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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh: Compact Power for Gamers and Creatives

Analysis of the current GPU for laptops and compact systems in 2025

Architecture and Key Features

Ampere with Elements of Ada Lovelace

The RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh is based on a hybrid architecture that combines Ampere cores (GA107) with optimizations from Ada Lovelace. This allows for energy efficiency while adding support for DLSS 3.5 and improved RT cores. The manufacturing process is on Samsung's 8nm technology, ensuring a balance between cost and heat dissipation.

Technologies for Gaming and Creativity

- RTX (Ray Tracing): 2nd generation hardware ray tracing is 30% faster than that of the original RTX 3050.

- DLSS 3.5: Artificial intelligence boosts FPS through frame reconstruction and improved upscaling. Supports "Quality," "Balanced," and "Performance" modes.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Compatible with AMD's open technology for games without DLSS.

Memory: Speed and Volume

GDDR6 and 6 GB — Compromise for Compact Systems

The card features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory (previously 4 GB) with a 96-bit bus. The bandwidth is 216 GB/s (14 Gbps effective frequency). This is sufficient for Full HD and light tasks in 1440p, but at 4K or when using high-resolution textures, stuttering may occur.

Why Not GDDR6X?

GDDR6X would increase power consumption, which contradicts the Max-Q concept (optimization for thin laptops).

Gaming Performance: Realities of 2025

Full HD (1080p) — Comfort Zone

- Cyberpunk 2077: 45–55 FPS (high settings, DLSS 3.5 in "Balanced" mode), with RT — 30–35 FPS.

- Starfield: 50–60 FPS (medium settings + FSR 2.2).

- Fortnite: 75–90 FPS (epic settings, DLSS enabled).

1440p and 4K — For Undemanding Projects

At Quad HD (2560×1440), the card handles indie games (Hollow Knight: Silksong — 120 FPS) and esports titles (Valorant — 90 FPS). For 4K, older titles are suitable (The Witcher 3 — 40 FPS at medium settings).

Ray Tracing: A Luxury with Caveats

Enabling RT drops FPS by 30–40%, but DLSS 3.5 compensates for losses. For instance, in Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition with RT and DLSS, stable 40 FPS can be achieved at Full HD.

Professional Tasks: Not Just Games

CUDA and NVIDIA Studio

- Video Editing: In Premiere Pro, rendering a 4K clip takes 20% less time compared to the GTX 1650 Ti.

- 3D Modeling: Blender Cycles with OptiX accelerates rendering scenes by 35% compared to OpenCL.

- Machine Learning: Supports TensorFlow/PyTorch via CUDA 12. Suitable for learning projects but not for complex models.

Limitations

6 GB of memory is a bottleneck for working with 8K video or heavy 3D scenes.

Power Consumption and Cooling

TDP 40–60 W: Ideal for Thin Laptops

In Max-Q mode, the card adapts power consumption to the cooling system. At least two fans and heat pipes are required for stable operation in a laptop.

Recommendations for Mini-ITX Builds

- Cases with ventilation (e.g., Cooler Master NR200).

- Power supply of at least 450 W (even with headroom for a mid-range processor).

Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 6600S (100–120 W):

- Pros: 8 GB GDDR6, better performance at 1440p.

- Cons: Weaker in RT, no equivalent of DLSS 3.5.

Intel Arc A550M:

- Pros: Cheaper ($230), AV1 support.

- Cons: Drivers are still unstable in older games.

NVIDIA RTX 4050 Max-Q:

- Pros: Higher performance (by 25%), DLSS 3.5.

- Cons: More expensive ($400+).

Practical Tips

Power Supply and Compatibility

- For PCs: 450–500 W (80+ Bronze).

- Check for PCIe 4.0 support — the card is backward compatible with 3.0 but will lose 5–7% performance.

Drivers and Settings

- Use NVIDIA Studio Driver for creative tasks.

- In games, enable DLSS/FSR — it will lower the load on the GPU.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Energy efficiency.

- Support for DLSS 3.5 and RT.

- Affordable price ($270–300).

Cons:

- Only 6 GB of memory.

- Limited for 4K.

Final Verdict: Who is the RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh For?

This graphics card is an ideal choice:

1. For Mobile Gamers: Thin laptops with Full HD screens and sufficient battery life.

2. For Budget PC Builds: Mini-PCs priced at $700–900 capable of running modern games.

3. For Aspiring Creatives: Video editing, 3D modeling without overpaying for professional cards.

If you’re willing to compromise on ultra settings and 4K, the RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh remains one of the best options in its category in 2025.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

July 2022

Model Name

GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh

Generation

GeForce 30 Mobile

Base Clock

622MHz

Boost Clock

990MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x8

Transistors

Unknown

RT Cores

Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

Foundry

Samsung

Process Size

8 nm

Architecture

Ampere

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

6GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

96bit

Memory Clock

1500MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

144.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

31.68 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

63.36 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

4.055 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

63.36 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

4.136 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

2048

L1 Cache

128 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

2MB

TDP

75W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

CUDA

8.6

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.6

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

4.136 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 1060 8 GB GDDR5X

4.287 +3.7%

Tesla K80

4.195 +1.4%

GeForce RTX 3050 Max-Q Refresh

4.136

Radeon Pro 570X

4.039 -2.3%

Arc A530M

3.914 -5.4%