NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB vs AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB | Radeon RX 5500 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 8GB GDDR6 | 8GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 224 GB/s | 224 GB/s |
| Shaders | 2560 | 1408 |
| Boost Clock | 1777 MHz | 1845 MHz |
| TDP | 130W | 130W |
| Architecture | Ampere | RDNA 1.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 1,331 | 1,026 |
| Best Price | $219 | $169 |
| Value Score | 53/100 | 33/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB is the clear winner — it offers both better performance and better value.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB vs AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT: Which Should You Buy?
This is not a close race. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB delivers 38.5 fps at 1440p ultra to the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT's 28.2 fps, a 37% gap. Only pick the slower card if it is dramatically cheaper or you need it for a lower resolution.
You pay a 30% premium for the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB ($219 against $169) to get 37% more frames. The extra performance more than covers the extra cost.
Two things beyond raw speed: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8 GB is 3 years newer (2022 versus 2019), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.