Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Review: Is Mainstream Ray Tracing For Real?

[JaSoN_cRuZe]

The GTX 1070Ti is stuck at stock speed out of the box and by overclocking it can reach the 1080 performance at stock config,

So in my case the current releases looks like...
GTX 1070Ti OC = GTX 1080 Stock = RTX 2070 Stock = RTX 2060 OC
just exclude the light effects and these are more or less the same cards in terms of performance.

 

[SR TEE]

WTF, the RTX 2060 is barely marginally better than the GTX 1070 TI. It's more on par with it especially in games that are 1440p. Considering I paid $320 for a Zotac 1070 TI AMP Edition that overclocks like a beast I have to highly disagree. Now if you had said it was better than the GTX 1070 that it's supposed to replace I'd give you some slack, but you're using a GPU that's almost dried up in supply that just had the price jacked up. I'd ask what happened to Tom, but Tom already stepped in, answered that and said he doesn't run the company anymore nor has any say in what you sellouts write so please change your name to "Shill's Hardware".

 

[Ben Pottinger]

How is performance parity and 2GB *less* ram then the previous generations same price point model considered "ok" by the reviewer?

Lets just cut to the chase: at the same price point as a card released in 2017 you get 1fps more performance and 2GB less video ram. Thats *terrible*. When I upgraded from a 970 to a 1070ti I stayed in exactly the same price bracket (roughly 350$) got double the video Ram and a massive performance boost.

If I went to newegg and tried to spend 350$ on nvidias newest generation I would get a 1FPS improvement in framerates, 2GB less video ram and I would need to *downgrade* my monitor in order to use the "flagship" "feature" added to the new cards!

Turing is a parts bin special from a die created for an entirely different market being shoveled onto gamers. They already had the R&D invested in the design for AI and enterprise customers so why not see if some silly gamers would buy them too?!

Since we are already hearing rumors of an entirely new design (ampere) based on 7nm for 2020 I suspect Nvidia is holding back the "real" gamer design for 2020 so they have something to compete with AMDs 7nm GPUs and whatever Intel intends to release in 2020. It might be a good idea from a strategy point of view but if it really is what their planning its going to leave a bunch of RTX owners very very salty when they see that the flagship feature they paid a *lot* extra for gets leapfrogged a year later (and likely with less then a dozen titles supporting it by then).

 

[Olle P]

... Nvidia’s hybrid rasterization/ray tracing approach is still viable down at the 2060’s price point.
... we wondered how useful 36 RT cores would be on TU106 compared to TU102’s 68 RT cores. Now, we have a derivative GPU with just 30 RT cores, and it’s capable of over 60 FPS at 1920x1080 with all options, including DXR Reflection Quality, set to Ultra in Battlefield V.

The RT cores are, as far as I know, never used by BFV.
In this game Ray Tracing is all implemented by the CUDA cores.

 

[-Fran-]

Hard pass until it's ~$250USD.

Cheers!

 

[jaexyr]

All non-blower styles exhaust heat into the case, that's not a con

 

[King_V]

I guess it's fair to list power draw as a negative, if you compare the RTX 2060 to the GTX 1060.

However, considering that it performs around equivalent to a GTX 1070Ti, which had a 180W TDP, I would say that getting the same (arguably slightly better) performance with only 160W (around 167W in the test results) versus the 180 of the 1070Ti is probably a positive. Same or slightly better performance while using less electricity.

I have my gripes with Nvidia, but will absolutely credit where credit is due to them on this point.

 

[Bem-xxx]

Your Forza Motorsport 7 benchmark is flawed.
According to your latest Aorus 2080Ti review, Vega 64 at 1440p scores 114 FPS.
Now it scores 74 FPS.

 

[King_V]

this is exactly the same trick nvidia played with its other cards. all the cards this gen got pushed into a higher price bracket; it used to be we got 40% or so performance improvement in the SAME price bracket. now we're getting zero performance increase across the price brackets, however if we stick to the same product lineup we have to pay for a 50% increase in price.

nice disingenuous framing of the problem.

How do you figure?

This is a card that performs at (maybe slightly better than) 1070Ti levels.

The release MSRP for the 2060 is $349. The release MSRP for the 1070Ti was $449.

You're comparing it to the 1070Ti by saying "zero performance improvement" yet price-wise, complaining that it's more expensive than the 1060.

I've got my issues with Nvidia, but that's a BS argument. You're picking and choosing, trying to have it both ways.

