United Kingdom
India
Deutschland
France
Canada
España
Belgium
Netherlands
Poland
Sweden
България
Australia
Singapore
Italia
中国
日本[Comparison] NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 (Laptop, 140W) vs GeForce RTX 3060 (Laptop, 140W) – The 3060 is worth considering
NVIDIA’s got that vice grip on the laptop GPU market, and with AMD’s presence being as small as it is (we’re still having trouble finding any laptops with RX 7000-series graphics to test), Team Green is the only viable option for graphics in 2023. Their newest 4000 series covers the whole range from budget to enthusiast. Today we’re highlighting the newest budget gaming GPU, the RTX 4050, by comparing its most powerful 140W variant against the RTX 3060 from last year, also with a 140W power limit, in order to level the playing field and see if its better to hold off on the 40-series and get a better deal with a 30-series GPU.
You can learn more about both GPUs here: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 (140W) / GeForce RTX 3060 (Laptop)
You can check out our Top Laptop Graphics Ranking to see the top-performing GPUs.
Specs table
In terms of specs and features, the RTX 4050 has a substantially shorter memory bus, which lowers the bandwidth. On the other hand, it runs at much higher clock speeds and has a much more compact 4nm architecture, which should make it more efficient. However, the 40-series brings new AI-powered features, like DLSS3 and the new Frame Generation feature. So far it works in a selected few titles, but it’s certainly not as good as running the same game at a native high framerate. For nearly all gamers and even creators, both the 30-series and 40-series will offer plenty of performance.
| RTX 4050 (Laptop, 140W) | RTX 3060 (Laptop, 140W) | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Ada Lovelace | Ampere |
| Lithography | 4 nm | 8 nm |
| Base / Max Frequency | 1605MHz / 2370MHz | 1387MHz / 1702MHz |
| Memory Type | GDDR6-16000MHz | GDDR6-14000MHz |
| Memory capacity | 6GB | 6GB |
| Cores | 2560 | 3840 |
| Power Consumption | 140W | 140W |
| Memory bus | 96-bit | 192-bit |
| Memory bandwidth | 192 GB/sec | 336 GB/sec |
GPU benchmarks
From the synthetic benchmarks that we’ve tested the GPUs, you can see that they are fairly close to each other, albeit the RTX 3060 takes first place in three out of the four tests.
Results are from the 3DMark: Time Spy (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the 3DMark: Wild Life benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| Metro Exodus | Full HD, Low (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Extreme (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 4050 (140W) | 153 fps (+10%) | 75 fps (+1%) | 36 fps |
| GeForce RTX 3060 (140W) | 139 fps | 74 fps | 37 fps (+3%) |
| Borderlands 3 | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Badass (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 4050 (140W) | 133 fps (+23%) | 94 fps (+2%) | 73 fps |
| GeForce RTX 3060 (140W) | 108 fps | 92 fps | 76 fps (+4%) |
| Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| GeForce RTX 4050 (140W) | 115 fps (+2%) | 98 fps (+1%) | 63 fps |
| GeForce RTX 3060 (140W) | 113 fps | 97 fps | 64 fps (+2%) |
Conclusion
While synthetic benchmarks sway more in favor of the RTX 3060, both of these graphics cards offer very similar performance in games, as framerates are super close and almost identical when comparing them at 1080p. Of course, FPS will vary from game to game, so if you want to see even more gameplay of these two GPUs, check out our LaptopMedia Benchmarks channel, which has all the popular graphics cards covered, with gameplay videos in more than 40 of the most popular games, including more both esports games as well as triple-A titles with impressive and immersive visuals. As for prices, laptops with the 40-series have been pretty expensive, so this can show you that you can get similar performance out of last year’s GPUs, which are going on sale very often if not permanently.
