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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB vs GeForce RTX 5050 — Specs & Performance Compared

Verdict: The GeForce RTX 5050 is ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB on all 8 shared benchmarks on file, by 2% to 25%, including 14% in 3DMark Time Spy (9,954 vs 8,747). On llama3.2:1b, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB generates 211.9 tokens/s (per TyoLab) against 93.8 for the GeForce RTX 5050 (per llama.cpp GitHub Discussions), best community run on file for each.

Side-by-side GPU comparison of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB and the GeForce RTX 5050. Specs, synthetic benchmarks, AI inference tok/s, and Amazon availability below; each column header links to that part's benchmark page.

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*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Price and availability subject to change.

Where to buy

A listing for each part; the current price and stock are on the retailer's page.

Specs side-by-side

SpecNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GBGeForce RTX 5050
vram gb 128
vram type GDDR6—
tdp w 170—
cuda cores 3584—

Synthetic benchmarks

Each row says whether a higher or a lower number is better (ranks and times are lower-is-better). Scores come from Tweaktown, 3DMark, Overclocking.com, Legit Reviews, Wccftech, Gizbot, Club386, Notebookcheck and TechPowerUp; each row links its sources, and where they differ the cell shows their median. Empty cells mean we don't yet have that benchmark on file for the SKU.

BenchmarkNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GBGeForce RTX 5050
3DMark Fire Strike (higher is better)
Source: Tweaktown, 3DMark		 21,653 points27,162 points
3DMark Port Royal (higher is better)
Source: Tweaktown, Overclocking.com, Legit Reviews, 3DMark, Wccftech		 5,074 points6,128 points
3DMark Solar Bay (higher is better)
Source: Gizbot		 —45,781 points
3DMark Speed Way (higher is better)
Source: Tweaktown, Club386, Overclocking.com, 3DMark, Notebookcheck		 2,192 points2,454 points
3DMark Steel Nomad (higher is better)
Source: Tweaktown, Club386, Overclocking.com, 3DMark, Notebookcheck		 1,976 points2,287 points
3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 Graphics Score (higher is better)
Source: 3DMark		 —2,323 points
3DMark Steel Nomad Light (higher is better)
Source: Notebookcheck		 —10,057 points
3DMark Time Spy (higher is better)
Source: Tweaktown, 3DMark, Gizbot, Notebookcheck		 8,747 points9,954 points
3DMark Time Spy (overall score) (higher is better)
Source: Legit Reviews		 9,755 points—
3DMark Time Spy GPU (higher is better)
Source: TechPowerUp		 —21,500 pts
Blender (GPU render) (higher is better)
Source: Club386		 —2,846 samples/min
Blender 3.3 Classroom (CUDA) (higher is better)
Source: Club386		 —2,846 points

AI inference (tokens/sec)

Top community-reported tokens-per-second results for popular LLMs whose weights fit the card's memory, each linked to its source. See the per-SKU benchmark page for the full set including quantization and prompt length.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB

All NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB AI benchmarks →

GeForce RTX 5050

All GeForce RTX 5050 AI benchmarks →

Quick answers

Which is faster, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB or the GeForce RTX 5050?

The GeForce RTX 5050 is ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB on all 8 shared benchmarks on file, by 2% to 25%, including 14% in 3DMark Time Spy (9,954 vs 8,747).

Which is better for running local LLMs?

On llama3.2:1b, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12 GB generates 211.9 tokens/s (per TyoLab) against 93.8 for the GeForce RTX 5050 (per llama.cpp GitHub Discussions), best community run on file for each.

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