 

[logainofhades]

The whole product stack pricing wise, vs naming convention, has moved up in price, compared to previous gens.

GTX 760 was $249
GTX 960 was $199
GTX 1060 was 6gb $249
RTX 2060 is $349

GTX 770 was $399
GTX 970 was $329
GTX 1070 was $370
RTX 2070 is $499

GTX 780 was $650
GTX 980 was $549
GTX 1080 was $549
RTX 2080 is $699

Bottom line, with the whole mining craze, last year, showing people would pay more for cards, Nvidia's greed, and lack of AMD competition, have created a storm of increased prices.

 

[King_V]

Right, but if you do it based on the the second to last digit, then you cannot then say, as ingtar did, that there was no performance increase.

That was my objection - the complaint was a huge increase in price for the new x60 from the last x60, but then said there's a zero performance gain in price brackets. The 1070 was released LONG before the mining craze, and was still a little more than the 2060, and the 1070Ti was in a different price bracket, released at $449. The argument doesn't hold.

Now, do I think that Nvidia is milking the fact that they dominate the high-end market? Absolutely. But on the 2060, that complaint doesn't really apply much, if at all. We're seeing 1070Ti performance for less than 1070 non-Ti intro pricing, and about the same current 1070-non-Ti pricing (with the exception of 3 models currently available for less).

At the moment the cheapest Vega 56, which performs between the 1070 and 1070Ti, is $333. The 2060 outperforms it generally, and is in the same pricing range.

 

[logainofhades]

The GTX 1060 6gb was similar in performance, as a GTX 980, for $300 less . The GTX 980ti came out with a launch price of $649. The 1070 delivered similar performance, while being $270 cheaper. The 2060, we are only getting $100 discount vs a previous gen card of similar performance. Lack of competition, and greed. AMD needs to start firing, on all cylinders, on the GPU side, and force some real competition, like they have CPU side, with Ryzen.

 

[King_V]

There is greed/opportunism involved, no doubt.

But, by the logic you're using, the RTX 2060 should be, compared to the 1070Ti, $300 cheaper or $270 cheaper? In other words, $149 or $179?

The tier the 980Ti in is a little weird as a point of reference, though, because it contains the 980Ti, 1070, 1070Ti, and Titan X Maxwell. It's a bit harder to draw a correlation there.

 

[logainofhades]

The $199 price, like the GTX 960 launch would have been nice. The GTX 960 was similar in performance to the 770, while being $200 cheaper. Even $225 would have made some sense, as it is competing with an oddball like the 1070ti, putting it in between a 1070 and a 1080. The whole RTX lineup is overpriced.

 

[cryoburner]

The GTX 1060 6gb was similar in performance, as a GTX 980, for $300 less . The GTX 980ti came out with a launch price of $649. The 1070 delivered similar performance, while being $270 cheaper. The 2060, we are only getting $100 discount vs a previous gen card of similar performance. Lack of competition, and greed. AMD needs to start firing, on all cylinders, on the GPU side, and force some real competition, like they have CPU side, with Ryzen.

Also, don't forget to consider the amount of time that's passed between generations, since Nvidia stuck with the 10-series for much longer than usual. The 1060 came out 22 months after the 980, while the 2060 is coming out 32 months after the 1080, or 22 months after the 1080 Ti. If we were to get a similar increase in performance per dollar over time as we saw with Pascal over Maxwell, we would be getting 1080 Ti level performance for under $300 by now.

I do think that adding new features like raytracing effects can be great, but not so much when they come at the cost of only receiving mediocre performance gains at a given price level. Nvidia's shifting of product names to disguise the weak performance gains doesn't help either. The card at this price level should have been branded as a 2070, not a 2060. And perhaps Nvidia should have just stuck with increasing performance this generation, and saved RTX for the next generation when they could pair it with a process shrink to keep the additional hardware from increasing manufacturing costs as much as it did.

Also, remember people dismissed VR when it first appeared.

VR is not a very good comparison. It's an entirely different way to interact with games, and you can't just plug VR into most existing games and expect it to work well without a substantial overhaul. Raytracing, on the other hand, is ultimately just yet another lighting effect to improve upon the already good-looking lighting effects in today's games, but at a huge performance hit on this first-generation hardware. Unlike VR, it doesn't offer a new experience, just a somewhat better-looking experience. And there's still practically no games that support it. We're nearing four months since the RTX series launched, and Battlefield V is the only game with support for its headlining feature.

