ASUS GeForce RTX 3050 Dual OC 6GB GDDR6 Black

The ASUS Dual RTX 3050 6GB is a compact, efficient card that sips power at 70W and fits in small cases. Its PassMark score of 9498 puts it in the bottom quarter for gaming performance, and the 6GB VRAM on a 96-bit bus is a real limitation. At USD 240 from Amazon it's a reasonable buy for esports and light gaming, but the CAD 684 top-end price in Canada is absurd. Buy it for small form factor builds and prebuilt upgrades, not for serious gaming.

The PassMark G3D score of 9498 puts this card in the bottom quarter for raster performance, around the 23rd percentile. That's not a typo. This is a card that trades blows with older mid-range GPUs from several generations back. For 1080p gaming, our database scores it at 46.4 out of 100, which means it'll handle esports titles and older AAA games fine, but newer stuff will need DLSS or lowered settings to stay playable. The 2304 CUDA cores and 1537MHz boost clock are respectable on paper, but the 96-bit memory bus is the bottleneck. 192 GB/s of bandwidth just isn't enough to feed those cores in modern titles.

The ray tracing story is even more sobering. The 28th percentile RT ranking means you can technically enable ray tracing, but you probably shouldn't. The 16 RT cores are second-gen Ampere units, but they're starved for memory bandwidth. DLSS helps, and the 64 Tensor cores do their job, but you're looking at 1080p low-to-medium settings with DLSS on performance mode for anything with heavy RT effects. The compute numbers tell the same story: 4.8 TFLOPS of FP32 puts it in the 19th percentile. This is not a card for content creation, AI tinkering, or anything beyond light gaming and desktop use.

The competitive landscape here is awkward because the RTX 3050 6GB sits in a weird no-man's land. The ZOTAC Solid OC and MSI SHADOW cards in our database are RTX 5070-class products, which are in a completely different universe performance-wise. They're also in a completely different price bracket. Comparing them directly is almost unfair, but it highlights the gap: those cards have 10-12GB of VRAM and memory buses that actually feed their cores. The 3050 6GB is playing a different game entirely.

Against the RX 6600 from AMD, which often sells in a similar price range, the 3050 6GB loses on raw raster performance but wins on DLSS support and power efficiency. The RX 6600 has 8GB of VRAM on a 128-bit bus, which gives it a real advantage in texture-heavy games. But if you're in a small case with a weak PSU, the 70W TDP of the 3050 is a genuine advantage. The PNY OC and Gigabyte GAMING OC cards in our database are also higher-tier products, so the real comparison is against used older cards and AMD's budget offerings. The 3050 6GB wins on being new, efficient, and compact, but loses on almost every performance metric that matters for gaming.

Here's where things get interesting. The US pricing spread is USD 240 to USD 281 across three listings, with Amazon showing the best deal at the low end. That's a USD 41 gap for the same card, which is worth shopping around for. In Canada, the spread is wild: CAD 323 to CAD 684 across eight listings. That's a CAD 361 difference, and if you're paying anywhere near the top of that range, you're getting fleeced. Best Buy Canada has the best CAD price at CAD 323.

At USD 240, this card makes a certain kind of sense. It's new, it has a warranty, it sips power, and it'll play esports titles at high refresh rates. At USD 281, you're getting into territory where used RTX 3060s and RX 6600s start looking tempting, and those cards absolutely demolish this one in performance. The affordability ranking at the 83rd percentile reflects the low entry price, but value is about more than just being cheap. You're paying for the form factor, the efficiency, and the warranty, not for raw performance.

The ASUS Dual RTX 3050 6GB is one of those cards that makes you do a double take. It's a 3050, sure, but it's not the 8GB version you might remember from a few years back. This one got a memory haircut down to 6GB on a 96-bit bus, which sounds rough on paper. But ASUS wrapped it in a compact 201mm dual-fan cooler, kept the power draw at a very reasonable 70W, and priced it for people who just need a working GPU without selling a kidney.

Who's this for? Honestly, it's for the budget builder who wants a new card with a warranty, not a used mining relic from eBay. It's for the person stuffing a small form factor case who needs something that fits without needing a new power supply. The 70W TDP means it can run off slot power in many builds, no extra PCIe cable needed. That's a real selling point for prebuilt upgrades and office PCs that moonlight as light gaming rigs.

What makes it interesting is the tension between the Ampere architecture's features and the cut-down specs. You get ray tracing cores and DLSS support, which is rare at this price point. But the 6GB VRAM and 192 GB/s bandwidth put a hard ceiling on what those features can actually do. It's a card that promises modern features but delivers them at entry-level performance. Whether that trade-off works depends entirely on what you're playing and what you're upgrading from.

Skip this card if you're building a gaming PC for anything beyond esports and older titles. The 6GB VRAM is already a bottleneck in 2025, and the 96-bit memory bus makes it worse. If you want to play Cyberpunk 2077, Alan Wake 2, or any upcoming AAA release at decent settings, this card will frustrate you. Look at a used RTX 3060 12GB, an RX 6600, or save up for something with at least 8GB of VRAM on a 128-bit bus.

Also skip it if you're doing any kind of content creation, AI work, or compute-heavy tasks. The 4.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 64 Tensor cores put it in the bottom fifth of GPUs for these workloads. Video editing, 3D rendering, and local AI inference will all be painfully slow. For those use cases, even a used RTX 3060 or a budget Arc A750 will serve you much better.

If you're building a small form factor PC for esports, light gaming, or as a media center that occasionally plays games, this card is a solid choice. The 70W TDP, compact size, and silent operation make it perfect for that use case. You'll play CS2, Valorant, League, and older AAA titles at 1080p without breaking a sweat. The DLSS support means even some newer titles will be playable if you're willing to drop settings.

But if you're building a gaming PC with any ambition beyond 1080p medium settings, look elsewhere. The 6GB VRAM is already a limitation in 2025, and it's only going to get worse. The 96-bit memory bus is the real killer here. For the same money or slightly more, a used RTX 3060 12GB or RX 6600 will give you dramatically better performance. This card is a niche product for specific builds, not a general-purpose gaming GPU.