Gameplay Performance
We have selected a suite of games to test the ZOTAC Gaming GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC at 1080p.
All our selections were set at the maximum in-game graphic settings or custom combinations. We will run the video card with and without Ray Tracing enabled. DLSS and/or FSR are utilized in games that support the technology. Our video card will be compared to the Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 6600.
One can also compare the results to a recent RTX 3050 review using the same game suite here.
F1 2022
F1 2022 was released on June 28th, 2022 on the PC and uses Codemasters Ego engine. The game supports Ray Tracing, DLSS, AMD FidelityFX, and FSR. We ran the game with the highest quality settings of “Ultra High” and TAA+FidelityFX. DLSS and FSR were enabled as needed at the Quality setting for both. The built-in benchmark was used at the Imola track, in dry conditions with a far chasing cam.
Both the ZOTAC RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC and the Sapphire Pulse 6600 performed very well in this game. High frame rates can be seen in the rasterized setting. DLSS adds over 25% increase and FSR adds 37%. Overclocking added about 8% beyond the default performance. The 6600 has a good showing here.
Dying Light 2
Dying Light 2 was released in February 2022 on the PC. It uses Techland’s C-Engine and supports Ray Tracing for various environmental effects including Ray Traced Soft Shadows, Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion, Ray Traced Global Illumination, and Ray Traced Reflections. It also supports both DLSS and FSR upscaling technologies. For our benchmark, we are using a custom manual run-through.
Dying Light 2 is a graphically challenging game. Both our video cards performed well, but once again the Sapphire 6600 was the better of the two. Upscaling with FSR 2.0 added 30%. DLSS was not to be outdone, also adding a 30% increase. Overclocking gained again about 8%.
Forza Horizon 5
Forza Horizon 5 was released on PC in November of 2021. It uses the ForzaTech game engine. For our evaluation, we raise the in-game graphic settings beyond the “Extreme” preset to the maximum game settings. The “Extreme” preset does not actually utilize the highest possible settings. We, therefore, raise the rest of the settings to their highest graphics quality for our testing, this includes: SSAO Quality to Ultra, Reflection Quality to Extreme, SSR Quality to Ultra, and we disable MSAA and use FXAA instead. We also utilize AMD FidelityFX Contrast Adaptive Sharpening (CAS) from the Resolution Scaling option. The built-in benchmark is used for testing.
Here we see a beautiful game with good frame rates. The gameplay is very smooth at these values. The Sapphire 6600 is 15% faster than the ZOTAC Gaming RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC. Overclocking adds 8% frames once again.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry 6 was released in October of 2021 and uses the Dunia Engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and turned on. We utilize the “Ultra” graphics preset which sets all options to the highest game settings. We also test the game’s support of AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1.0 to improve performance on both GPUs.
This game is very graphically busy and yet runs very well on our video cards. The frame rates are quite high and the tropical scenery is beautiful. Once again our ZOTAC Gaming 3050 Twin Edge OC is behind, in this game 20%. With the addition of FSR things are much closer. Overclocking is still in the 6-8% boost range. FSR aided our ZOTAC card by 24% and the Sapphire card by 10%.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 was released in December of 2020 and uses the REDengine 4. We have the game patched to version 1.6 for our testing and perform a long manual run-through driving in the game’s open world. We test using the Preset options for Ultra quality, and for Ray Tracing. The game now has three Ray Tracing modes, Low, Medium, and Ultra. This game also supports DLSS and AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution FSR. We test DLSS Quality on NVIDIA GPUs and FSR Ultra Quality on AMD GPUs.
Cyberpunk 2077 was too much for our two video cards in their standard settings. It is a very graphically intense game, to say the least. The game simply chugged. The Sapphire 6600 was again the better card. When you add FSR to the mix it simply takes off. The ZOTAC Gaming 3050 Twin Edge OC could not keep up. Even with a 30% boost from DLSS it was left in the dark in Night City.
Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs Legion was released on the PC in October of 2020 and uses the Disrupt game engine. We utilize the built-in benchmark for testing. We have the HD Texture pack installed and enabled for testing. We use the built-in graphics preset of “Ultra” for testing. Only DLSS is available in this game as an upscaling option.
Watch Dogs Legion is a demanding game as well. Only the Sapphire Pulse 6600 had a playable frame rate, despite having no help from upscaling. This game was hard on the ZOTAC Gaming 3050 Twin Edge OC. Even with a nearly 20% gain from DLSS the FPS was barely playable. Overclocking showed a 6% gain in performance.
Ray Tracing Performance
In our Ray Tracing run-throughs, we utilize the same game scenarios as the rasterized graphs. All in-game settings are at their highest or customized. Ray Tracing is then enabled as available in the game and appropriate for the video card. DLSS or FSR is as well utilized if available.
F1 2022
In this game we use a custom graphics setup with all 4 Ray Tracing selections turned on.
The frame rates are drastically reduced by Ray Tracing. The game feels choppy. Neither card did well without upscaling, but the ZOTAC GeForce RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC finally prevailed. Not the case however when DLSS/FSR was enabled. Upscaling provides a 30% boost to the Zotac 3050 Twin Edge and over 50% improvement to the Radeon 6600. Overclocking maintains a 6% addition here too.
Dying Light 2
This game is very demanding with Ray Tracing enabled as it is quite graphically intense. Again neither card was worth talking about without help. This game is unplayable. The ZOTAC RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC is the least unplayable of the two. Overclocking shows a 9% gain. With DLSS the overclocked card is playable but does show some texture-loading difficulty. The Radeon 6600 just can’t keep up here but does show a 35% improvement in framerate with FSR.
Far Cry 6
Far Cry uses DXR to enhance shadows and reflections. The game offers only FSR 1.0 to upscale.
Both the video cards did perform well, but the Sapphire Radeon 6600 came out on top. Overclocking our ZOTAC RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC made a noticeable difference without the use of FSR, gaining over 14%. FSR boosted both cards by over 30%. The gameplay was very smooth in FSR and looked quite nice as well. DXR nicely enhances reflection in this game. Without FSR enabled the framerate was noticeably choppy and hesitant, especially the non-overclocked ZOTAC RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk is a beautiful game, but quite demanding, especially with Ray Tracing enabled. So much so that we had to use the lowest Ray Tracing setting available to be able to run the benchmark. Neither video card could give a good showing without upscaling. In fact, even with DLSS or FSR the game was choppy and texture loading made it very difficult to play.
The Sapphire Radeon 6600 edged out the overclocked ZOTAC RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC without help and was 11% better in FSR. Our overclock gain was maintained at 7%.
Watch Dogs Legion
Ray Tracing reflections are used in Watch Dogs Legion on top of very demanding graphics. This was hardly reasonable for either of these video cards. The game was simply like watching a slide show, despite using the lowest Ray Tracing settings. We have discussed this before, but the game has no support for FSR and regardless is not at all optimized for a Radeon video card. So, it’s not a valid comparison in this case.
No matter, the ZOTAC RTX 3050 Twin Edge OC was no match for Ray Tracing.