GTX 1660 Ti vs RTX 3050
The complete head-to-head: full specs, real per-game FPS with 1% lows, ray tracing, a live CPU-bottleneck check, thermals, power and value, with a straight verdict.
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
GeForce RTX 3050
avg, 1080p
The short answer
This is a genuine sidegrade, not a clean win for either card. The GTX 1660 Ti is about 9% faster in raw raster, has more memory bandwidth, and costs noticeably less. The RTX 3050 answers with real ray tracing, DLSS upscaling, 2 GB more VRAM, and it's still sold new with a warranty in 2026. If you only care about frames per dollar, buy the older 1660 Ti. If you want any of ray tracing, DLSS, or the peace of mind of a new card, the RTX 3050 is worth the premium despite being slightly slower.
These two sit almost exactly on top of each other in price on the used and new-old-stock market, which makes this one of the more genuinely interesting budget matchups. The GTX 1660 Ti is the last strong non-RTX Turing card, all raster, no ray tracing, no DLSS. The RTX 3050 is three years newer and brings Ampere's RT and Tensor Cores to the same price bracket, just with slightly less raw raster grunt.
From here it's 1080p benchmarks for both cards, a CPU pairing tool, thermal and power numbers, price trends, and a verdict built around the actual tension in this matchup, raw frames-per-dollar against a newer feature set.
At a glance
Seven dimensions, two cards. Bigger area is not automatically better, each card owns different corners.
Strengths radar
Each axis scored 0-100 relative to the pair
Performance vs price
Up and to the left is better value
Grey dots are neighbouring cards for context.
Which should you buy?
Pick your use case, the winner changes with what you actually do.
Faster in raster and cheaper, the 1660 Ti wins on the numbers most budget shoppers actually care about.
The 1660 Ti has zero RT hardware. If ray tracing matters even a little, only the 3050 can do it.
Tensor Cores and 8 GB of VRAM make the 3050 dramatically faster and more capable for local AI work.
A newer Ampere encoder edges out the 1660 Ti's Turing encoder in quality per bitrate.
The RTX 3050 is still sold new in 2026, the 1660 Ti is used-market only at this point.
288 GB/s of bandwidth beats the 3050's 224 GB/s, a real edge for higher-resolution emulation.
Already own either card? Neither is worth swapping for the other.
Short answer: probably not
This is a sidegrade, not an upgrade path. A 9% raster difference either way is not worth spending money to chase if you already own one of these two cards. Owning a 1660 Ti and want ray tracing or DLSS? That's a real reason to switch. Owning a 3050 and want more raw fps? Not enough of a gain to bother.
If you want a genuine upgrade from either, look at an RTX 4060 or RTX 3060, both a real step up in speed, memory, and features over this pairing.
Full specification comparison
Every spec side by side. The highlighted figure wins each row.
| Specification | GTX 1660 Ti | RTX 3050 |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | ||
| GPU / architecture | TU116 · Turing | GA106 · Ampere |
| Process node | TSMC 12 nm | Samsung 8 nm ▲ |
| Release date | Feb 22, 2019 | Jan 27, 2022 |
| Launch MSRP | $279 | $249 ▲ |
| Compute | ||
| CUDA cores | 1,536 | 2,560 ▲ |
| RT cores | None | 20 · 2nd gen ▲ |
| Tensor cores | None | 80 · 3rd gen ▲ |
| Base / boost clock | 1500 / 1770 MHz | 1552 / 1777 MHz ▲ |
| L2 cache | 1.5 MB | 2 MB ▲ |
| Memory | ||
| VRAM | 6 GB GDDR6 | 8 GB GDDR6 ▲ |
| Memory bus | 192-bit ▲ | 128-bit |
| Bandwidth | 288 GB/s ▲ | 224 GB/s |
| Power & form factor | ||
| TDP | 120 W ▲ | 130 W |
| Power connector | 1× 8-pin | 1× 8-pin |
| Suggested PSU | 450 W ▲ | 550 W |
| PCIe interface | 3.0 ×16 | 4.0 ×8 |
| Features | ||
| Upscaling | FSR 2 (no DLSS) | DLSS 2 / Super Res ▲ |
| AV1 encode (NVENC) | No | No |
| Display outputs | 3×DP1.4 · HDMI2.0b | 3×DP1.4a · HDMI2.1 ▲ |
Average FPS by game
Switch resolution, metric, ray tracing and upscaling, the bars update live. Hover a bar for the avg / 1% / 0.1% breakdown.
Average FPS · 1080p · Rasterization. Representative data, hover a bar for avg / 1% / 0.1%. Note the RTX 3050's 1% lows fall off at 1440p and up from its 8 GB VRAM.
