An early review of AMD's upcoming RX 9050 8 GB graphics card indicates performance that may fall short of expectations, drawing comparisons to Nvidia's RTX 3060 while also raising questions about its specifications. The card, slated for a $279 price point and limited regional availability in 2026, is facing scrutiny following a report from Japanese outlet Hermitage Akihabara.
According to the review, which tested an 8 GB ASRock model, the RX 9050's performance in 3DMark benchmarks did not impress, with results suggesting it is approximately 75% as fast as the GeForce RTX 5050 and just over 60% of the higher-end RX 9060 XT. The report posits that the RX 9050 falls below the 30fps mark often considered a benchmark for comfortable single-player gaming.
While the RX 9050 matched the RTX 5050 in 4K testing for Rainbow Six Siege X and showed a lead in Doom Eternal at 1080p and 1440p (with the aid of FSR), its performance in most other tested scenarios lagged significantly behind the Nvidia competitor. For instance, in Apex Legends at 1080p, the RX 9050 averaged 147 fps, compared to the RTX 5050's 192.4 fps. Similarly, Cyberpunk 2077 on Ultra settings saw the AMD card achieve 142 fps against the Nvidia card's 240 fps, though these figures involved respective frame generation and upscaling technologies, making a direct comparison difficult.
These performance figures place the RX 9050 in a challenging position, especially considering the RTX 5050's anticipated $250 launch price with 8 GB of GDDR6 VRAM. The review also noted a discrepancy in the RX 9050's specifications, with its 3DMark Port Royal score of 4531 and Speed Way score of 1873 aligning more closely with an RTX 3070. Hardware analyst Harukaze5719 pointed out that the tested card reportedly had 32 ROPs (Render Output Units), which is half the 64 ROPs listed on AMD's official specifications. A lower ROP count typically translates to reduced performance, potentially explaining some of the observed results.
A similar ROP issue was previously observed in a small percentage of Nvidia's RTX 50-series cards. If the reduced ROP count on the reviewed RX 9050 is indeed a defect rather than a reporting error, it could suggest that a fully functional unit might offer better performance. However, until more reviews from various outlets become available, it remains speculative whether the RX 9050 is definitively outpaced by the RTX 5050. These early findings, coupled with recent rumors of potential price increases for AMD cards, paint a potentially challenging outlook for the budget GPU market.