NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 SUPER Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 A Mobile and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 SUPER represent two distant points in NVIDIA’s mobile and desktop GPU lineage. One is a low-power integrated-class part from the Ampere generation, while the other is a high-end Blackwell 2.0 discrete card. Direct benchmark comparisons are limited, but the recorded data reveals a clear performance hierarchy, along with substantial architectural and specification differences.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains only one benchmark result for the RTX 5080 SUPER: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3075. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has no entry for that specific test, so a direct apples-to-apples comparison on that workload is impossible. Instead, the available data for the RTX 3050 A Mobile spans multiple older DirectX and compute tests. Its average benchmark score across all recorded tests is 8746, while the RTX 5080 SUPER’s average benchmark score is 3075. These averages are not directly comparable because they are drawn from different test sets, but they do illustrate that the RTX 3050 A Mobile’s results come from a broader range of legacy workloads.

The RTX 3050 A Mobile’s individual scores show its strengths in older APIs. It records a Passmark DirectX 9 score of 152, a DirectX 10 score of 61, a DirectX 11 score of 94, and a DirectX 12 score of 55. Its Passmark G3D score is 11664, and its GPU compute score is 4419. The Geekbench OpenCL score is 52998. These numbers place the RTX 3050 A Mobile at the 44th percentile among all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 v2 with an average score of 8743 (a 0% difference), the NVIDIA Quadro P2200 at 8686 (0.7% higher for the RTX 3050 A Mobile), the AMD Radeon R9 M265X at 8851 (1.2% higher than the RTX 3050 A Mobile), and the AMD Radeon Pro WX 5100 at 8863 (1.3% higher). These small deltas indicate that the RTX 3050 A Mobile sits in a performance tier alongside those older or lower-tier cards.

For the RTX 5080 SUPER, the sole benchmark is the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result of 3075. That score places it at the 19th percentile among all GPUs, which is surprisingly low for a card with such high-end specifications. Its nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA Quadro P1000 with an average score of 3163 (2.8% higher than the RTX 5080 SUPER), the Intel Arc Pro B60 at 3182 (3.4% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce 820A at 2983 (3.1% lower), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M at 2967 (3.6% lower). The RTX 5080 SUPER’s score is thus bracketed by a set of much older or much less capable GPUs, which is an unusual position for a flagship-class card. This suggests that the single Steel Nomad result may not reflect the card’s full capability, or that the test itself is heavily influenced by factors not captured in the specification sheet.

The RTX 3050 A Mobile’s Passmark DirectX 12 score of 55, while low in absolute terms, does not have a corresponding RTX 5080 SUPER result for that test. Conversely, the RTX 5080 SUPER’s Steel Nomad score has no RTX 3050 A Mobile counterpart. The head-to-head benchmark list is empty, and the win counts for both items are zero. The data therefore does not support a direct victory claim for either GPU on any shared workload. What the data does show is that the RTX 3050 A Mobile has a well-documented legacy performance profile, while the RTX 5080 SUPER has only a single modern DX12 data point.

The Verdict

From the recorded data, the RTX 3050 A Mobile is a low-power, end-of-life mobile part that competes with GPUs from a decade ago. Its percentile rank of 44 puts it in the lower half of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all older or mid-range cards. The RTX 5080 SUPER, despite its much newer architecture and far higher specifications, shows a percentile rank of 19 based on its single benchmark. That rank is lower than the RTX 3050 A Mobile’s rank, but the two percentile figures come from different benchmark suites and cannot be directly compared. The RTX 5080 SUPER’s average benchmark score of 3075 is lower than the RTX 3050 A Mobile’s average of 8746, but again, the test sets differ entirely.

For users looking at the RTX 3050 A Mobile, the data indicates a GPU that handles legacy DirectX 9 through DirectX 12 workloads at modest performance levels. It is not a high-performance part by any measure. For the RTX 5080 SUPER, the single Steel Nomad score suggests that the card does not excel in that particular DX12 workload, or that the test setup was not representative. The specification sheet, however, tells a much more dramatic story that will be covered in the next sections. Based strictly on benchmark results, neither GPU can be declared a winner over the other because they share no common tests.

Architecture Differences

The two GPUs come from entirely different generations and foundries. The RTX 3050 A Mobile uses the GA106 chip built on Samsung’s 8 nm process, with an architecture labeled Ampere. The RTX 5080 SUPER uses the GB203 chip built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, with an architecture labeled Blackwell 2.0. The transistor counts reflect the generational gap: the GA106 has 12,000 million transistors on a die size of 276 mm², producing a transistor density of 43.5 million per mm². The GB203 packs 45,600 million transistors into a 378 mm² die, achieving a density of 120.6 million per mm². That is nearly a threefold increase in density, which is consistent with the move from 8 nm to 5 nm.

The memory subsystems are also fundamentally different. The RTX 3050 A Mobile uses 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s and a memory clock of 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The RTX 5080 SUPER uses 24 GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 1.02 TB/s and a memory clock of 2000 MHz (32 Gbps effective). The bus width doubles, the memory type advances a generation, and the bandwidth jumps from under 200 GB/s to over a terabyte per second. The RTX 3050 A Mobile’s memory clock is also much lower, reflecting its power-constrained design.

The compute resources differ by an order of magnitude. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 1792 shading units, 56 texture mapping units, 32 ROPs, 14 ray tracing cores, and 56 tensor cores. The RTX 5080 SUPER has 10752 shading units, 336 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 84 ray tracing cores, and 336 tensor cores. That is six times more shading units, six times more TMUs, 3.5 times more ROPs, six times more ray tracing cores, and six times more tensor cores. The pixel rate scales from 42.98 GPixel/s to 293.1 GPixel/s, and the texture rate scales from 75.21 GTexel/s to 879.3 GTexel/s. FP32 compute goes from 4.813 TFLOPS to 56.28 TFLOPS, a difference of roughly 11.7 times. FP16 performance also scales identically, at 4.813 TFLOPS for the RTX 3050 A Mobile and 56.28 TFLOPS for the RTX 5080 SUPER.

