MSI RTX 3050 Gaming X 8G Review

With the launch of the NVIDIA RTX 3050 officially behind us now, we are taking a look at an offering from MSI, who are veterans in the GPU scene, having been making graphics cards since 1989. Yes, it's been that long. For perspective. I wasn't even born at that point. In this review, we'll be taking a look at the latest card to join their line up; the MSI RTX 3050 Gaming X 8G! Featuring 2nd generation RT cores, 3rd generation Tensor and that all-important Ampere architecture, you can take full advantage of the RTX ecosystem by using technologies like DLSS and NVIDIA Reflex to get higher frame rates and better system latency in compatible games. Compared to the 4GB of memory found on the Radeon RX 6500 XT series of cards from AMD, the RTX 3050 from NVIDIA features 8GB of GDDR6 memory, which should allow it to pull ahead in memory-intensive games and programs, but of course, this brings a higher MSRP than the competition. I also suspect that the cost of this card will be on the higher side given the prices of other MSI graphics cards currently available, but that is if you can actually get one at the MSRP and not for twice what it's worth. MSI RTX 3050 Gaming X 8G Featuring the same new design aesthetic introduced with their other RTX 30 series cards that have been adjusted since the last generation of GPUs, MSI has designed this to fit in with the other cards in their gaming range but with a smaller and more modest design. It features less RGB and one less fan than its bigger brothers like the RTX 3060 or 3080 Gaming X Trio GPUs. The card features the robust Twin Frozr 8 cooling solution with their Torx 4.0 fan design and an aluminium backplate that aids with the dissipation of heat, so while I expect the card to perform well without turning into a space heater it's yet to be seen whether it can stand up against some of the other 3050s that we've already looked at. Features NVIDIA Ampere Streaming Multiprocessors2nd Generation RT Cores3rd Generation Tensor CoresPowered by GeForce RTX™ 3050Integrated with 8GB GDDR6 128-bit memory interfaceTWIN FROZR 8 Thermal Design with TORX 4.0 FansAluminum metal back plate with thermal pads for extra coolingRGB Mystic Light You can find out what we think about five other RTX 3050 cards by reading our other reviews found here, or by watching the video below. Unboxing The front of the box for this card is in the classic MSI style that we've come to love. It features a product photo showing the card as you would expect and all of the information about the RTX 3050 GPU core from NVIDIA. The overall design is in a "gamer" style but isn't overdone, it remains simple enough that it looks good but not so simple that it's boring. Listing all of the features and technologies of the product, the back of the box is informational and easy to follow. It shows off more of the card and gives a look at how the RGB lighting will work, as well as information on the fan design, which will turn off when the GPU is at idle. Once the box is open, you are greeted with a cardboard sleeve containing a quick user guide and promotional material for other MSI products and services, as well as a small comic featuring their mascot; Lucky the Dragon, teaching you about how to upgrade and install a GPU into your system. With the informational packet out of the way, we can see the GPU sitting in the box, wrapped in an ESD bag to protect it. The card is surrounded by plenty of high quality foam to stop it from being damaged by bumps and drops that may happen as it finds its way to your door. A Closer Look The front of the card has a familiar feel if you know MSI cards but is distinctly new. It fits in alongside the other RTX 30 series cards in the same family whilst being the most unique amongst those other cards due to its smaller size. Unlike the last generation there is no RGB on the front of the card, but I don't think it matters too much since you won't see it in your PC without vertically mounting it anyway. The fan features a 10 blade design. The blades are grouped in pairs and are connected at the tips of the blades, which is a design that's meant to direct air more towards the heatsink for a more effective and efficient cooling solution. On the hub of the fan is a thin metal badge with the MSI Dragon logo on it which fits into the design well and doesn't look out of place or distracting. In typical MSI fashion, the backplate is fairly understated. It features a white printed MSI shield logo in the middle and a matching white GEFORCE RTX logo in the top corner, that breaks the design up a bit. On one of the corners, MSI have used a slightly different finish to give a subtle and more full design to the backplate. On the other side