Palit RTX 3050 Dual OC 8GB Review

How Much Does It Cost?

Obviously, with the market the way it is right now, I’m expecting a bit of a double-edged sword with stock and prices. Will there be cards at their MSRP on the market? Yes, I fully expect there will be, but I don’t know how many. Will many retailers push the prices up and will scalping be an issue? Yes, I fully expect that too. So while I can give you the expected MSRPs, I of course, cannot guarantee that.

Out of all the cards I’ve reviewed for today’s launch, the EVGA and Zotac cards are meant to be the base MSRP set by Nvidia of $249. However, for some reason the OC version of the Zotac will be another $150 on top of that… bonkers! I don’t have fixed prices for the Palit or the Inno3D, but they’re not the base models or the top models of their respective range, so they’ll be around $20-50 above the MSRP, so likely around $300 overall. However, the largest of the cards, the Gigabyte Gaming OC will be $379, likely due to the significantly bigger cooler.

• Palit RTX 3050 Dual OC 8GB Review – $249-$300
• Inno3D RTX 3050 Twin X2 OC 8GB Review – $249-300
• Gigabyte RTX 3050 Gaming OC 8GB Review – $379
• Zotac RTX 3050 Twin Edge 8GB Review – $249
• EVGA RTX 3050 XC Black 8GB Review – $249

Overview

The latest cards from Nvidia are really hitting the mark today, with some very impressive performance. While all of the cards tested are broadly the same, some did manage to pull a small lead over their rivals. The Palit RTX 3050 Dual OC 8GB is certainly one of the better of the bunch, but then again, it does have a factory overclock that gives it a small edge against a few of its rivals.

However, it’s clear that all the cards are very closely matched, and while one may come out on top in a few games, it could sit at the bottom of the next games performance charts. However, there was rarely more than 2-3 frames difference overall.

What I do like about the Palit is the design, it’s a little bit more unique looking than most and while it’s clear that its still a more budget focused card, I think it would look great in any gaming PC. Given it’s meant to be much cheaper than the next step up, such as the RTX 3060, it’s not a bad looking graphics card at all.

The dual fan cooler is a welcome addition, albeit one that still turned out to be the warmest RTX 3050 we’ve tested, but again, that can also be attributed to its overclocked design. However, it was only 2c warmer than the much larger and more expensive Gigabyte card, which was surprising. It was also quieter than both the Gigabyte and EVGA cards, so you could always tweak the fan curve to turn the tables there.

Nvidia certainly has AMD beaten here for performance, and while AMD do well with their 6500 XT, it’s clear that the RTX 3050 is more powerful. Sure, it’s also more expensive, but clearly paying more gets you more. The 8GB of VRAM means that this card can perfectly game at 1440p resolution with decent settings. Plus, where AMD fell flat for ray tracing, the RTX 3050 works surprisingly well, even more so for games that support DLSS.