GeForce RTX 3050 vs RTX 2080

We compared two discrete desktop gaming GPUs: the GeForce RTX 3050 with 20 pipelines and 2560 shaders against the 3 years and 5 months older RTX RTX 2080 that utilizes 46 pipelines and 2944 shaders. Here you will find complete details about specs, efficiency, performance tests, and more.

Review

General comparison of performance in games, applications, power efficiency, and other metrics
Gaming
Performance in DirectX, OpenCL, and Vulkan games
Workstation
Perf. in 3D modeling, video editing and rendering apps
AI/ML
Capabilities for machine learning and AI-related tasks
Energy Efficiency
Power consumption efficiency in different scenarios
NanoReview Final Score
Overall video card score

Value for money (Beta)

We use average GPU prices from all manufacturers by default. Enter the current price of a specific card for better accuracy.
Currency
8 GB GDDR6
VS
8 GB GDDR6
47.6
(Average)
Value Index
20.0
(Mediocre)

Key differences

Key distinctions and advantages of RTX 2080 over RTX 3050
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 3050
  • Manufactured using a more efficient 8 nm process technology
Reasons to consider the GeForce RTX 2080
  • Performs significantly better (up to 72%) in 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite
  • Shows 71% higher average frame rate in modern games at QHD resolution – 72 vs 42 FPS
  • Features 288 more tensor cores for effective ML and AI workloads
  • Has 2x higher memory bandwidth: 448 vs 224 GB/s
  • Achieves 77% more points in the GeekBench 6 Compute test (118K vs 67K)

Gaming Performance

Frame rate comparison across popular AAA titles at different resolutions

Games

FPS Table
Forza Horizon 5
92
53
43
26
127
80
71
48
The Witcher 3
90
70
49
24
144
117
87
47
Counter-Strike 2
139
101
72
31
213
162
116
62
Far Cry 6
76
66
49
25
112
97
76
43
Hogwarts Legacy
49
38
30
13
80
65
52
25
CoD: Modern Warfare III
59
49
35
22
97
91
67
42
Ghost of Tsushima
46
35
28
15
78
63
46
27
Cyberpunk 2077
48
45
26
11
86
78
47
21
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
80
73
49
25
129
122
89
45
Average FPS by Resolution
1080p High 75 118
1080p Ultra 59 97
1440p Ultra 42 72
4K Ultra 21 40
Margin of Error Low Low

Benchmarks

Graphics cards’ performance in recent benchmarking apps

3D Mark

Multiplatform graphics benchmark suite that directly correlates with performance in modern games
Steel Nomad Lite Score
6348
RTX 2080 +72%
10924
Time Spy 6235 11077
Solar Bay 30191 49851
Port Royal 3546 6460
Fire Strike 15967 27672
Wild Life Extreme 12795 22307
Night Raid 74854 100912
Sources: 3DMark [1], [2]

GeekBench 6 OpenCL

GPU test for computational tasks (image processing, photography, computer vision, and ML)
GB6 Compute Score
67028
RTX 2080 +77%
118637
Background Blur 110.4 img/sec 191.8 img/sec
Face Detection 64.4 img/sec 115.9 img/sec
Horizon Detection 2.87 Gpixels/sec 4.74 Gpixels/sec
Edge Detection 3.76 Gpixels/sec 6.2 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian Blur 2.89 Gpixels/sec 6.56 Gpixels/sec
Feature Matching 0.81 Gpixels/sec 1.3 Gpixels/sec
Stereo Matching 270.9 Gpixels/sec 499.7 Gpixels/sec
Particle Physics 9339.7 FPS 15858.8 FPS
API OpenCL OpenCL
Sources: Geekbench [3], [4]

Cinebench 2024 GPU

Hardware benchmark using Maxon's Cinema 4D rendering engine
Cinebench 2024 GPU
4722
RTX 2080 +40%
6593

