Budget gamers looking for a modern GPU are in for a real treat, as MSI has just lowered the price of its entry-level Blackwell gaming GPU. The MSI Gaming RTX 5050 Shadow 2X it’s currently just $219.99, which is a 21% discount off the regular price of $279.99, saving shoppers $60. It’s also $30 cheaper than Nvidia’s MSRP, making it one of the cheapest up-to-date graphics cards you can buy on the market today.
The RTX 5050 may be the smallest card in Nvidia’s RTX 50 series, but for casual and budget gamers, it’s a great way to get a up-to-date GPU without spending hundreds of dollars more on a graphics card. It’s on par with the RTX 4060 in terms of performance, but is significantly cheaper, even at today’s prices for both GPUs. Sure, it may only have 8GB of VRAM, which means it can handle some of the latest titles even at 1080p, but if you’re not one to follow the latest games and only play for fun, that may be enough for your purposes.
More importantly, the promotional price puts this entry-level GPU at the sweet spot in terms of price. Tom’s Hardware’s review only gave the RTX 5050 three and a half stars because our team felt it was way too exorbitant for its capabilities. But now that it’s priced at $220, it’s under the $229 we think it should be, given the performance of the RTX 5060. It might even give other GPUs like the Intel Arc B580 a run for their money (though the circumscribed VRAM is certainly a limitation).
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This GPU delivers decent raster performance, averaging 67.5 FPS across 12 games at 1080p Ultra, with a 1% low at 49 FPS. When ray tracing is turned on, this drops to 36.7 and 28 FPS respectively – at this stage it is still playable, but the game may not be as velvety as you would like. 1440p resolution is still acceptable for raster games (average 41.3 FPS with the lowest 1% being 30 FPS), but definitely I can’t play in 4K.
The MSI Gaming RTX 5050 Shadow 2X gaming graphics card it may not make our list of the best gaming GPUs, but at this price it’s tempting, especially for those who don’t want to upgrade to integrated graphics or for those looking to replace an aging GTX 16-series or RTX 20-series GPU.
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