ASUS GeForce RTX 5050 Dual 8GB GDDR6 Black

The RTX 5050 is a decent 1080p card at the right price, but the GDDR7 false advertising and BitLocker issues are a bad look. Buy it cheap or don't buy it at all.

The PassMark G3D score of 16,985 puts this card firmly in the middle of the pack for raster performance, right around the 40th percentile. That's fine for 1080p gaming, but don't expect miracles at 1440p. The 8GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus gives you 320 GB/s of bandwidth, which is enough for most modern titles at medium settings. What surprised us is the efficiency story. At 130W TDP, this thing sips power compared to older cards, landing in the 88th percentile for efficiency. The connectivity is also a standout, with three DisplayPort 2.1b outputs and HDMI 2.1b. But the compute and AI numbers are weak, sitting around the 30th percentile. This is not a card for AI workloads or heavy productivity. It's a gaming card for people who don't want to think about their power bill.

The RTX 5050 sits in an awkward spot. The ZOTAC SOLID SFF OC and MSI GAMING TRIO are both RTX 5070-class cards that will absolutely crush this thing in raw performance, but they cost more. On the AMD side, the XFX Mercury RX-9070 and Gigabyte Gaming RX-9070 XT both offer 16GB of VRAM, which is double what you get here. If you're serious about 1440p gaming or want any kind of future-proofing, those AMD cards are the smarter buy. The Sapphire PULSE is another 16GB option worth considering. The RTX 5050 only makes sense if you're strictly a 1080p gamer on a tight budget and you find it at the low end of the price range.

The price spread on this card is wild. In the US, you're looking at USD 310 to USD 510 across four listings. That's a USD 200 gap for the exact same GPU. If you can snag it near USD 310, it's a reasonable budget pick. At USD 510, you're dangerously close to better cards with more VRAM. The CAD market is even worse, ranging from CAD 418 to CAD 990. That's a CAD 572 spread, which is frankly absurd. Shop around. Don't pay the premium.

The ASUS Dual RTX 5050 is a budget card that gets the basics right but stumbles on trust. It's a compact 203mm dual-fan card with 8GB of GDDR6, a 130W TDP, and enough grunt for 1080p gaming on balanced settings. But here's the thing: some listings claimed GDDR7 memory when it's actually GDDR6. That's not a typo, that's a problem. If you can find it at the low end of the price range, it's a decent entry point. If you're paying anywhere near the top, you're getting fleeced.

If you're planning to game at 1440p or want a card that'll still feel good in two years, this isn't it. The 8GB of VRAM is already a bottleneck in newer titles. Go grab a 16GB card like the XFX Mercury RX-9070 or the Gigabyte Gaming RX-9070 XT instead. And if you use BitLocker on your system, steer clear until ASUS sorts out the lockup issues.

The ASUS Dual RTX 5050 is a competent 1080p card that's held back by 8GB of VRAM and some serious trust issues. The false advertising around GDDR7 memory and the BitLocker lockup reports are hard to ignore. If you can find it for around USD 310, it's a reasonable entry-level pick for casual gamers. But at anything above that, you're better off saving a bit more for a 16GB card from AMD or stepping up to a 5070-class GPU. This card is fine, but it's not a deal worth chasing.