**Laptop Comparison: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3050 vs 3050 Ti**

In this article, we'll dive into a detailed comparison between two laptops that feature different versions of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3050 and 3050 Ti graphics cards. We'll explore their performance in various games and applications, as well as their thermal and battery life characteristics.

**Performance Comparison**

The first thing to note is that the results of these tests are not necessarily reflective of real-world usage scenarios. Many resource-heavy games weren't running at playable levels at maximum settings, which means these results could be more practical. To provide a more accurate comparison, we'll focus on benchmarks that push both laptops to their limits.

In our testing, both laptops were capped at 80 watts on the GPU, with no dynamic boost. We used the Heaven GPU benchmark at max settings at 1440p for 30 minutes to compare clock speeds between the two GPUs. According to the specs shown at the start of this article, the 3050 is able to clock higher than the 3050 Ti.

**Temperature Results**

One area where we expected to see a significant difference between the two laptops was in terms of temperature. However, our results showed that both laptops were tested at the same time in the same workload and the 3050 was slightly warmer. This small difference might be due to the fact that the 3050 clocks higher or has fewer CUDA cores in a smaller hot spot.

**Battery Life**

When it comes to battery life, we found that the Ti version of the GPU lasted a few minutes longer than the non-Ti model in gaming scenarios. However, this difference is extremely small and likely within margin of error. We also tested content creator workloads using Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve, and while there were some differences, they were not significant enough to make a strong case for the Ti version.

**Open-Source Benchmark**

We used the Open Data benchmark with CUDA to test Blender performance on both laptops. The longer Classroom test was around 8% faster with the Ti version, which is similar to the average difference seen in gaming scenarios despite the Ti having 25% more CUDA cores than the non-Ti model.

**V-Ray Test**

The V-Ray test showed a slightly larger 10% gain with the Ti version. However, given that this is a CUDA-based test, we expected to see bigger differences due to the increased CUDA core count of the Ti version.

**Price Comparison**

When it comes to price, XMG advised us that the 3050 Ti costs about 21% more money compared to the 3050 GPU alone. However, when you factor in the cost of the entire laptop, including the GPU, the difference is much smaller. A 3050 laptop would be about 6% more expensive than a 3050 Ti laptop.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, while there are some differences between the GTX 3050 and 3050 Ti GPUs, they are relatively small and may not justify the increased cost of the higher-end model. The price difference comes down to the specific laptop configuration and your performance target.

That being said, if you're in a situation where the 3050 Ti is say 10% more expensive than the 3050, it could be worth considering the upgraded GPU. At least the price increase somewhat scales with the performance boost offered by the higher-end model.

**Which Laptop GPU Would You Choose?**

Ultimately, the choice between the GTX 3050 and 3050 Ti comes down to your specific needs and budget. If you're looking for a more powerful GPU that can handle demanding games and content creation tasks without breaking the bank, the 3050 might be the better choice.

On the other hand, if you have the budget to spare and want the absolute best performance available, the 3050 Ti is definitely worth considering. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic - would you choose the GTX 3050 or splurge on the 3050 Ti? Let us know in the comments below!

