The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 is a long-due card as the previous generation RTX 40 series GPUs didn’t have a 50-class card offering. Morever, the RTX 5050 is the first 50-class card to offer not only DLSS 3.5 but also DLLS Multi-Frame Generation. Like the rest of the Ti and 60-class cards, the RTX 5050 doesn’t have a reference or Founders Edition GPU. In place of that, we have the Colorful iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC as our OC baseline RTX 5050 card for our benchmark suite.
Nvidia Blackwell Architecture
The Blackwell Architecture is probably one of the most hyped graphics architectures from NVIDIA since the announcement of the NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip for data centers, especially for AI. Its performance advancement in the server and AI fields led enthusiasts to believe in a similar uplift on the consumer side. NVIDIA highlights Neural Rendering as the next era of computer graphics, and that is what Blackwell is built upon. Blackwell Architecture uses the latest NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, NVIDIA Reflex 2 features with NVIDIA RTX Neural Shaders, alongside other advancements such as the use of GDDR7 memory.
DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation
One of the key highlights of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series is DLSS 4, which takes advantage of the RTX Neural Shaders. In a nutshell, DLSS 4 is a steroid version of DLSS 3.5, where it’s able to generate up to three frames based on one rendered frame. Unlike DLSS 3.5, which generates one frame per rendered frame.
To put it into perspective, in a DLSS Frame Generation 4X setup at 120 FPS, only 30 frames are rasterized, aka “traditionally rendered,” while the 90 frames are AI-generated, with 15 out of 16 pixels generated by AI. There are three frames inserted between the traditional rendered frames.
Neural Shaders, Shader Execution Reordering & Flip Metering
Is DLSS 4 available on previous RTX GPUs? Yes and No
While DLSS 4 features an upgrade in every aspect of its feature set, the main DLSS Multi Frame Generation feature is exclusive to the RTX 50 series GPUs. DLSS 3 Frame Generation’s AI model relied on game data and the RTX 40 series’ optical flow accelerator based on motion vectors and depth to generate one frame. DLSS 4 Multi-FrameGen takes advantage of the RTX 50 series’ Neural Shaders, more efficient SER, and AI management processor to render additional frames.
Multiframe generation is taxing on older RTX GPUs due to the hardware or architectural limitations, making them a “decelerator” as these renders happen within a few milliseconds. Nvidia 5th Gen Tensor Cores addresses this by having up to 2.5x more AI processing performance compared to the last gen. That said, there are complexities in generating three frames in between traditional ones. For this reason, Blackwell uses hardware Flip Metering, which transfers the frame pacing logic to the GPU instead of the CPU for better display timings.
These combinations of hardware and software implementations improve, or at the very least, minimize the negative impact on image quality, smoothness, and latency, especially when compared to the previous DLSS technology.
DLSS Transformer Model
The previous DLSS technologies used Convolutional Neural Networks(CNNs) to generate new pixels by analyzing localized context and tracking changes in those areas over successive frames. Nvidia claimed to have peaked in maximizing DLSS CNN architecture six years after the introduction of DLSS on the RTX 20 series. This prompted them to move to the new Transformer Model for Image Quality improvements.
The new DLSS Transformer Model uses a vision transformer, enabling self-attention operations to evaluate the importance of each pixel in a frame and the next frame/s. This new model doubles the parameters of the CNN model, allowing it to generate pixels with better stability, reduced ghosting, higher details, and smoother edges depending on the scene.
Nvidia Reflex 2
Nvidia implements Frame Warp, a technology commonly used in VR games. Based on the latest mouse or controller input, the CPU calculates the camera position of the next frame as the frame is being rendered by the GPU. Frame warp uses the new camera position and “warps” the frame just rendered by the GPU to the extrapolated frame. The warping is done at the last possible moment, before the rendered frame is sent to the display, ensuring the latest input is reflected on the display.
The “warped frame” has small holes or blank pixels as the supposed pixels are moved to reflect the recent movement. Nvidia’s predictive rendering algorithm uses camera, color, and depth data from prior frames to in-paint these holes. This results in users seeing the rendered frame with an updated camera perspective, without the holes. This effectively reduces the latency for any camera-moving actions in the game for better aiming or tracking.
There are currently no games that support Reflex 2 at launch, but Nvidia confirmed that Reflex 2 will be coming to Valorant and The Finals.
