RTX 3050 > 1050 every day of the week. Grab that one.

I'd get the 3050 because not only is it more powerful but because its very new, you will get driver support for way longer. 1050 Ti released in 2016 while 3050 released last year.

Get the laptop with the RTX3050, it's a modern system which is powerful enough to run most emulations and plenty of modern games too.

Clearly from 4 go vram to 8 go vram.

https://versus.com/en/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1050-ti-vs-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3050

Ended up grabbing the new laptop. RTX 3050, 16 gb ram and an i5-12500h processor. Should be good enough to fool around with emulation.

Thanks for all the help guys, much appreciated.

It will be a fantastic machine for emulation, you definitely made the right choice.
The 11500h will turbo to 4.5ghz on a few threads, which is perfect for Emulating older consoles like the PS2/Gamecube/Wii... But also has the core counts for more modern consoles.

The RTX3050 is far better than the 1050 and Intel Xe.

Wow. Fooled with some games last night, compared to the iris is isn't even close. Way higher fps, locked fps while at 4x resolution. Night and day.