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And if you found this article informative, please check out some of our previous laptop comparison articles when you're done!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enNvidia RTX 3050 and 3050 Ti gaming laptopsare here, but what are the actual differencesin games, and is it worth paying more moneyfor the Ti?I’ve compared both in 15 different gamesat all setting levels as well as thermals,battery life, content creator workloads andmore to show you the differences.These are the differences in specs betweenthese two GPUs.Both have 4 gigs of GDDR6 memory with thesame speed, but the Ti has 25% more CUDA coresand 25% more RT cores.Both have the same power limit range of 35to 80 watts, so performance will vary significantlybased on this, but even with the same powerlimit the Ti doesn’t clock as high as thenon Ti, presumably because the Ti has moreCUDA cores to power.I’m using the Core 17 from XMG to do allof this testing fairly.I've got the exact same Tongfang chassis withthe same specs including CPU and memory, samecooling design, same battery, same everything,the only difference is one has the 3050 whilethe other has the 3050 Ti.Both laptops are able to run the GPU up to80 watts plus 15 watts with dynamic boost,so 95 watts best case on the GPU, but it willdepend on the workload.Unfortunately neither laptop lets us disableoptimus, however that feature usually costsmore money, and given the 3050 is probablygoing to be found in cheaper laptops thatkind of makes sense.That said this should still be a fair comparison,as both of these laptops force optimus, otherwiseboth laptops were tested with the same versionof Windows and same Nvidia drivers, so let’sstart out by comparing 15 different gamesfollowed by things like thermals afterwards.If you get sick of me talking about gamesthen just use those timestamps below.Cyberpunk 2077 was tested with the exact samerun through the game on both laptops.I’ve got the 3050 results shown by the redbars and the 3050 Ti results shown by thepurple bars, along with all setting presetsthe game offers with lowest down the bottomand highest up the top.This game actually saw the biggest differenceout of all 15 titles tested, with the Ti reaching18% higher average FPS at ultra settings.Although both can run ray tracing, even withDLSS enabled the results aren’t too impressivein this game, but as you’ll see soon theTi can offer bigger gains in ray tracing.It’s not all big gains for the Ti though,take Assassin’s Creed Valhalla for instance.This game gets limited harshly by the 4 gigVRAM and as a result ultra high and very highsettings are bottlenecked and scoring thesame unplayable results with either GPU.Even in the best case at low settings theTi is only around 5% faster than the non Ti.Let’s look at Watch Dogs Legion next, becauseit’s a more average result compared to theprevious two extremes.At max settings the Ti was around 9% fasterthan the non Ti, though this only equatesto a less than 3 FPS difference, not reallysomething you’re likely to notice, thoughthe frame rate difference was more than doublethis with lower setting levels.Control was tested with and without ray tracing,let’s start with ray tracing off results.The Ti was just 7% higher in average FPS atmax settings, though this is just 3 FPS.Either GPU was able to run the game at above60 FPS with medium settings.Performance drops back significantly withray tracing enabled, however the Ti was now38% higher in average FPS at max settings,quite a big difference, so it seems like forray tracing the Ti has quite an advantage,but that said these results aren’t reallyplayable so it hardly matters.This is where DLSS comes in, it’s requiredif you want to use ray tracing on either the3050 or 3050 Ti in this game.The Ti still had a massive 22% higher averageFPS at max settings here, even the 1% lowsfrom the Ti were ahead of the averages fromthe non Ti.Red Dead Redemption 2 illustrated anotherexample of where the 4 gigs of VRAM is a limit,neither laptop GPU is able to run ultra settingsbecause there’s not enough.That said, high settings was about 7% fasterwith the Ti, which was only just below that60 FPS sweet spot.The differences in Microsoft Flight Simulatorwere much higher than expected, as I generallyconsider this test to depend more on the processor,however at max settings the Ti was 15% ahead,though again like previously, this is justa 3 to 4 FPS difference so nothing major whenlooking at the actual results compared topercentage values.Death standing only had minor differencesfor the 1% lows, while average FPS was 6%higher at max settings with the Ti, or about5 FPS or so.Call of Duty Warzone on the other hand hadone of the smallest differences at max settings,the Ti was just 5% faster in terms of averageFPS.There was a larger 13% boost at minimum settings,but this game is harder to accurately compareas the results may be skewed by the actionsof other players, the fun of testing battleroyale style games I guess.Fortnite on the other hand was tested usingthe same replay on both laptops, so directlycomparable.The Ti was just 6% ahead of the non Ti atmax settings in this one, but consideringthe frame rates are so close together andstill above 100 FPS from either GPU I doubtthis is a difference you’d be likely tonotice when playing, plus you could alwaysenable dlss for a boost.Metro Exodus had a well above average 16%boost to average FPS at ultra settings, butwe’ve got to be careful of these vanitynumbers, because again it’s less than 4FPS and nothing major, perhaps these framerates aren’t even what you’d want to playat and that’s exactly why I’ve spent theextra time showing the lower settings too.Unlike the big differences we saw in controlwith ray tracing, the ray tracing preset didn’tsee big differences with the Ti.The Witcher 3 also saw above average gainsfor the Ti, reaching 12% higher average FPSat max settings here, slightly under 10 FPSdifference or so, so again perhaps not somethingyou’d really