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The Nvidia RTX 3050 and 2050 gaming laptops are some of the best budget options. Both of them are outdated now and have been replaced by the RTX 4050 GPU. However, lucrative discounts and continued availability make the older variants quite popular among budget gamers even today. You can easily score laptops with such graphics processors for less than $500.
While the 3050 is supposed to be faster than the 2050, given their naming schemes, the laptop GPUs are much closer than it seems. Both processors are based on the same Ada Lovelace architecture, despite other 20-series GPUs being Turing-based designs.
This makes the RTX 3050 vs RTX 2050 laptoP GPU comparison quite interesting. Let's find out which is the better deal.
The RTX 2050 and RTX 3050 gaming laptops are quite similar in terms of what they deliver
Both RTX 2050 and 3050 gaming laptops are available for pretty cheap these days. We spotted a deal on an HP Victus 16 with the 2050 for just $499 at Best Buy. RTX 3050-powered variants are a bit costlier. The best price we found was $649 on a Lenovo LOQ 16.
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Specs comparison
In terms of on-paper specs, the RTX 2050 and RTX 3050 laptop GPUs are pretty close to each other. Both are powered by the Ampere-based GA107 graphics processor. It packs 2,048 CUDA cores on each, meaning rasterization performance won't be much different.
Moreover, both chips pair the same 64 Tensor cores and 4 GB GDDR6 VRAM. You can expect similar upscaling performance and some games might run at the same framerates.
The biggest downgrade of the 2050 laptop GPU is in the RT core count. While the 3050 GPU packs 32 RT cores, the 2050 bundles just 16. This makes the cheaper variant significantly weaker in ray tracing performance. Given its lower price tag, Nvidia is simply targeting gamers who want playable performance at 1080p without all the bells and whistles.
Performance comparison
The specs indicate that the gaming performance of the RTX 2050 and 3050 gaming laptops won't be much different. In practice, this holds. In terms of raw rasterization performance, the costlier 3050 can deliver 5%-10% extra performance in most video games.
Below is a detailed comparison of framerates achieved by the two GPUs in some of the latest video games. The numbers have been sourced from the YouTube channel PC Support & Gaming Test.
Nvidia RTX 2050 vs RTX 3050 laptops: Final verdict
Both the RTX 2050 and 3050 laptops deliver competitive gaming performance at 1080p. However, the 30-series alternative delivers better ray tracing performance and slightly beats the 2050 thanks to higher power draw ratings.
If you're on a tight budget and want a fully functional 1080p gaming rig, the 2050 is the best option. However, if you're looking for competitive ray tracing, along with smooth framerates in all of the latest games, spending a bit extra on the 3050 will be worth it.
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