Dell XPS 17 9720 RTX 3060 vs. RTX 3050: 25 percent faster performance at no additional power cost

We recently tested both the Dell XPS 17 9720 with GeForce RTX 3050 graphics and one with GeForce RTX 3060 graphics to see how much of a performance gap exists between the two configurations. According to our 3DMark results below, users can expect the RTX 3060 option to offer roughly 25 percent faster raw performance over the RTX 3050 SKU. An even greater gap exists when dealing with RT effects as originally discovered during the launch of the RTX 3050.

When gaming, the gap between the RTX 3050 and 3060 can be anywhere between 0 percent to 50 percent based on the games we tested. GTA V and X-Plane 11.11 at 1080p, for example, show only very small gaps between the two XPS configurations as they are CPU-heavy titles while GPU-heavy titles like Cyberpunk 2077 can significantly favor the RTX 3060 across the board.

Does opting for the faster RTX 3060 SKU mean hotter temperatures, louder fan noise, and shorter battery life than the RTX 3050 SKU? Fortunately not as each GPU is running under the same 65 W thermal envelope. Our tests prove that both configurations are essentially neck-to-neck in power consumption, battery life, and fan noise despite the notable performance uptick from the RTX 3060 GPU.