notice in a side by side comparisonbut at least it’s more of a change comparedto some of the other games.Shadow of the Tomb Raider was reaching 9%higher average FPS with the highest settingpreset, but the 3050 non Ti was still easilysurpassing 60 FPS in this test at max settings,perhaps as it’s an older title and we’redealing with modern hardware.While we’re looking at the older games,Battlefield V was reaching 7% higher averageFPS with the Ti at max settings, but againlike a lot of the others, this is just a 3to 4 FPS difference, though the gap widensat lower setting presets.Medium settings for example was 10% fasteron the Ti, granted 1% lows hardly differ.I figured I’d throw in a racing game becausesome people have been asking for that.F1 2020 was similar with an 8% boost to averageFPS with the highest setting preset, thougheither GPU is still easily surpassing 100FPS in this test even maxed out.Rainbow Six Siege was similar again, witha 7% boost to average FPS at max settingson the Ti, but again with such high framerates it’s not like you’re going to struggleplaying with the cheaper non Ti.On average over all 15 games tested at 1080pwith the highest setting preset, the RTX 3050Ti was almost 9% faster than the RTX 3050.As we can clearly see, results could varysignificantly based on the particular game.Worst case there was no change in Assassin’sCreed Valhalla due to a VRAM bottleneck, whileothers like Cyberpunk in the best case had18% gains, though in many cases once we actuallyconsider the differences in FPS it’s oftennot much.Here’s what the differences look like ifwe instead use the minimum setting presetrather than maximum.Generally lower settings are less GPU bound,so the average difference is a little lower,but still close to an 8% boost on averagewith the Ti.Given many of the resource heavy games weren’tnecessarily running at playable levels atmax settings, these results could be morepractical.Now let’s check out thermals and batterylife.The interior of both laptops is the same,same 62Wh battery and the cooling solutionis the same and both have the same i7-11800Hwith same power limits, only the GPU is different.For these upcoming tests I’ve capped bothlaptops to 80 watts on the GPU so there’sno dynamic boost here which was the case previously.These are the clock speeds that were reportedby hardware info by running the Heaven GPUbenchmark at max settings at 1440p for 30minutes, and as per the specs shown at thestart the 3050 is able to clock higher.The temperature results were interesting,both laptops were tested at the same timein the same workload and the 3050 was slightlywarmer.Now it’s only a small difference, but Iwas still going into this expecting the highertier Ti GPU to run warmer.It might be because the 3050 clocks higheror maybe its fewer CUDA cores are in a smallerhot spot, but that’s just speculation.Either way the difference is small and I wouldn’tpick one or the other based on this.I’ve compared battery life in gaming, andthe Ti was actually lasting a few minuteslonger, though it’s an extremely small amountand realistically I’d say within marginof error, again I’d consider them the samehere.I’ve also tested some content creator workloadsto see if there’s any difference comparedto the games just covered.Adobe Premiere was tested with Puget systemsbenchmark, and no real difference here, theGPU hardly seems to matter, the score is morebased on the processor and both laptops havethe same one.I’d expect DaVinci resolve to show a largerdifference on the Ti but unfortunately thePuget test kept failing due to the 4 gigabyteVRAM limit.Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmarkusing CUDA, and the longer Classroom testwas around 8% faster with the Ti here, soquite similar to the average difference seenin the games despite the Ti having 25% moreCUDA cores than the non Ti.The V-Ray test showed a slightly larger 10%gain with the Ti, but again given this isa CUDA test I was expecting to see biggerdifferences owing to the 25% higher CUDA corecount that the Ti offers.Now for price differences, XMG advised methat the 3050 Ti costs about 21% more moneycompared to the 3050, but that’s in thecontext of the GPU alone, which you can’tbuy.When you go to buy a laptop you buy the wholelaptop with the GPU already included.If a 3050 laptop was about $800 in this examplethen a 3050 Ti laptop would be about 6% moremoney, but that’s just going on the rawcost of the GPUs, it’s likely that the OEMwould probably want to take some profit goingto the higher model.It’s worth noting that XMG offers the Core17 with RTX 3060 graphics rather than thetwo 3050 configurations I’ve got here, theyjust provided me with these models so I couldmake this comparison.You can check out the Core 17 with the linksdown in the description.So yeah at the end of the day the 3050 Tiisn’t amazing or anything, and it’s goingto come down to the price difference, butif you’re in a situation where the 3050Ti is say 10% more money compared to the 3050then it could be worth it.At least the price increase somewhat scaleswith the performance boost on offer, but yeahagain it just comes down to the price differenceof the specific laptop as well as your performancetarget.As we saw in many of the games often therewasn’t too much of a difference.Results could also of course vary based onpower limits, I’ve basically tested thebest case 3050 and 3050 Ti here with maximumpower limit.According to the Nvidia spec you can get eitherwith as low as a 35 watt limit, so with alaptop that runs the GPU at 35 watts I wouldexpect significantly lower results comparedto what I’ve shown here.So which of these two laptop GPUs would youpick in your next laptop, the 3050 or wouldyou spend extra for the 3050 Ti?Let me know down in the comments, and getsubscribed for future laptop comparisons likethis one one.Come and join me in Discord and get behindthe scenes videos by supporting the channelon Patreon, and check out some of these videoswhen you’re done, I’ll see you in oneof those next!\n"