Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB vs RTX 5050 8 GB: Which is best for gaming?

The Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB and RTX 5050 8 GB are some of the top choices in the sub-$250 market. While initially launched at $330, the 3060 is selling for around $200-220 these days. Prices in the used market is even less, often going for $150-170. This makes purchasing an entry-level GPU in 2025 quite difficult: Should you go for the brand new 50-class offering or is the 1older Ampere card a better choice?

In this article, let's break down the two choices and find out which is the best for entry-level gaming.

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The Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB and RTX 5050 8 GB both target the entry-level 1080p gaming market

The RTX 3060 12 GB continues to rank among the most popular GPUs ever made (Image via Nvidia)

The RTX 3060 12 GB and RTX 5050 8 GB are two generations apart. This means the underlying hardware is quite different. While the 30-series GPU is powered by Ampere, the 5050 is a Blackwell card. Per-core performance has significantly improved with the newer generation, allowing better efficiency.

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Specs comparison

A specs comparison doesn't reveal much about what to expect from the GPUs, given that the underlying hardware is so different. Regardless, let's review the specs to get an idea of what to expect.

The 3060 is based on the cut-down GA106 graphics chip. You get 3,584 CUDA cores and 28 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMS). The card has 12 GB GDDR6 VRAM based on a 192-bit memory bus, which gives a 240 GB/s total bandwidth. The 28 RT cores are a couple of generations old, too. As a result, performance at native resolution isn't the best.

The RTX 5050, on the other hand, can be more efficient with its design as it uses the more advanced Blackwell architecture. You get 2,560 CUDA cores, 20 SMs, and 8 GB GDDR6 video memory on a 128-bit bus. As the VRAM on the card has a higher 20 Gbps bandwidth, the total memory bandwidth is 320 GB/s, an upgrade over the 3060.

The improved architecture makes the 5050 a faster card on paper: 13.17 TFLOPs vs 12.7 on the 3060. Here's a side-by-side specs list:

Specification	RTX 3060 12 GB (Ampere)	RTX 5050 8 GB (Blackwell)
CUDA Cores	3,584	2,560
Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs)	28	20
Boost Clock	~1.78 GHz	2.57 GHz
Memory Size & Type	12 GB GDDR6	8 GB GDDR6
Memory Interface Width	192-bit	128-bit
Memory Bandwidth	~240 GB/s	~320 GB/s (20 Gbps × 128-bit)
FP32 Compute (TFLOPs)	~12.7 TFLOPs (10.106 GFLOPS scaled to TFLOPS)	~13.17 TFLOPs
Ray Tracing Cores	28 RT cores	20 RT cores
Tensor Cores (AI)	112 (3rd Gen)	80 (5th Gen)
AI Performance (Tensor TOPS)	~99.5 INT8 TOPS / 199 INT4 TOPS (sparse)	~210 TOPS (sparse) / 421 TOPS (with sparsity)
Architecture	Ampere	Blackwell
PCI Express Interface	PCIe 4.0 ×16	PCIe 5.0 x8
TDP / Power Consumption	~170 W	~130 W
Launch MSRP	$329 USD	$249 USD

The 3060 is the costlier card in theory. However, these days, it is being stocked at $260-299. You can find much better deals in the used market. The 5050, for now, is maintaining its $249 launch MSRP.

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Performance comparison

The RTX 5050 brings solid performance with ray tracing and DLSS 4 support (Image via MSI)

Here's a look at the framerates achieved by either GPU in some of the latest AAA video games. We have sourced these numbers from the YouTube channel Testing Games.

	Nvidia RTX 3060 12 GB	Nvidia RTX 5050 8 GB
Mafia: The Old Country	41 FPS	37 FPS
God of War: Ragnarök	83 FPS	74 FPS
Red Dead Redemption 2	75 FPS	70 FPS
Cyberpunk 2077	55 FPS	49 FPS
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2	50 FPS	42 FPS
Forza Horizon 5	95 FPS	83 FPS
Oblivion Remastered	56 FPS	52 FPS
Ghost of Tsushima	62 FPS	60 FPS
Horizon Forbidden West	67 FPS	58 FPS
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2	43 FPS	40 FPS

On average, the RTX 3060 12 GB commands a 11% lead across all the tested games. It gets a geomean of 62.7 FPS at 1080p compared to the 5050's 56.5 FPS. The largest gains are seen in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 (+19%) and Horizon Forbidden West (+15.5%). The 5050 can't play modern titles at 1080p 60 FPS, which is quite concerning.

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The RTX 3060's additional 4GB of VRAM (12GB vs 8GB) likely contributes to its consistent performance advantage, especially in VRAM-intensive games. 8 GB is too less in 2025, which puts the new RTX 5050 to a shame. It dails to secure a win in even a single game. On top of this, if you turn on DLSS 4 multi-frame generation, the experience is often not the best as the base framerate to multiply from is quite low.

Given the 3060 still gives you some future-proofing, and costs less in the used market, we recommend buying it in 2025.