 

[techy1966]

Your Forza Motorsport 7 benchmark is flawed.
According to your latest Aorus 2080Ti review, Vega 64 at 1440p scores 114 FPS.
Now it scores 74 FPS.

I never notice that until you brought it up. Why is this that the Vega 64 is now a lot slower in Forza 7 in the RTX 2060 review but was so much faster in the 2080Ti Gigabyte review. Yes I noticed different driver versions used but that should not hurt performance like this so whats up with those numbers in Forza 7.

 

[alariem3]

When everything is weighed together the RTX 2060 with its 40 watt raised power demand over the 1060 takes the crown back from AMD's 580 and 590. The 580 and 590 are both cards that raised watt usage in order to gain performance

In other words only the AMD Vega lineup is anywhere to be seen when it comes to performance charts but as everyone knows that will cost you $100 to $300 more then
the RTX 2060.

 

[King_V]

In other words only the AMD Vega lineup is anywhere to be seen when it comes to performance charts but as everyone knows that will cost you $100 to $300 more then
the RTX 2060.

Um, what? You're saying that the Vega 64 is from $100 to $300 more than the RTX 2060?

There are two Vega 64 models available right now for $399, so please show me these $99 to $299 RTX 2060 cards, because I'm buying one right now if that's the case!

 

[mlee 2500]

Nobody is even convinced that RAY TRACING is for real..and Tom's is asking if "mainstream ray tracing" is a thing?

 

[punkncat]

The mistake I see in everyone's complaints here is this.

You are comparing a card WITH ray tracing, to the price point of previous cards without it. Ignoring the fact that the card has essentially the same performance (with RT off, as it should seeing as it's the same chip) as a card that it cost less than from the last generation, and completely forgetting that there is a GTX (NOT RTX) offering of this card upcoming.

This isn't an apples to apples generational comparison yet. Calm down and hold your collective horses. There will still be time to burn NVIDIA down later with your angst.

 

[logainofhades]

RT is useless, as of right now, only 1 game supports it, and kills performance. RT is not ready for prime time, yet.

 

[InvalidError]

There will still be time to burn NVIDIA down later with your angst.

I'd rather have AMD burn Nvidia with Navi later this year if it does deliver GTX1080/RTX2070 performance for under $300. Much overdue market price correction.

 

[maddogfargo]

I think you guys may have broken something between your 2070 review and the 2060 review. Maybe an bad AMD driver? Look at Forza Motorsport for example...

2070 review Forza 7 VEGA FPS
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2070-founders-edition,5851-5.html

2060 review Forza 7 VEGA FPS
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-ray-tracing-turing,5960-4.html

2060 is not as good as it looks when compared to prior testing. I honestly think you may have a driver issue going on here.

 

[SR TEE]

There is greed/opportunism involved, no doubt.

But, by the logic you're using, the RTX 2060 should be, compared to the 1070Ti, $300 cheaper or $270 cheaper? In other words, $149 or $179?

The tier the 980Ti in is a little weird as a point of reference, though, because it contains the 980Ti, 1070, 1070Ti, and Titan X Maxwell. It's a bit harder to draw a correlation there.

The GTX 1070 TI when released was used as a filler to compete with the newly released VEGA 56 at the time, the GTX 1070 TI didn't make much sense, was an unnecessary release and it didn't sell too well. I believe Nvidia should of compared this GPUs to commonly bought GPUs like the GTX 1070 they say it's replacing or even the GTX 1080 since in some cases it matches that GPU's performance.I believe if you're looking to buy a brand new GPU right now it would make the RTX 2060 at an MSRP of $350 look good, but if demand is high great odds it will cost more. Now the people that bought the GTX 1060 6gb version for it's MSRP of $250 looking to upgrade around the same price are going massively disappointed. You can account for inflation, but if that's the case Nvidia would of been best served by making the MSRP about $300 to keep their midrange market intact. If this is a move by Nvidia to clear out their overstock of GTX 1060s they still have that's brilliant on their part unless AMD puts out a GPU that can go head to head with the RTX 2060 and costs significantly less. This would be a great time AMD to attack if they are ready, but I don't see that coming yet.

The bottom line is when a company like Nvidia has no viable competition they can pretty much charge whatever they want, gamers that demand the best and even miners proved this that they'll be willing to pay that ransom if there's nothing better.

 

[pocketdrummer]

Well, we can't beat up nVidia about greed anymore without talking about AMD following suit.

New AMD VII cards are $700. That's a 29% (their words) increase in performance over the Vega 64 for 40% more money.

We're getting screwed from both companies now.