Just Buy It: Why Nvidia RTX GPUs Are Worth the Money

[Olle P]

Depends on what the actual rtx performance is. ... I would not be willing to except lower frame rates to make a game look better, ...

That's the thing, isn't it? Seems like most "experts" expect RTX to impose about (or at least) 50% drop in frame rate compared to not using it.

In an action game like Battlefield it's not like you have time to enjoy all the eye candy at 20-30 fps...

Remember when DX12 was introduced? How much did that improve performance of games the first year?
It's first now, a couple of years later, that we can see the early DX12 games actually run better with DX12 than with DX11.

 

[Joseph A]

Is this article an attempt to salvage a relationship with Nvidia? Why push readership to make a purchase without being fully informed on performance which we'll have in just a few weeks.

 

[saunupe1911]

Only word is needed for a reply to this article....BENCHMARKS!!!!!

 

[BulkZerker]

"you won't be able to take advantage of key RTX features like real-time ray tracing and great 4K gaming performance until your next upgrade"

Tfw a 290x provides servicable 4k performance. Tfw nVidia isn't the only source of Ray tracing. Give it one, two generations toosbefore we see of it's an actual tecj that will go somewhere or some goofy feature like hairfx.

 

[smkaldahl]

In all my years reading tech websites, I've not, until now seen a more shill article. Seriously? Claiming we're gonna be missing out if we stay with out 1080 ti's? There's a HELL of a lot more to gaming, simming than some overhyped light and shadow effect, none the less one that's running on 1st Gen implementation. You should be ashamed for writing this. Zero journalistic integrity, even if it was an 'opinion' piece.

 

[switch_130]

Ray Tracing 2080 on: 20-50fps? (We don't know and you don't know, if it's smooth and +70fps, great... Till some reviews ummm)
Ray Tracing 2080 off: 110fps (+10-20% fps over the 1080ti? We dont know)
Ray Tracing 1080 ti off: 100fps ($200 less now)

Until ^ is answered, you are a moron.

Not going to run Ray on if it can't run it at a decent rate, even if it has the feature, it may not be mature enough to play it now. RTX 2080 real competitor is the the GTX 1080 ti if it is priced at $800. Hell, the NVIDIA TITAN Xp is going for under $800 on ebay. If it is not at least 20% faster with ray off, it's a dud. Why? because of what is available, you know price/performance?

Buy for the future OR play games that are out now? 7nm next year probaby, Im sure the 1080 ti will be able to make it that long, games will be out that support Ray and the new 7nm will be able to run it better. BS until we actually know what this new series can do.

 

[jimmysmitty]

"you won't be able to take advantage of key RTX features like real-time ray tracing"

You actually can. If your GPU can do DX12, it can do ray tracing. It's just that the option itself will be more heavy on older GPUs than on new GPUs. The same with how tessellation was a heavy effect on HD 5000/GTX 400 compared to really low cost on current Vega 64 or GTX 1080.

Yes and no. You will be able to utilize DXR, which is what RTX is based on, but not RTX itself as that is designed around Turing and its dedicated hardware. Basically the GTX 1080 will be able to do software based ray tracing which is why it will be heavier on the older cards than the new RTX series.

Of course this will only be true for games that build in that support. If they decide to only build in RTX support then anything other than a new RTX card will not be able to use those features. I am not sure how AMDs cards will handle it but I assume similarly to the 10 series since their GPUs do not have dedicated hardware and they have not announced their own version of RTX yet.

 

[wiyosaya]

"Life is short. How many months or years do you want to wait to enjoy a new experience? You can sit around twiddling your thumbs and hoping that an RTX 2080 gets cheaper, or you can enter the world of ray-tracing and high-speed, 4K gaming today and never look back. When you die and your whole life flashes before your eyes, how much of it do you want to not have ray tracing?

Video card companies know that people are willing to pay a premium price for RTX cards.

The 15-inch Apple Studio display, one of the first flat panel monitors, cost $1,999 when it came out . . . in 1998. Today, you can get a used one on eBay for under $50 or a new 24-inch monitor for under $150, but if you bought one at the time, you had the opportunity to use a fantastic new technology when others didn't."
Really? SMH

I've done that a couple of times. In the mid-90's, I bought a $2K graphics card and regretted it as it was obsolete, literally, within months of my buying it. Then, when LCDs first came out, I bought a 15" LCD for something like $1.8K. The quality of the picture was not much better than the legendary 13" Sony tube monitors at the time.

IMO, there is absolutely no value there in having the latest and greatest stuff unless you want bragging rights, and most people that I know would simply shake their heads and walk away.

Besides that, ATM there is little support for RTX in present day games. I get the idea that it looks better, but will that really give the average gamer an advantage that will make a significant difference for them? Maybe a pro gamer will get an advantage from these cards, and maybe that will make it worth it for them, but at that level, they have the spare cash sitting around to throw at a card that likely offers a marginal improvement in performance.

If people refuse to pay for the RTX hardware features, nVidia will take notice. Those who buy, at least to me anyway, are more like the sIntel or iCrap sheep willingly going to the slaughter.

Besides, it sounds like nVidia is trying to sequester gaming coding to run at high performance rates on their cards. IMO, game developers would get significant performance boots if they figure out how to use Conformal Geometric Algebra in their code - without hardware enhancements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_geometric_algebra

As I see it, articles like this encourage the less knowledgeable to enter into nVidia's indentured servitude.

 

[JamesSneed]

I think the title and the opinion piece are in conflict. Nearly everything mentioned in this piece is a con for buying into this generation. Personally, I'm skipping this generation and I can easily afford the 2080 Ti. We have Navi coming early 2019 and Nvidia is very likely going to have a quick refresh to 7nm. With both companies having 7nm products so soon to me it's like tossing money away not to wait for the 7nm parts.