of the backplate, we find small cutouts for air to pass through which are styled to fit in with the overall design and "gamer" look. At the back of the card we can see 3 heat pipes that go through the main part of the heatsink, which is split into 2 sections, the front and the back. On the other side, the front heat sink is only taking advantage of 2 heat pipes that are curved round to cover a wider area within the cooler. At the back, we find 3 Display port connectors and only a single HDMI 2.1 port. Personally, I would have liked to of seen one of the Display port connections be removed in favour of another HDMI, but that's just my personal preference. The 8-pin power connector is tucked away just enough that a power cable coming from it looks neat and tidy, however, they have placed it right above the GEFORCE RTX logo, so unless you run the cable above the GPU, the cable will cover the logo. Here is the one that many of you will care about, which is "how will it look in my PC?". Well the good news is that it will look great in any build with a very dark theme. The MSI logo on the side lights up in configurable RGB glory, the only thing I wish to see is a little more of it elsewhere on the card like the previous generation that added a little extra if you so desired. Overall, the card looks subtle and yet confident, the only thing that lets it down a bit for me is the white printed logos. The card could have looked just that little bit nicer if they were black or dark grey with a shiny finish as apposed to the matted white that distracts from the cards dark theme. But with that being said, as it stands, the card has a fantastic design that I think many gamers would be happy to see in their own PC. How We Test We continue to update our testing methods around once per year. As such, we re-test older hardware to reflect changes over time. These can be driver updates, Windows updates, game patches, and more; all of which have an impact on performance figures. Furthermore, we update our test bench to newer and more relevant hardware. This means that our new reviews aren’t always comparable to those of older reviews, so please compare the testing methodology on older reviews should you be trying to compare them with newer ones. Replicate Our Results When it comes to our benchmarks in our reviews, the benchmarks are pretty self-explanatory and kept as simple as possible, although there are a few exceptions. Remember that your choice of a graphics card, CPU, the silicon lottery, and other factors can yield different numbers, and there’s always a margin for error when using any software. Links are provided below, as well as the settings we use. We encourage you to not just look at how one product compares to any other, but how it compares to your own. If you’re looking to build a new system, you should benchmark your current PC using the benchmarks available to you. You should then look at the percentage improvement from your current hardware to the hardware tested here to give you a ballpark figure of how much of an upgrade this will provide you with. Graphics Card Test System MotherboardASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero (Wi-Fi) BIOS 3904ProcessorAMD Ryzen 9 5900XRAM2x16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 3600MHzCPU CoolerNoctua NH-D15SPower SupplyCorsair HX750StorageFirecuda 520 2TBChassisOpen BenchtableMonitorAOC G2868PQUOSWindows 10 Pro Build 19041 Additional Hardware Killawatt style electricity usage meter wall plugPrecision Gold N05CC Decibel meter Gaming To gauge performance levels which are easily reproduced time after time, by both ourselves and our readers, we now stick strictly to games default profiles. Given how powerful most modern cards are getting, we've began using more demanding profiles for most games, but will otherwise state on a per game basis if we use other profiles beyond High, Ultra, Maximum or their respective equivalent at all resolutions. V-Sync is always disabled in our testing, as are FreeSync and G-Sync technologies or similar. We also exclude brand exclusive texts in tests that compare AMD/NVIDIA, such as DLSS only testing as that's a one sided battle. Graphics card power usage is set to optimised or balanced, and the system power mode is set to High Performance within Windows and the available GPU driver software. Identical settings are used for all resolutions unless otherwise stated. Games Assassin's Creed ValhallaBorderlands 3Dirt 5Forza Horizon 5GodfallHorizon Zero DawnMetro Exodus Enhanced EditionShadow of the Tomb RaiderWatch Dogs Legion Resolutions 1080p (Full HD)1440p (2K)2160p (4K)4320p (8K) Some tests will also include features such as NVIDIA DLSS and Ray Tracing. However, these will be clearly labelled and may only appear in reviews for graphics cards that support those features. 