Smoothness & frametimes
Average FPS hides stutter. This is one run plotted as frametime, a flat line is smooth, spikes are hitches. Watch what the RTX 3050's 8 GB VRAM does in a texture-heavy game.
Frametime: Hogwarts Legacy, 1080p Ultra
Lower and flatter is better · 16.7 ms = 60 fps
Counterintuitive but real: the slower GTX 1660 Ti delivers a smoother line here because 12 GB holds the texture pool the 8 GB RTX 3050 keeps evicting, those spikes are VRAM stutter, not raw speed.
Lab scores
Clean apples-to-apples tests, useful, but weaker at predicting real games than the FPS above.
Ray tracing & upscaling
Ray tracing tanks both cards at native resolution. What makes it playable is upscaling, and here the RTX 3050 has a real edge.
Is frame generation "real" performance?
Neither card supports DLSS Frame Generation, that needs the Optical Flow Accelerator introduced with RTX 40-series, Ada Lovelace. The RTX 3050 does have Tensor Cores, so it runs real DLSS upscaling, just not frame generation. The GTX 1660 Ti has no Tensor Cores at all and cannot run DLSS in any form.
For the 1660 Ti, FSR 2 or FSR 3 are the only upscaling paths, both open and non-AI. The 3050 gets genuine DLSS image quality on top, even though it's slightly behind in raw raster fps in this matchup.
Will your CPU bottleneck these cards?
A faster GPU only helps if your CPU keeps up. Pick your CPU and resolution to see expected FPS and bottleneck for each card.
CPU + GPU pairing check
The willitbottleneck engine, built right into the comparison.
Estimated from a 43-CPU model across 1440p. A weak CPU mostly bites at 1080p; at higher resolutions the GPU becomes the limiter and the bottleneck shrinks.
Thermals & noise
The efficiency gap shows up here: the newer card runs cooler and quieter, day in and day out.
Real draw, efficiency & PSU
TDP is the rated figure; what matters is real gaming draw and how many frames you get per watt.
Both use a single 8-pin connector. If your PSU already ran the GTX 1660 Ti, it will run the RTX 3050 easily. Leave about 30% headroom for spikes.
Will it fit, and what to pair it with?
Size to scale
Card length matters for small cases
What monitor to pair
GTX 1660 Ti: comfortable 1080p ultra at 100+ Hz, dips into 1440p in lighter titles. RTX 3050: similar 1080p performance, with DLSS extending its reach a bit further into 1440p. Neither is a 4K card.
Running an older PCIe 3.0 board?
The RTX 3050 runs PCIe 4.0 x8. On a PCIe 3.0 motherboard that drops to 3.0 x8, typically a 2 to 5% loss. The GTX 1660 Ti runs a full PCIe 3.0 x16 link and is unaffected either way.
Price history & dollars-per-frame
Raw price is only half the story. Cost per frame is the number that decides it, and it keeps moving as prices fall.
New price over time
Street price of new cards (USD)
The 6 GB vs 8 GB question
GTX 1660 Ti · 6 GB
- 288 GB/s of bandwidth, more than the 3050's 224 GB/s, helps at higher resolutions and texture-heavy scenes.
- 6 GB is enough for the vast majority of 1080p ultra games in 2026.
- No Tensor Cores means no DLSS, so it can't lean on upscaling to stretch that VRAM further.
- 2 GB less than the 3050 will bite first in the newest, most VRAM-hungry titles.
RTX 3050 · 8 GB
- 8 GB gives more headroom than the 1660 Ti's 6 GB in the newest, most demanding games.
- DLSS upscaling effectively stretches both the compute and memory budget further than raw numbers suggest.
- 224 GB/s of bandwidth trails the 1660 Ti's 288 GB/s, a real disadvantage at higher resolutions.
- The narrower 128-bit bus is the more likely bottleneck of the two cards at 1440p.
Emulation & memory bandwidth
The narrower bus is a real downgrade for emulation
The 1660 Ti's 288 GB/s bandwidth beats the 3050's 224 GB/s, which matters more than raw shader count for emulators like Yuzu-style Switch cores and RPCS3 at higher internal resolutions. For emulation specifically, the older 1660 Ti has a real edge despite being the non-RT card here.
Creator, AI & streaming
The newer card is quicker per task, but the older card's extra VRAM unlocks larger jobs it can't fit at all.
Streaming: the AV1 encoder is the differentiator
Neither has an AV1 encoder, that arrived with Ada Lovelace. Both use H.264/HEVC through NVENC. The RTX 3050's Ampere encoder is a modest step up over the 1660 Ti's Turing encoder in quality per bitrate, a small win to offset its raster deficit.