 

[Keuric]

What is wrong with you?

You work at a hardware review site, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Warning, to anyone who cares about knowing what they are buying, you are buying the unknown. You are buying a riddlebox. A conundrum. An unproven piece of technology that may do little beyond what you can have at half the price.

Avram, you work in METRICS and you have no metrics to base this awful advice on. The metrics you do have are likely cherry-picked with no indication of settings used, a frame of reference or appropriate context.

This is as good an idea as "disable UAC."

 

[g-unit1111]

The one thing I'm never big on is the founder's edition cards. And that's pretty much what you get when you rush out to buy the newest tech. The third party cards almost always have better cooling and overclocking options, and they're generally cheaper. If you get the founder's edition, you're stuck with the founder's edition PCB and cooler, which usually doesn't perform as well as their third party counterparts. If you're going to get the RTX 2080TI, then wait and see what MSI, Asus, Zotac, and EVGA are cooking up before you hit the buy button.

 

[darkomaledictus]

From what I can see the new 2080 TI can't even do RayTracing either. Until you can push that tech in 4k with high framerate its just a gimmick. Hello HAIR 2.0, the most disabled feature ever created.

Sounds like these cards will also be push overs when it comes to Ray Tracing so who cares if they have the feature if you can't really enjoy it because it makes the games too slow... useless! Better have some HUGE gains on regular games and have NVLINK prove that SLI is back, otherwise might as well wait for the next upgrade.

 

[computerguy72]

Not long to wait, reviews will be out in Sept. I do think DLSS is such a game changer it will be a feature supported by most games eventually. I bet lots of things will be able to make really good use of the Tensor core as well.

 

[jrasero23]

I kind of agree with the article. We can pretty confirm these cards will be better (faster/more advanced) than Pascal. A course there is a huge debate on how much extra performance you are getting in terms of the huge price hike for RTX. Regardless the facts that these will be faster than Pascal and be able to run 4K steadily is a worthy upgrade. Yes scream all you want about the crazy prices, but coming from a relatively new PC gamer, what if these prices are the new norm? Yes that would suck for gamers on tight budgets and who have become accustomed to getting a XX80 Ti for $700, but for the reasons mentioned in the article Nvidia doesn't need to placate to that standard anymore. Hey if you really hate the new gen Pascal and the GTX 1080 Ti are still great cards and they don't become obsolete just because Turing came along.

 

[notea]

How much are you getting paid to post this article?

 

[rabbit4me2]

Sorry bro just sounds like you're just trying to push their product not using any kind of Common Sense. why purchase something that only has 11 game support right now simple mathematics tells you it's not worth it. But then again you're probably someone who has everything in life or Invidia is paying you a hefty sum to help push their product. That's when you can on competition to come in hopefully.

 

[penneysr]

Was this article supposed to be a joke? Like legitimately a joke? It just feels so bizarre. It literally just reads as "BUY IT NOW DO IT BUY IT YOU'RE A FOOL IF YOU DON'T" like... It just feels so surreal how force fed and slightly ham-handed this is. Maybe I'm just in such disbelief by how little this article tries to hide the fact that it's biased or that it's being paid off in some way. Maybe it was so poorly written because the guy was just aching with guilt as he was writing it. Like he was trying to imagine how other shills try to write a biased article and he was just like "I don't what to write! Uhh... How about... 'YOU'RE A FOOL IF YOU DON'T BUY IT'. Is that what people that get bought out write?! OH GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME!"

 

[mwhannan74]

When gaming, in the heat of battle, do you really care if the reflections are better? Sure it is nice eye candy at times, but during actually gaming I would argue that most people don't notice all these little extras. I chalk ray tracing up with 3D tvs. Cool but the neat factor wears off quick.

 

[ASCs]

Geez, i just logged back at site just to Comment: Where you found this guy? Is the same one that said to disable UAC and now saying go buy blindly? Definitely not my Tom's hardware...

 

[darkomaledictus]

@ PENNEYSR, I know this article makes no sense. How low has TomsHardware come! At least we still have Anandtech!

 

[mungeral]

This article does disregard relativity, and just seems to be a promotion for the GPU's. Talking about enjoying the tech for longer, by buying it earlier, doesn't take into account that you'll also be used to it earlier, and longing for another upgrade that wont even come around for years. Or, you could wait a year or two to upgrade, when they're cheaper, have their bugs worked out, and there's more content for them, and still experience the thrill of the newness for about as long as someone that bought one earlier. You'll probably be even more thrilled, for spending less money, experiencing less hiccups, and finally getting to experience this thing that you've been anticipating.

 

[switch_130]

Good cop / Bad cop or just calling out Derek's piece? I get if you wanted to have a debate but include some substance. If you were going for debate, :thumbsup: for Derek's piece. Maybe the winner by vote can switch or keep the editor role.

 

[blademoor]

So... this is one giant argument based on FOMO... awesome...

Let's also look a bit at human psychology, how many people buy AAA games right at the release date and price? The Steam "wait til it goes on sale" effect will just end up blunting the point of this article quite a bit. By the time games that do take advantage of RTX capabilities come down in price, it'd already be close for the next iteration of the RTX cards to come out (or at least price pressure from whatever AMD will cook up to compete). I don't really see any particular advantage to be an early adopter to RTX at this time...

 

[smkaldahl]

Tom's hardware has NOTHING to do with integrity if articles like this come from the chief editor.

BTW, Tom's is owned by a company called 'Purch', as in PURCHASE.

I call on all Tom's writers that value their integrity and honor to at least consider moving to other, more honest publications. Gordon mah Ung could use you at PC World.

 

[mrbutterbiscuits]

So your opinion is FOMO in...