Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC 8GB Review

1. Introduction
2. Everything You Need to Know About Ampere
3. RTX 3050 8GB Tech Specs
4. Detailed Look
5. Test System Specs
6. Benchmarks - Synthetic
7. Benchmarks - 1080p
8. Benchmarks - 1440p
9. Benchmarks - 4K
10. Power Consumption & Temps
11. What's Hot, What's Not
12. Final Thoughts

TweakTown's Rating: 90%

The Bottom Line

Inno3D impresses yet again with its GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card, a monster 1080p 60FPS+ card -- and much more with NVIDIA DLSS enabled -- pushing 120FPS+ in the right games.

Buy at Amazon

Introduction

Inno3D was the third AIB partner with a custom GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card hitting my doorstep, but it arrived in the form of a dual-slot card -- just how a mid-range GPU should be -- in the Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card.

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Diving right into it I'm going to presume you know about the GeForce RTX 3050, this is the third one I've reviewed outside of the EVGA and MSI offerings. Each of them had its own flair, the EVGA with its teeny-tiny mini-ITX form factor and MSI with its huge and slightly more powerful card.

What you've got here with the Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card is a dual-slot card that looks great, has everything you need (or want, or expect) from the Ampere GPU architecture. It's also got 8GB of GDDR6 memory which automatically makes it twice as good (nothing can make the RX 6500 XT a good card) as AMD's limped-out Radeon RX 6500 XT.

• Read more: Inno3D GeForce RTX 3080 Ti X3 OC Dual Slot Review
• Read more: Inno3D GeForce RTX 3080 iCHILL X3 Review
• Read more: Inno3D GeForce RTX 3070 Ti X3 OC Dual Slot Review
• Read more: Inno3D GeForce RTX 3070 iCHILL X3 Review
• Read more: Inno3D GeForce RTX 3060 Ti iCHILL X3 Review

Let's dive right into the review of the Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card.

Everything You Need to Know About Ampere

• HDMI 2.1 - GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs are the first available to feature HDMI 2.1 support with support for 4K@120Hz (4K120). HDMI 2.1 increases total bandwidth over HDMI 2.0b from 18 Gigabits/sec to 48 and adds support for high-dynamic-range (HDR), which provides brighter images with higher contrast, and more vibrant colors with better shadows and highlights.
• AV1 Decode - AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) is an open, royalty-free video coding format developed by AOM (Alliance for Open Media) that provides better compression and quality compared to existing codecs like H.264, HEVC, and VP9, and is being adopted by many of the top video platforms and browsers. AV1 will generally provide 50% bitrate savings over H.264.

RTX 3050 8GB Tech Specs

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Detailed Look

It might be a mid-range card, but the Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card arrives in some great retail packaging. This would stand out on a shelf, if you find it on a shelf and don't find yourself in some Walking Dead-style scenario trying to pick up a new graphics card in a post-apocalyptic society where GPUs are like water or medicine.

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The dual-fan cooler looks great, and keep the card nice and cool -- not only that, but there's not a huge set of RGB lighting on the RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC, either.

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It's just a dual-slot card here, not a chunky 2.5-slot+ card.

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A single 8-pin PCIe power connector is all that's required.

Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

Sabrent sent over their huge Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD, which will be my new Games install SSD inside of my main test bed.

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I've got a new upgrade inside of my GPU test bed before my change to a next-gen test bed, where I will be preparing for NVIDIA's next-gen Ampere graphics cards and AMD's next-gen RDNA 2 graphics cards.

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Sabrent helped out with some new storage for my GPU test beds, sending over a slew of crazy-fast Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs. I've got this installed into my GPU test bed as the new Games Storage drive, since games are so damn big now. Thanks to Sabrent, I've got 2TB of super-fast M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD storage now.

