MSI GeForce RTX™ 3050 Ventus 2X E OC (6GB, GDDR6)

Description

Ampere RTX Features, Zero External Power Required

The MSI GeForce RTX 3050 Ventus 2X E OC is a compact, slot-powered Ampere card designed for the widest possible compatibility across upgrade scenarios — from ageing office PCs with basic power supplies to compact mini-tower builds where power delivery and physical space are constrained. The 70W TDP draws entirely from the PCIe slot with no 6-pin or 8-pin power connector required, meaning virtually any PC with a PCIe x16 slot can accommodate this card without PSU concerns. At 189 mm long and a 2-slot profile, it fits a wide range of cases including many mini-towers that won’t accept longer cards. Despite the modest power envelope, the “E” variant brings NVIDIA’s second-generation RT cores and third-generation Tensor cores to the table — enabling hardware-accelerated ray tracing and DLSS 2 Super Resolution that simply aren’t available on GTX-series alternatives.

The Ventus 2X dual-fan cooler uses industrial-neutral styling with clean lines and no RGB, fitting naturally into workstation, office, and understated builds. MSI Center provides real-time monitoring and performance tuning, and OC Scanner within Afterburner automates frequency stability testing for builders who want additional clock headroom beyond the factory OC without manual testing.

⚠️ The RTX 3050 6GB “E” variant uses a 96-bit memory bus — narrower than the 128-bit bus found on the original RTX 3050 8GB. This reduces memory bandwidth and can affect performance in memory-intensive workloads at higher quality settings or above 1080p. The 6GB “E” is optimised for 1080p medium-to-high settings. At 1080p maximum quality in VRAM-heavy titles, the 6 GB frame buffer and 96-bit bus will be the limiting factors — DLSS Quality mode is recommended.

⚠️ The RTX 3050 supports DLSS 2 (Super Resolution) — it does not support DLSS 3 Frame Generation or DLSS 4, which are exclusive to RTX 40 and RTX 50 series cards respectively.

⚠️ PCIe interface is Gen 4 x16 but uses x8 lanes electrically. This has no real-world gaming performance impact on PCIe 4.0 platforms. On PCIe 3.0 platforms it operates at PCIe 3.0 x8 equivalent bandwidth — still adequate for this GPU tier.

💡 The absence of any external power connector makes this card uniquely accessible for PC upgrades where the existing PSU has no spare PCIe power cables, or where power delivery to add-in cards is a concern.

Technical Specifications

The RTX 3050 (E variant) uses NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture with 2304 CUDA cores, factory OC boost of 1492 MHz (Extreme Performance 1507 MHz via MSI Center). The 6 GB GDDR6 frame buffer runs at 14 Gbps on a 96-bit bus. Outputs are 1× DisplayPort 1.4a and 2× HDMI 2.1 (4K 120Hz), supporting up to three simultaneous displays at up to 7680×4320. The card draws 70W entirely from the PCIe slot — no external power connector required. 300W system PSU recommended. Card dimensions are 189 × 109 × 42 mm.

Key Highlights

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (E variant) — Ampere architecture, TSMC 8nm
• 2304 CUDA cores
• 2nd-gen RT cores — hardware ray tracing
• 3rd-gen Tensor cores — DLSS 2 AI upscaling
• 6 GB GDDR6, 96-bit bus, 14 Gbps (narrower bus than RTX 3050 8GB’s 128-bit)
• 1492 MHz boost (OC mode) / 1507 MHz Extreme  Performance (MSI Center)
• 70W TDP — no external power connector required — slot-powered
• 300W system PSU recommended
• PCIe 4.0 x16 (uses x8 lanes)
• 1× DisplayPort 1.4a + 2× HDMI 2.1 (4K 120Hz)
• Up to 3 simultaneous displays, max resolution 7680×4320
• 189 × 109 × 42 mm — compact 2-slot dual-fan form factor
• MSI Ventus 2X dual-fan cooler — industrial-neutral aesthetic, no RGB
• DLSS 2 (Super Resolution) — no DLSS 3 or DLSS 4
• Real-time ray tracing with RTX
• NVIDIA G-SYNC Compatible, Adaptive V-Sync
• VR Ready
• DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6
• MSI Center + MSI Afterburner with OC Scanner

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