The power envelopes are drastically different as well. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has a TDP of 45 W, uses no power connectors, and is listed as an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with a slot width of IGP. The RTX 5080 SUPER has a TDP of 415 W, uses a single 16-pin power connector, and is a dual-slot card. The RTX 5080 SUPER also has physical dimensions of 304 mm in length, 137 mm in height, and 40 mm in width, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile has no recorded dimensions. The bus interface differs: the RTX 3050 A Mobile uses PCIe 4.0 x8, while the RTX 5080 SUPER uses PCIe 5.0 x16. Display outputs also differ, with the RTX 3050 A Mobile being portable-device dependent and the RTX 5080 SUPER offering 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor density?

A: The RTX 5080 SUPER uses a 5 nm TSMC process and achieves a density of 120.6M transistors per mm², while the RTX 3050 A Mobile on Samsung’s 8 nm process reaches only 43.5M per mm².

Q: How much memory does each GPU have?

A: The RTX 3050 A Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6, while the RTX 5080 SUPER has 24 GB of GDDR7.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The RTX 3050 A Mobile provides 192.0 GB/s, whereas the RTX 5080 SUPER provides 1.02 TB/s, which is more than five times higher.

Q: Are the benchmark scores comparable between the two?

A: No. The RTX 3050 A Mobile has results from Geekbench OpenCL and multiple Passmark tests, while the RTX 5080 SUPER has only a single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score. There is no shared test in the database.

Q: What is the production status of each GPU?

A: The RTX 3050 A Mobile is listed as end-of-life and was released on 2023-12-31, while the RTX 5080 SUPER is marked as active with a release date of 2025-12-31.

Q: Which GPU has more ray tracing cores?

A: The RTX 5080 SUPER has 84 ray tracing cores, compared to the RTX 3050 A Mobile’s 14.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3050 A Mobile wins in the domain of legacy API compatibility and low-power operation. Its Passmark DirectX 9 score of 152 is its highest single DirectX result, indicating that older games and applications run relatively better than modern ones. Its DirectX 10, 11, and 12 scores are lower, at 61, 94, and 55 respectively, which shows a performance drop-off as the API complexity increases. Its 45 W TDP and lack of power connectors make it suitable for thin-and-light laptops where power draw is a constraint. The RTX 3050 A Mobile also has a higher percentile rank (44 vs 19) and a higher average benchmark score (8746 vs 3075), though the different test sets weaken the significance of those comparisons.

The RTX 5080 SUPER wins in every raw specification category: transistor count, die size, density, clock speeds, memory capacity, memory bandwidth, shading units, TMUs, ROPs, ray tracing cores, tensor cores, pixel rate, texture rate, FP32 and FP16 compute, TDP, and bus interface. Its 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 performance is approximately 11.7 times higher than the RTX 3050 A Mobile’s 4.813 TFLOPS. Its 1.02 TB/s bandwidth is about 5.3 times higher than 192.0 GB/s. The RTX 5080 SUPER also supports PCIe 5.0 x16, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile is limited to PCIe 4.0 x8. For modern high-resolution gaming or compute workloads that use DirectX 12 and ray tracing, the RTX 5080 SUPER’s hardware is vastly more capable on paper, even if its single recorded benchmark does not reflect that advantage.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ on nearly every field in the database. The process node changes from 8 nm (Samsung) to 5 nm (TSMC). Transistor count jumps from 12,000 million to 45,600 million. Die size grows from 276 mm² to 378 mm². Transistor density increases from 43.5M per mm² to 120.6M per mm². Base clock rises from 1065 MHz to 2295 MHz, and boost clock rises from 1343 MHz to 2617 MHz. Memory clock goes from 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) to 2000 MHz (32 Gbps effective).

Memory capacity moves from 4 GB GDDR6 to 24 GB GDDR7. Bus width expands from 128 bit to 256 bit. Bandwidth increases from 192.0 GB/s to 1.02 TB/s. Shading units go from 1792 to 10752. TMUs go from 56 to 336. ROPs go from 32 to 112. Ray tracing cores go from 14 to 84. Tensor cores go from 56 to 336. Pixel rate goes from 42.98 GPixel/s to 293.1 GPixel/s. Texture rate goes from 75.21 GTexel/s to 879.3 GTexel/s. FP32 goes from 4.813 TFLOPS to 56.28 TFLOPS. FP16 also goes from 4.813 TFLOPS to 56.28 TFLOPS, both at a 1:1 ratio.

TDP goes from 45 W to 415 W. Slot width changes from IGP to dual-slot. Power connectors change from none to 1x 16-pin. Bus interface changes from PCIe 4.0 x8 to PCIe 5.0 x16. Display outputs change from portable-device dependent to 1x HDMI 2.1b and 3x DisplayPort 2.1b. Production status changes from end-of-life to active. Release date moves from 2023-12-31 to 2025-12-31. The RTX 5080 SUPER has a launch MSRP of 999 USD, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile has no recorded launch MSRP. Both share the same DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4 API support. The RTX 3050 A Mobile’s predecessor is listed as GeForce 20 Mobile, while the RTX 5080 SUPER has no predecessor recorded. The RTX 5080 SUPER also has recorded dimensions of 304 mm by 137 mm by 40 mm, while the RTX 3050 A Mobile has none.