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Specifications
| Graphics Card | RTX 5060 Ti 16GB | RTX 5060 Ti 8GB | RTX 5060 | RTX 5050 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Architecture | GB206 | GB206 | GB206 | GB207 |
| Process Technology | TSMC 4N | TSMC 4N | TSMC 4N | TSMC 4N |
| Transistors (Billion) | 21.9 | 21.9 | 21.9 | 16.9 |
| Die size (mm^2) | 181 | 181 | 181 | 149 |
| SMs0 | 36 | 36 | 30 | 20 |
| GPU Shaders (ALUs) | 4608 | 4608 | 3840 | 2560 |
| Tensor Cores | 144 | 144 | 120 | 80 |
| Ray Tracing Cores | 36 | 36 | 30 | 20 |
| Boost Clock (MHz) | 2572 | 2572 | 2497 | 2572 |
| VRAM Speed (Gbps) | 28 | 28 | 28 | 20 |
| VRAM (GB) | 16 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| VRAM Bus Width | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| L2 Cache | 32 | 32 | 24 | 24? |
| Render Output Units | 48 | 48 | 48 | 32 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 144 | 144 | 120 | 80 |
| TFLOPS FP32 (Boost) | 23.7 | 23.7 | 19.2 | 13.2 |
| TFLOPS FP16 (FP4/FP8 TFLOPS) | 190 (759) | 190 (759) | 153 (614) | 105 (421) |
| Bandwidth (GB/s) | 448 | 448 | 448 | 320 |
| TBP (watts) | 180 | 180 | 145 | 130 |
| Launch Price | 429 | 379 | 299 | 249 |
| Online Price | $430 | $380 | $300 | $249 |
COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC – A Closer Look
COLORFUL has one of the cleanest packaging designs for the RTX 50 series cards. Instead of a flashy front packaging design, you have a render of the GPU together with the Ultra logo in white background. The only non-Nvidia marking present is the 8GB GDDR6 on the lower left of the packaging.
Instead of the usual Nvidia feature highlight and cooler breakdown found on most the GPU’s back packaging, you different renders of the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC to showcase the white and pink cooler shroud.
The COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC uses the same cooler shroud found on its bigger brother, the iGame RTX 5060 Ultra W DUO OC. There are no subtle changes on the design to distinguish the RTX 5050 and RTX 5060 variants apart. You have a maze like markings throughout the white shroud paired with loud pink accent that make up the iGame Ultra W signature look.
Despite being the lowest class on the RTX 50 series line, COLORFUL still managed to include a full metal backplate on the iGame RTX 5060 Ultra W DUO OC. The pink grafitti design backplate has a small cutout where the PCB ends, exposing one-half of a fan for a “flow-through”-like cooling.
Like the RTX 5060 variant, the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC is a compact, 2-slot card measuring only 231 x 120 x 49mm. This form factor makes it ideal for SFF/ITX cases.
The GeForce RTX strip supports RGB lighting. It’s default setting is on breathing purple mode, but it can be further customized via the iGame Center software.
The COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC requires only one 8-pin PCIe cable as the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 has a 130W TGP rating with a 550W minimum recommended PSU. Using the classic 8-pin PCIE cable allows for better compatibility to those who are upgrading as users who are likely buyers of the RTX 5050 are those who have older systems that do not support the latest ATX 3.1 or PCIe 5.1 standard.
You have a standard port configuration on the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC: three DisplayPort 2.1b ports and one HDMI 2.1b port. COLORFUL’s GPU lineup starting from the Ultra series are known for having a dedicated BIOS switch located on the IO bracket of the GPU and the iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC is no exception despite being an entry-level card.
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050 has a reference base and boost clock of 2317 MHz, and 2572 MHz, respectively. Since the Ultra W DUO OC variant is an OC model it has a slightly higher boost clock at 2647MHz when the One-key OC switch is enabled. That said, the One-key OC switch is on by default and it will be the performance profile that we’ll use in our benchmarks as it’s the out-of-box configuration of the GPU.
