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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh 4 GB

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh 4 GB: Review and Analysis for 2025

April 2025

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh 4 GB is an updated version of the popular mobile GPU, aimed at balancing performance, energy efficiency, and affordability. In 2025, it remains relevant for budget gaming laptops and workstations. Let's explore what makes it stand out in the current market and who it is suitable for.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Revised Ampere Architecture:

The card is based on an enhanced version of the Ampere architecture, which continues to be used in the budget segment in 2025. The manufacturing process is 6nm from TSMC, ensuring optimized energy consumption.

Unique Features:

- RTX (Ray Tracing): Real-time ray tracing support, but with a limited number of RT cores (2nd generation).

- DLSS 3.5: NVIDIA's artificial intelligence improves gaming performance through upscaling and frame generation.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Compatibility with AMD's technology for additional FPS boosts in games that do not support DLSS.

NVIDIA Technologies:

- Reflex: Reduces latency in esports games.

- Broadcast: Enhances streaming video through AI filters.

2. Memory: Type, Volume, and Bandwidth

GDDR6 4 GB:

The memory volume is the card's weak point in 2025. Modern games at ultra settings in 1080p often require 6-8 GB, leading to FPS drops in titles like Alan Wake 2 or Horizon Forbidden West.

128-bit Bus and Bandwidth:

Memory frequency is 14 Gbps, resulting in a bandwidth of 224 GB/s. This is sufficient for most tasks at 1080p, but high-resolution texture usage may cause stutters.

Recommendations:

- For gaming: choose "High" graphics settings instead of "Ultra," and disable unnecessary effects.

- For work: 4 GB is adequate for editing 1080p video, but 4K footage or complex 3D scenes can cause difficulties.

3. Gaming Performance

1080p — Primary Niche:

- Cyberpunk 2077 (no RT): 45-55 FPS at high settings. With DLSS 3.5 — up to 65 FPS.

- Fortnite (with RT and DLSS): 60-70 FPS.

- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare V: 70-80 FPS at medium settings.

1440p and 4K:

- At 1440p, FPS drops by 30-40%, but with DLSS/FSR, you can achieve 50-60 FPS in less demanding titles (Apex Legends, Valorant).

- 4K is not recommended — even with upscaling, lag occurs due to a lack of VRAM.

Ray Tracing:

Activating RT reduces FPS by 25-35%, but DLSS 3.5 partially compensates for the losses. In well-optimized games (e.g., Minecraft RTX), a smooth performance at 40-50 FPS can be achieved.

4. Professional Tasks

Video Editing:

- CUDA support accelerates rendering in DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro. Rendering a 10-minute 1080p video takes about 8-10 minutes.

- 4K editing is possible, but with limitations: using proxy files is recommended.

3D Modeling:

- In Blender and Maya, the card handles simple scenes well, but complex projects (such as those with 10+ million polygons) require more powerful solutions.

Scientific Calculations:

- CUDA/OpenCL support is useful for basic-level machine learning, but 4 GB of memory limits dataset sizes.

5. Power Consumption and Thermal Management

TDP 60-75 Watts:

The card is optimized for thin laptops. The average temperature under load is 75-85°C.

Cooling Recommendations:

- Use cooling pads with fans.

- Regularly clean the system of dust.

- In driver settings, cap FPS in less demanding games to reduce load.

6. Comparison with Competitors

AMD Radeon RX 6600M (8 GB):

- Pros: More VRAM, better performance in 1440p.

- Cons: Weaker in RT, lacks a DLSS 3.5 equivalent. Price: $700-$800 (laptops).

Intel Arc A550M (8 GB):

- Pros: Good performance in DX12 games, supports XeSS.

- Cons: Drivers are less stable. Price: $650-$750.

Conclusion: The RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh wins on DLSS and energy efficiency, but it falls short in memory volume.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply:

- A 120-150 W power supply is required for a laptop with this card.

Compatibility:

- PCIe 4.0 x8, but also works on PCIe 3.0 without noticeable losses.

Drivers:

- Update via GeForce Experience — NVIDIA regularly releases optimizations for new games.

- For professional tasks, use Studio Drivers.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Supports DLSS 3.5 and RT.

- Low power consumption.

- Affordable laptop prices ($800-$1000).

Cons:

- Only 4 GB of VRAM.

- Limited performance in 1440p/4K.

9. Final Conclusion: Who is the RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh For?

This graphics card is an ideal choice for:

- Gamers playing at 1080p on high/medium settings.

- Students and freelancers needing a laptop for work and moderate creativity.

- Fans of NVIDIA technologies who appreciate DLSS and RT.

If you're not willing to settle for 4 GB of memory, consider models with RTX 3060 (6 GB) or AMD RX 7600M (8 GB). However, for its price, the RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh remains one of the best options in 2025.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

July 2022

Model Name

GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh 4 GB

Generation

GeForce 30 Mobile

Base Clock

652MHz

Boost Clock

1207MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 4.0 x8

Transistors

8,700 million

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

4GB

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.

128bit

Memory Clock

1750MHz

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.

224.0 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.

38.62 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.

96.56 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.

6.180 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.

96.56 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.

6.304 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.

2560

L1 Cache

128 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

2MB

TDP

45W

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

6.7

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

6.304 TFLOPS

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile

6.873 +9%

GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile Refresh

6.571 +4.2%

GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile Refresh 4 GB

6.304

Radeon RX 580G

6.006 -4.7%

Radeon R9 390X

5.796 -8.1%