Passmark Graphics

Videocard test that focuses on compute shaders, multi-texturing, tessellation, and other features
G3D Mark Score
12471
RTX 2080 +49%
18572
G2D Mark 916 897
DirectX 11 90 FPS 160 FPS
DirectX 12 59 FPS 71 FPS
GPU Compute 6415 Ops/s 7719 Ops/s
Sources: PassMark [5], [6] – 9379 & 11900 samples

Blender

Rendering performance test for 3D modeling
Blender GPU
1462.18
RTX 2080 +59%
2331.85
Sources: Blender [9], [10] – 1092 & 535 samples

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
GeForce RTX 3050
DateBenchmarkResult
📘 2026-04-21 -> DmitryDmitryCinebench 20244722
📘 2026-04-21 -> DmitryDmitrySteel Nomad Light6237
GeForce RTX 2080
No benchmark results yet

Artificial Intelligence Tests

Performance in machine learning and artificial intelligence tasks

GeekBench 6 ML

Tests throughput of AI operations in single, half, and quantized precision
GB6 ML Single Precision
11848
RTX 2080 +45%
17223
GB6 ML Half Precision
21368
RTX 2080 +34%
28694
GB6 ML Quantized
7905
RTX 2080 +47%
11608
Image Classification (SP) 4958 7122
Image Segmentation (HP) 12747 17897
Image Super Resolution (Q) 9816 16120
Face Detection (HP) 22467 34245
Pose Estimation (Q) 41362 69601
Text Classification (SP) 2563 2181
Machine Translation (HP) 3721 4328
Object Detection (SP) 5929 8748
Depth Estimation (Q) 18361 28373
Style Transfer (SP) 84665 154510
Framework ONNX ONNX
Backend DirectML DirectML
Sources: Geekbench [9], [10]

Specifications

Technical specifications of GeForce RTX 3050 and RTX 2080

General

Vendor Nvidia Nvidia
Build Discrete Discrete
Released January 27, 2022 September 20, 2018
Launch price (MSRP) $249 $699
Case Desktop Desktop
Purpose Gaming Gaming
Segment Entry-level High-end
Architecture Ampere Turing
GPU Codename GA106 TU104
Successor - - GeForce RTX 5080
Recommended CPU - Intel Core i5 12400 or above - AMD Ryzen 9 9900X or above
Desktop GPU rating (71st and 51st place)

Graphics Processing Unit

Base Clock 1552 MHz 1515 MHz
Boost Clock 1777 MHz 1710 MHz
Shading Units 2560 2944
Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) 80 184
Render Output Units (ROPs) 32 64
Compute Units (Pipelines) 20 46
Tensor Cores 80 368
Ray-tracing Cores 20 46
L1 Cache 128KB per cluster 64KB per cluster
L2 Cache 2MB shared 4MB shared
Instructions Per Cycle 2 IPC 2 IPC

Raw Performance

Pixel Fill Rate 57 GPixel/s 109 GPixel/s
Texture Fill Rate 142 GTexel/s 315 GTexel/s
FLOPS (FP32)
9.1 TFLOPS
RTX 2080 +11%
10.1 TFLOPS

Physical

Interface PCIe 4.0 x8 PCIe 3.0 x16
TGP 130 W 215 W
Manufacturing Samsung TSMC
Fabrication Process 8 nm 12 nm
Die Size 276 mm² 545 mm²
Transistor Count 12 billion 13 billion
Transistor Density 43.48 MTr/mm² 23.85 MTr/mm²

Memory

Memory Type GDDR6 GDDR6
Memory Size 8 GB 8 GB
Memory Clock 1750 MHz 1750 MHz
Effective Memory Speed 14000 Mbps 14000 Mbps
Bus 128-bit 256-bit
ECC No No
Memory Bandwidth
224 GB/s
RTX 2080 +100%
448 GB/s

API

DirectX 12 12
Vulkan 1.3 1.3
OpenGL 4.6 4.6
OpenCL 3.0 3.0
CUDA 8.6 7.5
Ray Tracing Yes Yes
DLSS DLSS 2 DLSS 2
DisplayPort 1.4a 1.4a

Cast your vote

Choose between two graphics cards
8 (40%)
12 (60%)
Total votes: 20

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