The Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 is one of the few GPUs that you can actually buy right now for retail or at least close to its retail price. But at $400, this particular Twin Edge OC Edition 3050 graphics card is more expensive than the suggested price for a standard RTX 3050 desktop card. For the extra $150 you essentially get about 2% overclocked performance, hence the name OC edition. So is it worth buying?

Well, the fact that it’s at least available for purchase makes it a pretty good option, to start with. You’ll need to spend at least $400 or even over $500 right now on older GPUs like the RTX 2060s. Other RTX 30-series cards like the RTX 3060 are even more expensive, making the edition Zotac RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC better looking even at $400. When it comes to performance, well, the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition delivers impressive 1080p gaming performance.

I was able to run a variety of demanding AAA titles at 1080p without any major issues. In fact, I even paired a GPU with a relatively low-end CPU by 2022 standards and performance was just as good, if not better. I didn’t expect this GPU to handle most of the games I tested, but my test suite performed well above 60 fps.

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Price and availability

• The Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition GPU is available right now and you can pick it up for around $400.

The Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition is available now and is available to purchase for a suggested retail price of $399. In India, you can buy this graphics card right now for ₹34,999 from various online and offline retail partners. While the suggested MSRP for this GPU is slightly above the $250 launch price for the RTX 3050, you essentially get a factory overclock and a few other features. It’s also worth pointing out that this is one of the few GPUs currently available for purchase, at least as of this writing.

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Characteristics

Before diving into performance analysis, hardware, etc. Here is an overview of the specifications of the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition GPU:

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Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition Review: Design and Hardware

• Two 88 mm fans for good thermal management
• Comes with a back plate to protect the components on the back
• Three DisplayPorts and a single HDMI port

There isn’t much to say about the overall design of this particular Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. It looks a lot like many other Zotac GPUs on the market. You’ll feel right at home if you’ve ever used any of the recent Zotac graphics cards. You get two 88mm fans on this board and they handled the thermal output very well in my testing. There’s also no RGB bling on this variant of the RTX 3050, which I really like. However, you may need to look elsewhere if you prefer having RGB on your PC components.

The Zotac RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition GPU has overall dimensions of 222x115x40mm and weighs around 600g. I’d say it’s slightly larger than many other RTX 3050 graphics cards from other OEMs, but it’s very small and compact. It’s no match for the RTX 3070s and much larger 3080s out there. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, however. Since it has a small form factor, it can easily slip into a variety of PC cases without any clearance issues.

Another thing I wanted to point out about this particular Zotac RTX 3050 GPU is that it comes with a backplate to protect the components on the back. The backplate is missing on many other RTX 3050 variants from other OEMs, so that’s definitely something to consider. I’m sure that adds to the overall weight of this card, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker, even if you have an unreinforced PCIe slot. The Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition uses a single 8-pin PEG connector for power, and it comes with three DisplayPorts and a single HDMI for output.

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Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition Review: Performance

• The Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition easily handles 1080p gaming.
• Supports ray tracing and DLSS.
• Slightly better performance than a GTX 1660 Super.

The Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition, as I mentioned earlier, focuses primarily on 1080p gaming. It basically tries to replace older 16 series graphics cards in the budget space. This OC edition of the RTX 3050 has slightly higher boost clocks at 1807 MHz as opposed to 1777 MHz on the reference RTX 3050. That’s not a huge bump over the standard edition, so it leaves more room for overclocking too if that’s something you’d be interested in exploring with a powerful cooling solution.

Just to touch base with the specs, the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition has 2560 GPU cores, 80 Tensor cores, and 20 RT cores. This GA106 Ampere graphics card is capable of both ray-tracing and DLSS for supported titles. While I’m not betting my money on ray tracing performance, I would say the addition of DLSS support makes this a great graphics card. This is one of the main reasons to recommend any RTX 3050 graphics card over something like the GTX 1660 Super, for example. Here is an overview of the 3DMark scores I was able to achieve with a system using the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition GPU and an Intel Core i7-12700 processor:

Now moving on to the gaming performance section, I’ve ended up running a lot of AAA titles on this graphics card mainly to see how it performs in some of the modern and more demanding titles in 2022. We’re looking at games like Microsoft’s Simulator flight, Far Cry 6 and more. I believe this performance analysis should help you understand the overall performance of the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition.

I added the average. The FPS numbers I was able to record using Nvidia’s FrameView software in the table below. I also added the Avg. FPS recorded using a GTX 1660 Super graphics card to show you how this compares to the older card. The Zotac RTX 3050 was able to easily beat the older GPU with over 60FPS at 1080p. You might not be able to run the maximum settings for most games with this GPU, but you should be able to get over 60fps with a little tweaking.

The ray tracing performance of the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition wasn’t too bad. With the help of DLSS, I was able to get decent RT performance from this GPU in titles like Control, Cyberpunk 2077, etc. However, I don’t recommend setting the RT setting all the way. Medium RT settings with DLSS set to performance mode seems like the sweet spot in many modern titles.

I also tried running a few games at 1440p, but it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. This isn’t much of a surprise as the RTX 3050 is a 1080p card. You can only expect borderline performance at 1440p with this particular graphics card. Your best bet would be to upgrade to an RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 for superior 1440p gaming performance.

Moving on to GPU thermal performance, I was able to record a peak temperature of around 65°C while the GPU was under heavy load. I also noticed the fans running at relatively low RPMs, which is also why this graphics card runs quietly. It’s worth pointing out though that I didn’t add any manual overclocking, so there’s probably more room for this GPU to spread inside the thermal envelope.

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Is it worth buying?

As you can see, the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition is really excellent in terms of overall performance. It doesn’t win any competition, but it works as advertised when it comes to 1080p gaming.

Who should buy the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition?

• Perfect for anyone looking to buy a GPU for casual 1080p gaming.
• GeForce RTX 3050 is a solid option for those upgrading GPUs like GTX 1650 or even GTX 1660 Super.
• If you want a GPU that supports DLSS for better performance

Who shouldn’t buy the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition?

• Don’t buy this GPU for 1440p gaming.
• Also, don’t expect better performance from factory overclocking.

So that pretty much sums up my review of the Zotac GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC Edition. It’s a good option to consider if you want a good 1080p gaming experience, but don’t expect it to go beyond that. You’ll need to upgrade to one of the better 30-series cards for better performance. We suggest you take a look at our collection of the best graphics cards to find some great options.