Benchmark Setup and Test Methodology
Gadget Pilipinas’ testing philosophy is to provide detail-oriented results as accurately as possible so that our readers can replicate our tests, given that these conditions are met. Different benchmarking apps and sequences are used depending on the tested component or device.
| CPU | Ryzen 7 9800X3D |
| COOLER | RYUJIN II 360mm V2 – NT-H2 Thermal Paste |
| MOTHERBOARD | X870E Aorus Master | BIOS F4i |
| MEMORY | Trident Z Neo 32GB(2x16GB) DDR5-6000 CL28 |
| GPUs | Colorful iGame RTX 5070 Ti Ultra W, Colorful iGame RTX 5060 Ultra W DUO OC, Colorful iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC |
| STORAGE | Renegade 2TB NVME SSD |
| POWER SUPPLY | VITA GM1000W Gold ATX 3.1 |
| OPERATING SYSTEM | Windows 11 Pro Build 24H2, VBS off |
| CASE | Open Benchtable V2 |
We use CapFrameX 1.7.56 BETA as our primary FPS capture and analysis tool for all our gaming benchmarks. The latest build version of Windows 11 Pro and WHQL-certified drivers are used for our benchmarks. Readings such as temperatures and power draws are recorded using HWINFO64, and other relevant software for cross-checking.
For more info, read our Review and Benchmark methodology article.
COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC – Synthetic and Productivity Benchmarks
ADOBE PREMIERE PRO VIDEO EDITING BENCHMARK
Procyon benchmark suite is developed by UL, the same team behind 3DMark and PCMark benchmarks. The UL Procycon video editing benchmark uses Adobe Premiere in a typical video editing workflow. The benchmark starts by importing two video project files with various edits, adjustments, and effects – the second project uses several GPU-accelerated effects. Each project is exported in 1080p with H.264 encoding and again in 4K with HEVC H.265. The reported score is based on the time taken to export all four videos. GPU acceleration is turned on for GPU benchmarks.
V-RAY 6
V-Ray Benchmark is a stand-alone version of V-Ray developed by Chaos Group. It is designed to test the CPU and GPU by rendering sample scenes at a fixed amount of time. V-Ray is a plug-in mostly utilized by 3D computer graphics software applications mainly for industrial design, product design, architecture, film, and video game production. V-Ray is not limited to 64-threads as it supports multi and mega-threading.
BLENDER 4.3.0
Blender is a widely used, free, open-source 3D creation suite. It supports the whole 3D pipeline process from modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, and even motion tracking. Blender has become a standard for CPU benchmarks with the BMW27 and Classroom Scene most used. This prompted the company to release Blender Open Data Benchmark in 2018, a benchmark-specific version allowing users to run a preset benchmark and share the results online like 3DMark.
HANDBRAKE 1.8.2
Handbrake is a top-rated open-source video conversion software that is used by professionals, enthusiasts, and even reviewers as a reference point, mainly because of its wide variety of media codecs. The rise of streaming and blogging makes video content, both encoding and transcoding, important for these people, regardless of whether they’re seasoned professionals or just starting out. Handbrake also takes advantage of AVX-512 and OpenCL to accelerate certain types of media codecs. Our Handbrake benchmark converts a 3:16 4K60 clip shot from an S24 Ultra to 1080p60 H264 mp4 for CPU or 1080p NVENC H265 for GPU.
COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC – AI Benchmarks
Computer Vision – Procyon Windows ML & TensorRT
Image Generation – Procyon
Text Generation – Procyon
COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC – Gaming Benchmarks
RETURNAL
Returnal is one of the most technologically advanced games since the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. Released last April 2021 on PS5 and February 2023 on PC, it uses Unreal Engine 4 and supports multiple technologies such as Ray Tracing, DLSS, VSR, and FSR.
COUNTERSTRIKE 2
CounterStrike 2 or CS2 is the successor to the now-retired CSGO and now uses the Source 2 Engine – the same engine used on DOTA 2. CS2 is a great FPS game to test out CPU performance. Our benchmark process uses the replay function of the game.
DOTA 2
Dota 2 is a good reputation among F2P titles, especially MOBAs and RTS as it lands on the demanding side of the spectrum. Its gameplay and quality of life updates are far more frequent than most F2P titles, thanks to its vast popularity. Our benchmark sequence is based on a replay of Liquid vs. Gaimin Gladiators in the The International Grand Finals Game 3 from the team fight that happened from 16:24 to 17:24.
SPIDER-MAN: MILES MORALES
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony, is one of the most popular PC port titles last 2022. It’s one of the few modern game titles that support upscaling technologies FSR, DLSS, and XeSS, making it a great title to use for benchmarks.
F1 23
F1 23 is the official video game of the 2023 Formula One and Formula 2 championships, developed by Codemasters. F1 2023 is the sixteenth installment in the franchise and uses the Ego Engine 4.0. F1 233 is a good representation of racing games thanks to its realistic graphics and fairly demanding spec requirements as well as support for Ray Tracing and the latest upscaling technologies such as DLSS, XeSS, and FSR.