8K testing will only appear in reviews of flagship cards that we consider capable. Software Used 3DMark Fire Strike (download)FireStrikeFireStrike UltraPort Royal DXRTimeSpyTimeSpy ExtremeHWMonitor (download)GPU-Z (download)MSI Afterburner (download) Noise Everyone has a reasonable noise level preference when it comes to components on a computer. Some can handle all fans at 100% load to keep temperatures down; some want an entirely silent computer. To accurately gauge the noise output of a graphics card, we position a Precision Gold N05CC one meter above our open-air test bench and take an average reading at idle and load. Power Consumption We take power readings during the idle state with no background applications running. Then again at 50% completion of the Unigine Superposition benchmark, using the average as the final published result. Temperatures We take temperature readings after 10 minutes of desktop idle with no background programs running, then take the recorded maximum delivered from Unigine Superposition after a 4K optimised run, confirming the numbers are accurate with HWMonitor. Furthermore, the ambient temperature is always kept +/- 1c from 21c. 3DMark Firestrike 3DMark tests your system's GPU and CPU performance by rendering extremely demanding game-like scenes in real-time. The faster the benchmark runs, the better your score. Now your quest begins. What can you do to get a better score? 3DMark is available on Steam here. 3DMark Firestrike Firestrike is a benchmark designed to test the DirectX 11 performance of a system, typically at 1920x1080 resolutions and is a good performance test for low-to-mid performance hardware. In Firestrike, we can see the MSI RTX 3050 taking the lead ahead of it's fellow RTX 3050 cards with its graphics score, but dipping below the previous generations GTX 16 series of cards. 3DMark Firestrike Ultra This is a much more demanding test that focuses on DirectX 11 performance at 4K resolution and is generally better suited to high-end hardware. Our results do change when we move to Firestrike Ultra, where the GTX 16 series cards all fall behind, but compared to the other RTX 3050s, the results are very much the same, only trading blows with the Gigabyte RTX 3050, which saw slightly higher overall scores. 3DMark Firestrike Ultra Graphics Score 3DMark Timespy Time Spy is a DirectX 12 benchmark test for gaming PCs running Windows 10 and above only. With its pure DirectX 12 engine, built from the ground up to support the latest API features like asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading, Time Spy is the ideal benchmark for testing the DirectX 12 performance of modern graphics cards and is typically a good benchmark for mid-to-high-end hardware. Furthermore, Timespy Extreme is designed for 4K performance testing. 3DMark is available on Steam here. 3DMark Timespy In Time spy we saw similar results to in Firestrike, sitting above some other RTX 3050s but below older cards like the RTX 2060 and the GTX 1660 Ti. 3DMark Timespy Extreme Compared to Firestrike Ultra, Time Spy Extreme has the GTX 16 series cards above all of the RTX 3050 cards that we tested, and it also fell far behind the lower specced RTX 2060 from last generation. 3DMark Port Royal 3DMark Port Royal 3DMark Port Royal is the world’s first real-time ray tracing benchmark for gamers. It shows you how well your PC handles ray tracing effects in real-time. Use Port Royal to benchmark graphics cards that support Microsoft DirectX Raytracing. 3DMark Port Royal was developed with input from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and other leading technology companies. 3DMark is available on Steam here. Once more, we can see the MSI card on top of the pack of 3050s, but below the 2060 from the last generation. But it also falls behind the RX 6600 in this ray tracing benchmark, though the RX 6600 does come in with a higher price. Unigine Superposition A lone professor performs dangerous experiments in an abandoned classroom, day in and day out. Obsessed with inventions and discoveries beyond the wildest dreams, he strives to prove his ideas. Once you come to this place in the early morning, you would not meet him there. The eerie thing is a loud bang from the laboratory heard a few moments ago. What was that? You have the only chance to cast some light upon this incident by going deeply into the matter of quantum theory: a thorough visual inspection of the professor's records and instruments will help to lift the veil on the mystery. Extreme performance and stability test for PC hardware: video card, power supply, cooling system. Check your rig in stock