episteme on 24 May 2023
the 3050 came out when GPU availability was still really bad. At that point it wasn't a terrible purchase, but the price never dropped below the $249 MSRP. The RX 6600 series cards were a much better purchase after the prices dropped.
I noticed that the 4050 mobile has 96 bit 6GB VRAM, so 192 bit 12GB is a possibility. A super efficient 12GB card on 1080 Ti level wouldn't be uninteresting, but 1080 Ti is around 50% faster than a 3050. This jump seems impossible for today's Nvidia (for budget cards at least). You could actually buy a used 1080 Ti for like 180€, undervolt it to use less than 200W and make all new entry level cards look bad. Features like Ray Tracing don't really make sense in that class anyway.
