NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile represent two distinct tiers in the mobile graphics landscape, separated by a full generation and a substantial gap in silicon. The RTX 4080 Mobile is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using a 5 nm TSMC process, while the RTX 3050 Mobile uses the older Ampere architecture on Samsung's 8 nm node. The recorded benchmark data shows a decisive performance advantage for the newer, higher-tier part, but the comparison also highlights the efficiency and positioning of the entry-level Ampere chip.

FAQ

Q: What is the performance difference between the RTX 4080 Mobile and RTX 3050 Mobile in OpenCL?

A: In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4080 Mobile scores 159,575 points compared to 50,038 points for the RTX 3050 Mobile. This is a 218.9% advantage for the RTX 4080 Mobile.

Q: How do the two GPUs compare in Vulkan performance?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile achieves a Geekbench Vulkan score of 145,807, while the RTX 3050 Mobile scores 49,051. The delta is 197.3% in favor of the RTX 4080 Mobile.

Q: Do both GPUs support the same modern APIs?

A: Yes, both support DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The feature set for API compatibility is identical.

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor count?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile uses the AD104 chip with 35,800 million transistors, whereas the RTX 3050 Mobile uses the GA107 chip with 8,700 million transistors. The RTX 4080 Mobile has over four times the transistor count.

Q: What is the memory configuration difference?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile has 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with 432.0 GB/s bandwidth. The RTX 3050 Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What is the average benchmark score for each GPU?

A: The RTX 4080 Mobile has an average benchmark score of 38,135, while the RTX 3050 Mobile averages 33,170. The RTX 4080 Mobile sits at the 81st percentile of all GPUs, and the RTX 3050 Mobile sits at the 78th percentile.

Architecture Differences

The architectural divide between these two mobile GPUs is fundamental. The RTX 4080 Mobile is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 5 nm process. The RTX 3050 Mobile uses the Ampere architecture, fabricated by Samsung on an 8 nm process. This process difference contributes to a major disparity in transistor density: the RTX 4080 Mobile packs 121.8 million transistors per square millimeter on a 294 mm² die, while the RTX 3050 Mobile achieves 43.5 million transistors per square millimeter on a 200 mm² die.

The chip-scale differences are stark. The RTX 4080 Mobile uses the AD104 chip with 35,800 million transistors, while the RTX 3050 Mobile uses the GA107 chip with 8,700 million transistors. This fourfold difference in transistor count enables a much larger execution engine. The RTX 4080 Mobile has 7,424 shading units, 232 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operations pipelines. The RTX 3050 Mobile has 2,048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. The ray tracing and tensor core counts follow the same pattern: 58 RT cores and 232 tensor cores for the RTX 4080 Mobile, versus 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores for the RTX 3050 Mobile.

Both GPUs are classified as integrated graphics packages (IGP) with no power connectors and no dedicated slot width, and both rely on portable device-dependent display outputs. The memory subsystem differs significantly: the RTX 4080 Mobile uses a 192-bit bus with 12 GB of GDDR6, while the RTX 3050 Mobile uses a 128-bit bus with 4 GB of GDDR6. The RTX 4080 Mobile also has a wider PCIe interface, using PCIe 4.0 x16 versus PCIe 4.0 x8 on the RTX 3050 Mobile. The production status differs as well, with the RTX 4080 Mobile listed as Active and the RTX 3050 Mobile as End-of-life.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 4080 Mobile wins decisively in every recorded head-to-head benchmark. The data shows two direct comparisons, Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the RTX 4080 Mobile wins both. This is not a close contest; the performance gap is roughly threefold in both API tests.

The RTX 3050 Mobile, however, has its own positioning within the broader database. Its average benchmark score of 33,170 places it near the NVIDIA T550 Mobile, which scores 33,161 with a 0% delta, and the AMD Radeon Pro 570, which scores 33,207 with a -0.1% delta. The RTX 3050 Mobile is effectively at parity with these rivals, slightly ahead of the NVIDIA P104-100 (32,982, 0.6% delta) and the NVIDIA T600 Mobile (32,849, 1% delta). The RTX 4080 Mobile, by contrast, sits near the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 (38,299, -0.4% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (38,349, -0.6% delta), while being slightly ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 (37,648, 1.3% delta) and the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (37,628, 1.3% delta).