and overclocking modes with real-life load! Also includes an interactive experience in a beautiful, detailed environment. Superposition is available from Unigine here. Our results for this card are as we were expecting, sitting nicely alongside the other RTX 3050 cards that we tested; the card remains near the top of the other cards, but below older, lower specced cards. Assassin's Creed Valhalla is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the twelfth major instalment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Principally set in the years 872–878 AD, the game recounts a fictional story during the Viking expansions into the British Isles. Players control Eivor Varinsdottir, a Viking raider who becomes embroiled in the centuries-old conflict between the Assassin Brotherhood, who fight for peace and liberty, and the Templar Order, who desire peace through control. The modern-day portion of the story is set in the 21st century and follows Layla Hassan, an Assassin who relives Eivor's memories so as to find a way to save the Earth from destruction. Available now on UPlay. Assassin's Creed Valhalla Performance In both resolutions, the card is tied with Gigabyte and Palit but still pulls ahead of the other 3050s. In both 1080p and 1440p, you can expect a perfectly playable experience if you don't mind turning down some details and playing at 60FPS. The original shooter-looter returns, packing bazillions of guns and a mayhem-fueled adventure! Blast through new worlds and enemies as one of four new Vault Hunters. Play solo or with friends to take on insane enemies, score loads of loot and save your home from the most ruthless cult leaders in the galaxy. At the hard edge of the galaxy lies a group of planets ruthlessly exploited by militarized corporations. Brimming with loot and violence, this is your home—the Borderlands. Now, a crazed cult known as The Children of the Vault has emerged and is spreading like an interstellar plague. Play solo or co-op as one of four unique Vault Hunters, score loads of loot and save the galaxy from this fanatical threat. Available now on Epic Games Store. Borderlands 3 Performance Borderland 3 fared better than Assassin's Creed, with higher framerates that are more than enough to comfortably play a game even if you do have a higher refresh rate monitor. In 1080p we see the MSI card being the best of the bunch of the 3050 cards and it only loses its first-place title in 1440p by one position to Inno3D, who until now have had results on the lower end of the spectrum. DIRT 5 is a fun, amplified, off-road racing experience created by Codemasters. Blaze a trail on routes across the world, covering gravel, ice, snow and sand, with a roster of cars ranging from rally icons to trucks, to GT heroes. With a star-studded Career, four-player split-screen, innovative online modes, livery editor and more new features, DIRT 5 is the next generation of extreme racing. Available now on Steam. Dirt 5 Performance Dirt 5 saw results somewhere between Assassin's Creed and Borderlands, being perfectly playable at the high preset in both resolutions. It loses some places to its competitors in 1440p, though this may be down to the cooling solutions of the cards. Aperion is on the precipice of ruin. You are the last of the Valorian knights, god-like warriors able to equip Valorplates, legendary armor sets that transform wielders into unstoppable masters of melee combat. Tear through foes as you climb through the elemental realms and challenge the mad god, Macros who awaits you at the top. Ascend in Godfall, the first-of-its-kind, looter-slasher, melee action RPG. Available now on EPIC. Godfall Performance Following the trend seen with the last games, the performance in Godfall is good enough to play in the high preset but could easily be improved by tweaking some settings for yourself. However, comparing the card to what we put it up against, the MSI RTX 3050 saw better results in 1440p than it did in 1080p, with some lower spec and lower price cards beating its score. Experience Aloy’s entire legendary quest to unravel the mysteries of a world ruled by deadly Machines. An outcast from her tribe, the young hunter fights to uncover her past, discover her destiny… and stop a catastrophic threat to the future. Unleash devastating, tactical attacks against unique Machines and rival tribes as you explore an open world teeming with wildlife and danger. Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action role-playing game – and this Complete Edition for PC includes the huge expansion The Frozen Wilds, featuring new lands, skills, weapons and Machines. Available now on Steam. Horizon Zero Dawn Performance The FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p is wider in Horizon Zero Dawn, but it doesn't dip below a playable framerate at any point. In both tests, MSI has the best performing 3050 but ends up below the GTX 1660 Ti in the 1440p test. Horizon Zero Dawn - 1080p Horizon Zero Dawn - 1440p Experience Lara Croft’s defining moment as she becomes the Tomb Raider. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara must master a deadly jungle, overcome terrifying tombs, and persevere through her darkest hour. As she races to save the world from a Maya apocalypse, Lara will ultimately be forged into the Tomb Raider she is destined to be. Available now on Steam. Shadow of the Tomb Raider Performance The FPS difference is similar to Horizon Zero Dawn when it comes to Shadow Of The Tomb Raider, but faring a just little better. This time, however, the 1660 Ti that was previously ahead of the MSI 3050, falls very far back, only beating out one of the other 3050's. Build a resistance from virtually anyone you see as you hack, infiltrate, and fight to take back a near-future London that is facing its downfall. Welcome to the Resistance. Recruit and play as anyone in the city. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set. Hack armed drones, deploy spider-bots and take down enemies using an Augmented Reality Cloak. Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities. Take your recruits online and team up with your friends as you complete missions and challenging endgame content. Available now on UPlay. Watchdogs Legion Performance The difference in FPS for Watch Dogs is smaller than in the previous two titles, but has fallen below the results of other 3050 cards and remains below the RTX 2060. With that said, these frame rates never had the game rendered as "unplayable" Dirt 5 is a simcade racing video game developed and published by Codemasters. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 6 November 2020, for Xbox Series X/S on 10 November, and for PlayStation 5 on 12 November (for North America, Oceania, Japan, and South Korea) and 19 November (for most other regions), and for Stadia on 24 March 2021. It was the last video game released by Codemasters as an independent company before acquired by former rival Electronic Arts on 18 February 2021. Available now on Steam. Dirt 5 Ray Traced Shadows Performance In 1080p, the results in Dirt 5 are slightly impressive to say the least, featuring Ray Tracing and remaining above 60FPS without DLSS is going to be a perfectly good experience. In 1440p the results are slightly lower, but for a game such as this, it's not something that would bother you that much. Forza Horizon 5 is a 2021 racing video game developed by Playground Games and published by Xbox Game Studios. The twelfth main instalment of the Forza series, the game is set in a fictionalised representation of Mexico. It was released on 9 November 2021 for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Available now on Xbox/PC Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing Performance The results in Forza 5 are very impressive, remaining above 60FPS even in 1440p and almost reaching 100FPS at 1080p, this would be an amazing experience. But even with the 2nd generation RT cores on the 30 series of cards, the lack of DLSS in this title sees the whole range of RTX 3050s still beaten by the GTX 1660 Ti in this test. Godfall is an action role-playing game developed by Counterplay Games and published by Gearbox Publishing. The game was released on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 5 on November 12, 2020. The game was also released for the PlayStation 4 on August 10, 2021. Available now on EPIC. Godfall Ray Traced Shadows Performance If you can put up with lower frame rates or a lower resolution, Godfall with Ray Tracing sees good results on the high preset, and adjusting this could see you getting nearer 60FPS at 1440p. The MSI RTX 3050 doesn't find itself on top in this test, faring a little better in 1440p over 1080p but the margin between it and the card below it in the list is very slim. Metro Exodus is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. It is the third instalment in the Metro video game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels, following the events of Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light. It was released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Stadia and in 2020 for Amazon Luna. A Linux and macOS conversion was released in 2021. An enhanced version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows on May 6, 2021, and was later released for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on June 18, 2021. Available now on Epic Game Store. Metro Exodus Ray Tracing & DLSS Performance