Nvidia RTX 5050 vs RTX 4060: Which Is the Better GPU?

The RTX 5050 and RTX 4060 are both budget GPUs, but the former is a 50-class card and the latter is a 60-class card. Which is the better GPU?

Picture of Nvidia RTX 5050 vs RTX 4060 — Nvidia RTX 5050 vs RTX 4060 (Image via GIGABYTE | MSI)

The RTX 5050 is Nvidia’s most affordable GPU in the RTX 50 series. On the other hand, the RTX 4060 was the cheapest graphics card in the RTX 40 series. How the cheapest cards of each generation compare in games is what we are interested in. That’s why we are going to compare them in this article to find out which affordable GPU delivers the highest performance and which one you should buy. Read on to learn more.

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Note: Parts of this article are subjective and reflect the writer’s opinions.

Nvidia RTX 5050 vs RTX 4060: Detailed Comparison

The Nvidia RTX 5050 is based on the latest Blackwell architecture and supports features such as DLSS 4 Multi-Frame Gen to boost performance in supported games. The RTX 4060 is designed on the Ada Lovelace architecture and is a higher 60-class GPU. It doesn’t support the latest Multi-FG, but it does have the standard FG, which should be enough for most gamers.

However, our goal today is not to judge which feature is better, but to check out just how much raw performance the Nvidia RTX 5050 and RTX 4060 have. Let’s take a look at the specs of the two GPUs to get a glimpse of what they are made of.

Specs Comparison

Picture of MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ventus 2X — MSI GeForce RTX 4060 Ventus 2X (Image via MSI)

Here are the specs of the Nvidia RTX 5050 and RTX 4060:

Specifications	Nvidia RTX 5050	Nvidia RTX 4060
Architecture	Blackwell	Ada Lovelace
Shader cores	2560	3072
RT cores	20	24
TMUs	80	96
ROPs	32	48
Base core clock speeds	2317 MHz	1830 MHz
Boost core clock speeds	2572 MHz	2460 MHz
Memory capacity	8GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6
Memory bus width	128-bit	128-bit
Memory bandwidth	320.0 GB/s	272.0 GB/s
Manufacturing node	5nm	5nm
Thermal design power (TDPs)	130W	115W

According to the specs, the Nvidia RTX 5050 has fewer shader cores, RT cores, TMUs, and ROPs than the RTX 4060. However, the former has higher clock speeds and more bandwidth than the latter. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how the two GPUs perform in actual games.

Performance Comparison

Here’s how Nvidia RTX 5050 and RTX 4060 perform in actual games:

Games	Nvidia RTX 5050	Nvidia RTX 4060
Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Medium Settings)	66 FPS	67 FPS
Black Myth: Wukong	60 FPS	62 FPS
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33	63 FPS	60 FPS
Cyberpunk 2077	76 FPS	71 FPS
Doom: The Dark Ages (Medium Settings)	54 FPS	57 FPS
Forza Horizon 5	132 FPS	127 FPS
Ghost of Tsushima	57 FPS	65 FPS
God of War Ragnarok	81 FPS	82 FPS
Red Dead Redemption 2	70 FPS	78 FPS
Silent Hill 2 Remake	52 FPS	52 FPS
The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered	103 FPS	103 FPS
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next Gen	70 FPS	74 FPS
Wuchang: Fallen Feathers	57 FPS	57 FPS

Note: The two GPUs tested here were evaluated at a 1080p resolution with High/Ultra Settings, unless otherwise specified. All the FPS numbers were sourced from the PC Support & Gaming Test channel on YouTube. For the tests, the two graphics cards were paired with an Intel Core i5 12400F CPU, which shouldn’t bottleneck the budget GPUs here.

The Nvidia RTX 4060 delivered 1.4% more FPS on average than the RTX 5050, which is negligible. The two GPUs perform extremely similarly for all intents and purposes. Their ray tracing should also be similar, but since the former has four more RT cores, it should deliver a bit more performance than the latter.

Price Comparison

Picture of GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5050 WINDFORCE OC — GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 5050 WINDFORCE OC (Image via GIGABYTE)

The Nvidia RTX 5050 currently sells for $240 to $249.99 on Amazon. According to the latest reports, the production of RTX 4060 has been reduced significantly, so this GPU is out of stock in many places. This skyrocketed the prices of the RTX 4060 to $400 or above, which you should simply ignore. On the used market, RTX 4060 is available for around $230 to $270, which is decent but nothing extraordinary.

Final Verdict on Nvidia RTX 5050 vs RTX 4060

Both the Nvidia RTX 5050 and RTX 4060 deliver extremely similar performance with a marginal 1 – 2% difference, which is negligible. However, the latter should be a little faster in ray tracing. In terms of pricing and availability, the Nvidia RTX 5050 is readily available for around $240 to $249.99.

However, we can’t say the same for RTX 4060, which is mostly available on the used market for $230 to $270. Therefore, the RTX 4060 is simply not worth the trouble unless you can get it for $200 or lower. That’s why we are going to recommend our budget users to buy the Nvidia RTX 5050 instead.

Unfortunately, neither GPU is particularly a great option, especially if you want to future-proof your system. This is due to the 8GB VRAM, which can be limiting in some modern games and will only get worse. We would truly love the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB model, but it costs around $100 more. Choose a GPU based on your requirements and budget.

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Nvidia RTX 5050 vs RTX 4060: Which Is the Better GPU?