The Nvidia Rtx 2060 Is Perfectly Adequate
People had been very interested and were warmed up for the DLSS features and the ability to play Battlefield V in that hybrid Raytraced way. NVIDIA initiated massive internet virals to gain media coverage. But then the bubble exploded in their face as end-users looked the other way when they learned about the incredibly steep price level.
NvidiaTo show off the promise of the cutting-edge ray tracing technology, if you buy a GeForce gigabyte gtx 1060 3gb, Nvidia will toss in a free copy of Battlefield V, or Bioware’s upcoming Anthem. Thus the attractive FE card, which appears the same as the RTX 2070, further cementing their similarity, is set to cost $349 (£329) and be released with a core boost speed of 1,680MHz and that fast GDDR6 humming along at 14Gbps. The one glaring issue is also intended to be the selling point of the 2060. It, unlike its direct competitors or anything from the 10-series, is capable of ray tracing, which produces more realistic shadows and reflections in graphics by tracing light from the source to the end point. It’s cool technology, and Nvidia has repeatedly said that a wide variety of games will support it. At CES a reporter had a question for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
It replaces the original model, and you can think of it as a slightly slower version of the RTX 2080. The 2070 Super gets 256 more CUDA cores, 16 additional texture units, and faster clock speeds . All of that hardware makes it faster than the GTX 1080 Ti, NVIDIA’s last-gen cream of the crop. NVIDIA’s new RTX Super graphics cards are clearly a response to AMD’s new midrange GPUs, the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT.
A patch and driver or two later did improve overall performance, however, with graphics cards sitting in an 800 USD/ EUR and 1250 USD/ EUR range while not coming down things became difficult. The primary perf issues with Battlefield V had been solved mostly shortly after release and a card with a 500~550 EUR/USD price tag feels better while still being very expensive. The past few months RTX became a tough sell and NVIDIAs popularity declined in a negative spiral.
Whenever that happens, as a company you need to set things right. The first attempt at that will be what we review today, a product that most people can afford, the GeForce . It’s another £100 / $100 more expensive than the GTX 1060, with Nvidia’s Founders Edition on test here going for £329 / $349 while third party cards currently start at £350 / $350, but when it comes to speed, it’s in another league altogether. Whereas the GTX 1060 struggled to hit 60fps on higher quality settings at 1440p, the RTX 2060 sails past that number and then some.
Borderlands 3 is the only game I play regularly where my CPU has been holding me back, but I’m sure the list will grow as more games optimise for 6, 8+ cores. 3DMark is a benchmark that mainly measures the graphics card. As in almost every graphics card benchmark, however, the system’s processor has an effect on the result. We therefore use a fast processor in order not to limit the graphics card during the test. The theoretical computing power of the graphics card with single precision in TFLOPS.
But for right now, Nvidia’s software continues to be better, accelerating GPU performance not just in games, but in traditional work tasks. That was until I got to our Blender test, in which we time how long it takes a GPU to render a 3D object in Blender. Thanks to a recent software update that provided better support for programs like Blender, the 2060 not only beat the Vega 56, but even the 2080 Ti, which I tested only a couple of months ago. It has been a fairly crazy ride with NVIDIA the past few months, roughly 4-5 months ago the GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti became available.
On Ultra High, the RTX 2060 averaged an impressive 47fps at 1440p when I ran put it through its internal benchmarking tool, and an even silkier 59fps on Very High. Indeed, only the GTX 1070Ti proved an adequate match for the RX 2060 at this resolution, managing an average of 46fps on Ultra High and 54fps on Very High. But wait a minute, I hear you cry, doesn’t the GTX 1070 have 8GB of memory?
And it’s a downright bargain when you note that Nvidia claims that the 2060’s true competitor isn’t the 1060, but the 1070 and 1070 Ti. Those had an MSRP of gigabyte gtx 1060 3gb $380 and $450 respectively—though it can be difficult to find them at those prices. Disable VXAO and you’ll be back up at a full 60fps+ in no time at all.