Overclocking & undervolting
Both cards have modest headroom. The RTX 3050 responds a little better to undervolting since Ampere tends to be pushed close to its efficiency edge from the factory. The GTX 1660 Ti overclocks predictably but the gains are small either way, this comes down to features, not clock speed.
Pros & cons
GTX 1660 Ti
- About 9% faster in this raster test suite, and cheaper too
- More memory bandwidth, 288 GB/s vs the 3050's 224 GB/s
- Meaningfully cheaper, both new-ish stock and used
- No RT cores, no Tensor Cores, no ray tracing and no DLSS at all
- Turing NVENC trails the 3050's newer Ampere encoder slightly
RTX 3050
- Real ray tracing and genuine DLSS upscaling, features the 1660 Ti simply lacks
- 8 GB of VRAM, 2 GB more than the 1660 Ti
- Still sold new in 2026, easy warranty and support
- About 9% slower in raw raster fps despite costing more
- Narrower 128-bit bus and less bandwidth than the 1660 Ti
Buying pitfalls
This is closer than the numbers suggest either way
A 9% raster lead for the 1660 Ti is well within the range where game choice and driver updates can flip individual titles. Don't treat this as a blowout, it's a genuine close call between raw raster speed and modern features.
There's also a cut-down RTX 3050 6GB
A 2024 refresh of the RTX 3050 uses a smaller GA107 die, a 96-bit bus and only 6 GB of VRAM, and is slower than the original 8 GB, 128-bit card used on this page. Confirm which RTX 3050 you're buying, they share the same name but not the same performance.
GTX 1660 Ti vs RTX 3050: your questions answered
It depends what you value. The 1660 Ti is about 9% faster in raw raster and cheaper. The RTX 3050 adds real ray tracing, DLSS upscaling, and 2 GB more VRAM. Neither is a clean win, this is a genuine trade-off.
Frames per dollar in pure raster gaming points to the 1660 Ti. Ray tracing, DLSS, more VRAM, or a card still sold new with a warranty all point to the RTX 3050.
For 1080p ultra gaming, yes, it remains a genuinely capable card, and this comparison shows it holding a small raster lead over the newer RTX 3050. Its lack of ray tracing and DLSS is its main limitation.
No. The RTX 3050's Tensor Cores accelerate AI workloads directly, something the 1660 Ti has no hardware for at all, and its extra 2 GB of VRAM helps with larger models on top of that.
The RTX 3050's newer encoder is a small step up in quality per bitrate. For raw editing performance and large timelines, the 1660 Ti's extra bandwidth and slight raster edge help more.
No, it simply has none. The GTX 1660 Ti is a non-RTX Turing chip with zero RT hardware, ray tracing isn't an option on it regardless of its raster lead.
No. The RTX 3050 supports real DLSS 2 upscaling through its Tensor Cores. The GTX 1660 Ti has no Tensor Cores and is limited to the open, non-AI FSR 2 and FSR 3.
Both are capable enough at 1080p that a weak CPU is more likely to be the limiting factor than the GPU itself. Use the pairing checker on this page to confirm your specific CPU keeps either card fed.
It draws a bit less, about 112 W against the RTX 3050's 124 W, both modest and easy to cool with a decent aftermarket card.
NVIDIA recommends 450 W for the GTX 1660 Ti and 550 W for the RTX 3050. A quality 550 to 600 W unit comfortably covers either card.
A little. It runs PCIe 4.0 x8, dropping to 3.0 x8 on an older board for a small 2 to 5% loss. The GTX 1660 Ti runs full x16 and is unaffected. Both are compact, around 229mm and 200mm.
No, GTX 1660 Ti Mobile and RTX 3050 Laptop GPU both exist as separate parts. Laptop chips run at lower clocks and power limits than these desktop cards, never compare them directly.
Not really, both are 1080p-focused cards, with the RTX 3050 stretching a bit further into 1440p thanks to DLSS despite its raster deficit. Treat 4K as unrealistic for this pairing either way.
If a warranty matters, sure, the RTX 3050 is still sold new in 2026, around $180 to $200. The GTX 1660 Ti is used-market only at this point, typically $85 to $110, and worth checking carefully before buying.
Not yet, both get current NVIDIA Game Ready drivers. The RTX 3050's Ampere architecture will likely stay supported longer given its continued use in laptops and current OEM builds.
It trades some raw raster power for a narrower, cheaper 128-bit memory bus and spends die space on RT and Tensor Cores instead. That's a deliberate design choice, not a defect, you're paying for features, not just fps.