AMD Radeon RX 9050 Benchmarks Show 30% Slower Gaming vs RTX 5050

AMD has released early benchmark data for the Radeon RX 9050, revealing a significant performance gap against NVIDIA's competing RTX 5050. This comparison matters because the RX 9050 represents the entry point for AMD's new RDNA 4 architecture, setting the baseline for budget gaming performance. Buyers looking at sub-$200 graphics cards need to understand that this new chip struggles to keep pace with its rival in raw gaming power.

Early testing reveals significant performance gap against NVIDIA rival

The Radeon RX 9050 is an 8GB graphics card built on the RDNA 4 architecture. It targets the budget segment of the PC gaming market, aiming to provide accessible 1080p performance. Early testing by hardware outlet GDM places this card directly against the NVIDIA RTX 5050 to gauge its real-world viability.

Gaming benchmarks show the RX 9050 lagging significantly behind the RTX 5050. The card scores 9,441 in 3DMark Time Spy and 4,531 in Port Royal. In Apex Legends at 1080p with max settings, the RX 9050 achieves 147.1 FPS. Cyberpunk 2077 runs at 210.79 FPS at 1080p on medium settings. On average, the RX 9050 is roughly 30% slower than the RTX 5050 across tested titles.

Power efficiency is the primary advantage for the AMD card. The RX 9050 draws about 8W less than the RTX 5050 when idling. Under heavy load, it consumes approximately 35W less power. Ray tracing performance is notably weaker, with the RX 9050 scoring 26.7% lower in the Port Royal benchmark. The performance deficit widens at higher resolutions, reaching 42% slower at 4K.

We looked at AMD Adrenalin 26.7.1 Driver Adds RX in our earlier AMD coverage. The driver update confirms support for the new GPU and includes fixes for Blender crashes. These early results come from a single outlet and should be treated with caution. The data highlights a tradeoff between raw performance and power consumption for this specific hardware tier.