Metro exodus sees MSI at the top of the 3050s but it still falls below the 2060, which could still be found on the second-hand market. DLSS works its magic in this test, having the results very close to each other going from one resolution to another. Build a resistance from virtually anyone you see as you hack, infiltrate, and fight to take back a near-future London that is facing its downfall. Welcome to the Resistance. Recruit and play as anyone in the city. Everyone you see has a unique backstory, personality, and skill set. Hack armed drones, deploy spider-bots and take down enemies using an Augmented Reality Cloak. Explore a massive urban open world featuring London’s many iconic landmarks and fun side activities. Take your recruits online and team up with your friends as you complete missions and challenging endgame content. Available now on UPlay. Watchdogs Legion Ray Tracing Performance With Ray Tracing enabled in Watch Dogs, the game is only actually seeing usable frame rates at 1080p. 1440p is borderline pointless on this card, seeing it fall to the bottom of almost every test. With DLSS enabled, we did see a slight increase, but still not enough to see good performance and Ray Tracing enabled concurrently. Watch Dogs Legion 1080p Ray Tracing Ultra DLSS Power Consumption The power consumption was very low compared to the other cards we tested, and should be easy to run on a lower powered system, possibly even on as little as a 550-watt power supply. Temperatures Temperatures were very reasonable, sitting above the lower-powered cards but below cards that are similarly specced. Acoustics The noise levels were pretty consistent throughout testing. Whilst looking at the results initially makes it look like it's a loud cooling system, it's upon realising that the results are barely higher than those lower down that you realise that the noise levels are about on par with everything else that we tested. How Much Does It Cost? The RTX 3050 has an MSRP of $249/£239, but this is a custom card with a custom cooler and a factory overclock from MSI so you can expect to pay much more than that for it, if you even can. As we know the situation with graphics card pricing is so dire, that even finding a card anywhere near MSRP or even the marked-up custom card price is very unlikely. Overview The MSI RTX 3050 Gaming X 8G looks and feels great, with middle of the road thermal and gaming performance. Whilst it came out on top of other 3050 cards in most scenarios, it fell behind in more than a few ways. Its performance left something to be desired when you put it up against other cards, like the 3060 that only costs a little more, but sees higher performance in every benchmark we did, but this is no surprise given that it is higher up in the same series of GPUs. What is more surprising is that the RTX 3060 was trading blows with the RTX 2060 from last generation throughout testing. The power consumption of MSIs card was on the lower end of our testing, which shows that it can allow for the usage of a lower-powered PSU and helps make it fit within the "budget" category. Thermal performance was somewhere in the middle of everything we had tested, and wasn't reaching concerning temperatures but also wasn't staying particularly cool. Acoustically it was one of the louder cards we've tested, though admittedly by only around 1dBA. Overall, it performed about as you would expect from an RTX 3050; the cooler was doing its job in keeping the card at reasonable temperatures but wasn't aiding in boosting any performance. Should I Buy One? Assuming that you can get one at the price it's meant to be, I think it'll be a better value for money to either spend less on a less "fancy" RTX 3050 or spend a little more for a better performing RTX 3060. The other option is to grab an RTX 2060 if you can get your hands on one for cheap, possibly even second hand if you are comfortable with it. With that being said if you want to play older games and not newer ones with newer features, you could easily see great performance. This card would also be a very good option if you want to build a budget VR system. So should you buy one? My sensible response to that would be no, not until prices settle down at least, but if you are in need of a card that isn't top of the line and you have the opportunity to get one at a reasonable price, then it might be worth it to you, especially if you want to take advantage of DLSS, Ray Tracing and NVIDIA Reflex, but unless RGB is really important to you, I would suggest going for a different RTX 3050 that sacrifices a tiny bit of performance for a better price tag, though as with prices and the way they are right now, can you really afford to be picky? Probably not!