Here's Why NVIDIA May Have Blocked RTX 5050 Reviews

NVIDIA didn’t want reviewers to get their hands on the RTX 5050, but QuasarZone went ahead and did it anyway. Despite having no review samples or official drivers, the outlet managed to test a Colorful-branded version of the card and published its findings.

The RTX 5050, part of NVIDIA’s mainstream GPU lineup, was tested on a Ryzen 9 9800X3D system with DDR5-6000 memory across 15 games at 1080p. Performance-wise, it didn’t impress. In raw numbers, the 5050 was:

• 2.6% slower than Intel’s Arc B580
• 6.2% behind the RTX 4060
• 13.4% faster than the older RTX 3060

In Cyberpunk 2077, the card hit 65.5 FPS in default mode, while an overclock pushed that to 69.5 FPS. The 3DMark Time Spy score jumped from 10,290 to 11,281 with OC, a near 10% uplift. But the card’s locked 130W power limit keeps it from pushing further, limiting overclocking headroom.

What’s more surprising is that although the RTX 5050 has a 130W TGP, its real-world power consumption matched the RTX 4060’s, which officially runs at 115W, meaning the 4060 is more efficient overall.

According to QuasarZone’s full review, the RTX 5050 may appeal to those upgrading from a 30-series card, but with its limitations and pricing uncertainty, the Arc B580 (12GB VRAM) or even the RTX 4060 may be the smarter buy, if you can find one.