is performing as it should. You can run a search on your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.
These are the specs of the setup we used to test the benchmarks of this RTX 3050:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X
- Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B550-E Gaming AMD Ryzen ATX Motherboard
- Cooler: ASUS ROG Strix LC 360 RGB all-in-one liquid CPU cooler with Aura Sync
- RAM: Kingston HyperX Predator DDr4 RGB 16GB x 2 3200MHz CL16 Ram
- Nvme: Adata XPG SX8200 512GB NVMe PCIe 3.0 M.2 2280 Solid State Drive
- PSU: ASUS ROG-STRIX-1000G ROG Strix Gaming 1000W 80 Plus Gold Certified Fully Modular Black Desktop Power Supply
- Case: ASUS ROG Strix Helios RGB ATX Mid-tower Gaming Case
- OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64
Benchmarks:
Synthetic Benchmarks:
3D Mark Port Royal:
3D Mark Time Spy:
3D Mark Time Spy Extreme:
Unigine Heaven:
MGR Gaming’s Conclusions:
The design is angular and they did a lot more with the design here than the previous model which is really evident, the front has RGB which can be customized with the Armoury Crate+ software and just adds that wow factor.
The card’s back is composed of a stylish backplate made of brushed metal. It has a large vent carved into it, which along with the shorter PCB makes it easier for hot air to escape and reach the chassis exhaust fans rather than being recycled back into the cooler. The stainless steel I/O bracket is created to offer a more stable installation.
If you want to build a system that matches, the new design reflects the style of the ROG and ROG Strix motherboards.
Installation into your system requires three slots so keep that in mind before you purchase this card.
The display connectivity options include two HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a ports.
All in all, this card is definitely worth its price tag and won’t let you down when you need it most, we were impressed with this card and it blew away many of our expectations in the performance department.
If you can afford it, we highly recommend this GPU because we found it to be great in every way, from its appearance to its exceptional performance in all of our benchmarks this card is definitely worth the price tag.