The use-case split is straightforward. For any workload that stresses raw compute, the RTX 4080 Mobile is the clear choice, given its 218.9% advantage in OpenCL and 197.3% advantage in Vulkan. The RTX 3050 Mobile is sufficient for lighter workloads that do not require the full compute throughput of the higher-tier part, but the recorded data does not show any test where the RTX 3050 Mobile outperforms the RTX 4080 Mobile. The RTX 3050 Mobile's lower TDP, 45 W versus 110 W, suggests it is better suited for thinner, more power-conscious laptops, though the database does not record any thermal or power efficiency benchmarks to confirm this.

Specification Differences

The two GPUs differ across nearly every measured specification. The process node is 5 nm for the RTX 4080 Mobile and 8 nm for the RTX 3050 Mobile. The foundries are TSMC and Samsung, respectively. The transistor count is 35,800 million versus 8,700 million, and the die size is 294 mm² versus 200 mm². Transistor density is 121.8 million per mm² versus 43.5 million per mm².

Clock speeds differ substantially. The RTX 4080 Mobile has a base clock of 1290 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, while the RTX 3050 Mobile has a base clock of 1065 MHz and a boost clock of 1343 MHz. Memory clocks are 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective) for the RTX 4080 Mobile and 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective) for the RTX 3050 Mobile.

The compute resources are not remotely similar. The RTX 4080 Mobile has 7,424 shading units, 232 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, versus 2,048 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 32 ROPs for the RTX 3050 Mobile. The RT core count is 58 versus 16, and the tensor core count is 232 versus 64. Pixel rate is 133.2 GPixel/s versus 42.98 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 386.3 GTexel/s versus 85.95 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 24.72 TFLOPS versus 5.501 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 24.72 TFLOPS (1:1) versus 5.501 TFLOPS (1:1).

Memory is another area of clear divergence. The RTX 4080 Mobile has 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus with 432.0 GB/s bandwidth, while the RTX 3050 Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The bus interface is PCIe 4.0 x16 for the RTX 4080 Mobile and PCIe 4.0 x8 for the RTX 3050 Mobile. TDP is 110 W versus 45 W. Release dates are 2023-01-02 for the RTX 4080 Mobile and 2021-05-10 for the RTX 3050 Mobile. The RTX 4080 Mobile lists the GeForce 30 Mobile as its predecessor and GeForce 50 Mobile as its successor, while the RTX 3050 Mobile lists GeForce 20 Mobile as its predecessor and has no recorded successor.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The head-to-head data is limited to two tests, but both tell the same story. In Geekbench OpenCL, the RTX 4080 Mobile scores 159,575 against the RTX 3050 Mobile's 50,038. The delta is 218.9%, meaning the RTX 4080 Mobile delivers more than three times the OpenCL compute performance. This is a massive margin that reflects the combined effect of the newer architecture, the larger chip, the higher clock speeds, and the wider memory bus.

In Geekbench Vulkan, the RTX 4080 Mobile scores 145,807 versus 49,051 for the RTX 3050 Mobile. The delta is 197.3%, again close to a threefold advantage. The slightly smaller delta in Vulkan compared to OpenCL suggests that the RTX 4080 Mobile's advantage is somewhat more pronounced in compute-oriented OpenCL workloads, but the gap remains overwhelming in both APIs.

The RTX 4080 Mobile wins 2 out of 2 head-to-head tests, with the RTX 3050 Mobile winning none. The average benchmark score gap, 38,135 versus 33,170, is narrower than the head-to-head deltas would suggest, because the average includes the RTX 3050 Mobile's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 421, a test that is not recorded for the RTX 4080 Mobile. The RTX 4080 Mobile's individual benchmark scores include a Passmark G3D score of 24,926 and a Passmark GPU Compute score of 11,191, while the RTX 3050 Mobile lacks these entries in the database.

The percentile rankings are close, 81st versus 78th, but the raw scores tell a different story. The RTX 4080 Mobile's nearest rivals, such as the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 and the RTX 5080 Mobile, are within 0.6% of its average score, indicating that the RTX 4080 Mobile sits in a dense cluster of high-performance parts. The RTX 3050 Mobile's nearest rivals, including the T550 Mobile and the Radeon Pro 570, are within 1% of its average, showing a similarly tight grouping at a lower performance level.

The performance interpretation is clear: the RTX 4080 Mobile is not merely faster, it is in a different performance class. The 218.9% OpenCL delta and the 197.3% Vulkan delta are not incremental improvements; they represent a generational leap in mobile compute capability. The RTX 3050 Mobile remains competitive within its own tier, matching the T550 Mobile exactly and edging out the T600 Mobile by 1%, but it cannot approach the throughput of the RTX 4080 Mobile. The data shows a decisive hierarchy where the Ada Lovelace part dominates the Ampere part across every recorded metric.