Many people were happy that NVIDIA was releasing a more affordable, entry-level card to aid gamers on a budget when the company announced the RTX 3050.
However, many claimed that purchasing the RTX 2060 from the previous generation was preferable when they released the specifications. True enough, the outcomes were self-evident once the card was made available and testers got their hands on it.
Here are five reasons to save your money and buy the RTX 2060 from the previous generation instead.
Raw Power
The RTX 3050 has a faster base and boost clock speed, clocking in at 1,545 MHz and 1,780 MHz, respectively, according to the specification sheet. Only a 1,365 MHz base clock speed and a 1,680 MHz performance boost are provided by the RTX 2060.
Despite this, the latter still outperforms the former in terms of processing power (TFLOPS). Even with only 6GB of RAM, the base RTX 2060 can process 10.483 TFLOPS in half-precision format. The values rise to 12.902 TFLOPS when boosted. Additionally, it has ray tracing performance of 25.2 TFLOPS.
The RTX 3050, on the other hand, is only capable of 9.098 TFLOPS when boosted and 7.946 TFLOPS when operating in half-precision format. Additionally, its ray tracing performance is only 18.2 TFLOPS. The processing power of the RTX 2060 is 32% higher than the RTX 3050’s. This performance gap rises to 42% when boosted.
Theoretical Performance
While the RTX 3050 only has 49.6 GPixels and 124.1 GTexels, the RTX 2060 can produce 65.52 GPixels and 163.8 GTexels. In comparison to the 3050, the RTX 2060 can render scenes and textures much more quickly.
Additionally, you can see that despite the RTX 3050 having more VRAM, the RTX 2060’s wider bus delivers superior performance. The memory bandwidth of the older GPU is 336 GB/s, while that of the newer GPU is only 224 GB/s. As a result, read/write speeds are increased, which enables the video card to process more data more quickly.
Actual FPS Output
Even though the Nvidia RTX 2060 has a higher theoretical output, it won’t matter if the graphics card can’t convert those higher numbers into actual frames. However, as we can see from the previous result, the older video card continues to perform better than the new one.
The RTX 2060 consistently outperforms previous generations in a number of benchmark results. For instance, it returns 114 fps in lighting tests, 117 fps in reflection tests, 134 fps in rendering tests, and 101 fps in particle system tests.
Only 103, 86.6, 84.5, and 73.4 frames per second were produced by the RTX 3050, respectively. The performance of the previous generation video card is on par, on average, with the most recent entry-level model. And this difference rises to 41% when both cards are overclocked.
Use In Crypto Mining
The RTX 3050 is ideal for mining while also performing better thanks to its 8GB VRAM. This elevates the RTX 3050 above the RTX 2060, which only has 6GB VRAM, making it more appealing for cryptocurrency mining operations.
Due to the RTX 3050’s additional RAM’s ability to reduce the overall computational load needed to mine Bitcoin, miners are more likely to use it as a result. Therefore, you have a higher chance of finding a used RTX 3050 that was used for mining. Therefore, when purchasing a used item, you should determine whether the GPU has been modified for cryptocurrency mining before spending your hard-earned money.
More Port Options
There is only one HDMI 2.1 port and two DisplayPort 1.4a ports available as stock ports for the Nvidia 3050. The RTX 2060, on the other hand, has an additional DVI and a USB-C port.
This gives you more choices, particularly if your monitor is older and only has a DVI plug. You can connect additional devices to its USB-C port in addition to monitors. This will allow you to upgrade an older PC with only USB-A ports to the more recent standard.
Conclusion
The general consensus is that newer is better, but this is not always the case. This is particularly valid for the RTX 3050 and RTX 2060. If you’re upgrading from the GTX 1650 or 1050, the former is a great choice. But the RTX 3050 is actually a downgrade from the RTX 2060 if you already have one.
In early 2023, the RTX 3050 will be Nvidia’s entry-level GPU of the current generation, and the RTX 2060 will be its mid-range GPU of the previous generation. Choose the RTX 3060 instead if you want to keep a similarly potent video card for the current generation.
However, if your budget only allows for an RTX 3050 and you want to jump on the ray tracing train, think about finding a used RTX 2060 with a good track record. While you wait for the mid-range 4000-series GPUs to launch, you’ll get more value from this card.