ASSASSIN’S CREED: MIRAGE
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest Assassin’s Creed game from Ubisoft making it the thirteenth major installment in the franchise. It uses the AnvilNext 2.0 game engine and is the very first AC game to support the latest upscaling technology such as XeSS, FSR, and DLSS.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is arguably the most hyped game of 2020. Developed by CD Projekt Red, the dystopian open-world, action-adventure RPG sports is one of the most demanding titles to date. Cyberpunk 2077 also supports three Ray Tracing settings as well as DLSS, which makes the game a great tool to measure Ray Tracing performance for both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.
HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST
Horizon Forbidden West is a 2022 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The Horizon Zero Dawn game sequel launched on PC last March 2024 built on the Decima Game Engine, the same one used on Death Stranding. Horizon Forbidden West features Ray Tracing and Upscaling technologies not present in the prequel game.
BLACK MYTH WUKONG
Black Myth: Wukong is one of the most popular game titles launched in 2024, with its stunning graphics thanks to the Unreal Engine 5. Developed by Game Science, Black Myth: Wukong is one of the most demanding titles recently released titles with complete Ray Tracing and Upscaling technology features, making it a great benchmark for new hardware.
GHOST OF TSUSHIMA
Ghost of Tsushima is an action-adventure game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was initially released for the PlayStation 4 in July 2020 and later for PlayStation 5 and Windows. Ghost of Tsushima runs on a modified and optimized version of Sucker Punch’s in-house engine, originally built for the PlayStation platforms.
HOGWARTS LEGACY
Hogwarts Legacy is a popular game catering to the hearts of Harry Potter fans and gamers with its rich world and engaging gameplay. Developed by Avalanche Software and built on the Unreal Engine 4, Hogwarts Legacy delivers detailed environments and character models with support for the latest rendering and upscaling technologies.
FAR CRY 6
FarCry 6 is an FPS game published by Ubisoft that uses the Dunia engine. It heavily relies on and takes advantage of DirectX 12 to render a realistic environment that is taxing to both the CPU and GPU. It’s also the first game in the franchise to support Ray Tracing.
COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC – Temps and Power Draw
The COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC recorded a peak temp of only 65°C. Using the same cooler as the more power hungry RTX 5060 siblings, it’s the expected that we get a lower temp as the RTX 5050 only has a 130W TDP which is 20-watts less. That said, this leaves more room available for overclocking or room to fine tune the already quiet fans.
Conclusion
COLORFUL did a classic, if it aint broke, don’t fix it approach with the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC. While some may argue that re-hashing an already existing cooler to a supposedly “new” GPU is lazy, the fact remains that you get much better value with the lower-end card as you’re technically using a cooler that’s above its weight class.
As mentioned in our previous COLORFUL iGame RTX 5060 Ultra W DUO OC review, COLORFUL spared nothing in terms of cooling performance with the RTX 5050 variant whereas other brands are cost cutting as they go lower down the product stack. As seen for the third time in a row, the Ultra W line doesn’t just appeal to a consumer just because it’s a white GPU, but also in performance and features that are rarely found for its price class.
Speaking of price, the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC is priced at Php 18,295 – a Php 1,500 premium over the PH SRP, and about a similar price difference before you reach the RTX 5060 reference pricing. Considering that it’s a 50-class card, the Php 1,500 price tag is not a pocket change, much especially to those who are buying a whole new PC than those who are just upgrading to a new RTX 5050. The Php 1,500 price difference can translate to a CPU cooler, an extra 8GB memory, or double your SSD storage.
That said, the Php 1,500 premium over SRP, not to mention, the supposed “white” color tax where most of the premium is associated with, isn’t the dynamic with the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC. You’re simply getting an OC card that has features that you wouldn’t normally see in a one-tier above reference variant from a brand, much less so in the budget 50-class GPU. So, if you have the spare change to go for a premium GPU variant for reasons such as better build quality, performance, temperatures, unique aesthetics or even all of the above, then the COLORFUL iGame RTX 5050 Ultra W DUO OC is a justifiable purchase with a reasonable price premium that won’t rob you a few frames should you wish to splurge more on your GPU.
Grant is a Financial Management graduate from UST. His passion for gadgets and tech crossed him over in the industry where he could apply his knowledge as an enthusiast and in-depth analytic skills as a Finance Major. His passion allows him to earn at the same time help Gadget Pilipinas' readers in making smart, value-based decisions and purchases with his reviews and guides.