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Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I've recently upgraded my GPU test bed -- at least for now, until AMD's new Ryzen 9 5950X processor is unleashed then the final update for 2020 will happen and we'll be all good for RDNA 2 and future Ampere GPU releases. You can read my article here: TweakTown GPU Test Bed Upgrade for 2021, But Then Zen 3 Was Announced.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike

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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 important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

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3DMark TimeSpy

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

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Benchmarks - 1080p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

1080p 60FPS+ in a Radeon-friendly title like Assassin's Creed: Valhalla on the Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card... not too damn bad at all. We've got performance that rivals AMD's former flagship Radeon RX Vega 64, out of a card that is much smaller, requires far less power, and is virtually silent and chill in comparison.

Benchmarks - 1440p

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

I wouldn't recommend the new GeForce RTX 3050 for 1440p gaming, but with DLSS set to "Performance" mode you will at least see 60FPS in decent titles.

Benchmarks - 4K

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Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

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Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

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Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

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4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts

Nah, the RTX 3050 isn't for 4K gaming.

Power Consumption & Temps

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Inno3D's new custom GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC graphics card runs nice and cool, at just 64-66C under gaming and benchmarking loads. The dual-fan cooler sees the fans spinning at under 50% (1650RPM or so) and GPU power consumption at 90W while the entire board uses around 115-120W.

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

• A great mid-range card: There's nothing more that I need to say here about Inno3D's custom GeForce RTX 3050 that I didn't say about the other RTX 3050s. They're great mid-range cards if you take the price out of the situation.
• 8GB of GDDR6 memory: AMD is new Radeon RX 6500 XT throws 4GB of GDDR6, where in a world of 8GB, 16GB, and even 24GB VRAM on cards, the 8GB of GDDR6 on the GeForce RTX 3050 is very welcomed. You won't be gaming at 1440p or 4K, but it gives you wiggle room for RT and DLSS.
• HDMI 2.1 connectivity, great for HTPC: Another win here is the HDMI 2.1 connectivity over HDMI 2.0 on older-gen cards, as HDMI 2.1 allows a single cable to drive 4K 120Hz (and above) even on the entry-level GeForce RTX 3050. This is great for HTPC users.
• Inno3D's dual-slot cooling design: MSI went really over-the-top with its custom RTX 3050, but I love that Inno3D stuck with a dual-slot cooling design since the card isn't a higher-end RTX 3080+ card.

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• Single 8-pin PCIe power connector: It would be nice to do away with the PCIe power connector, maybe with the Ada Lovelace-powered GeForce RTX 4050 and its PCIe 5.0 connector, then we'll see no PCIe power connector on a 50-series card.
• Entry-level ray tracing + DLSS: This is a serious win for NVIDIA over AMD, and while you wouldn't want to run out and buy the RTX 3050 for ray tracing... DLSS on the other hand, will super-pump your FPS in games that you want over 120FPS. Alternatively, older games can be enjoyed with DLSS set to Quality, with higher fidelity graphics.

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What's Not

There's nothing wrong with the card that's not wrong with the GPU market right now... ugh.

Final Thoughts

Inno3D isn't a brand that you can find anywhere but if you do have it in your country, don't hesitate to check out their products -- and in this case, the new GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC -- which is a dual-slot Ampere GPU beast if you don't mind paying whatever price you've paid for it.

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The custom Inno3D GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC looks great, performs great -- especially if you're playing games with NVIDIA DLSS support -- and doesn't have blingy RGB lighting that has you squinting in the middle of a gaming session.

NVIDIA has built a far better mid-range GPU with the GeForce RTX 3050 than AMD has with the Radeon RX 6500 XT, which uses the Navi 24 GPU and was made for laptops... Inno3D makes good use of the RTX 3050, and there's no over-the-top cooling with some ridiculous 2.5-slot or 2.75-slot design which I think is ridiculous.

If you're in the market for a new graphics card and play games with RT, but more importantly DLSS, then Inno3D's custom GeForce RTX 3050 TWIN X2 OC is a great purchase. This is with the price to the side, as no reviewer can tackle that right now. It's one of my favorite RTX 3050 cards so far.