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Review: EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 XC Ultra Gaming and Black Gaming

by Tarinder Sandhu on 23 October 2018, 14:01

Tags: EVGA, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qadyot

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Conclusion

This Black Gaming will be hard to beat as it provides a compelling entry into the RTX 2070 world without the exorbitant price premiums for overclocked cards.

The general price inflation for leading graphics cards has pushed the third-rung GeForce RTX 2070 to a starting price of £460, rising to a frankly ridiculous £670 for the best that Nvidia's partners can offer.

EVGA is more sensible for its mainstream cards. The Black Gaming comes in at that £460 and uses a custom, smaller PCB that still carries a full-width cooler using the company's latest technology.

Fitting into a dual-slot form factor, cool and quiet, some may argue the lack of RGB counts against it. We prefer looking at it the other way, that is, the sleek, simple look does it favours.

This Black Gaming will be hard to beat as it provides a compelling entry into the RTX 2070 world without the exorbitant price premiums for overclocked cards.

That brings us on to the XC Ultra Gaming. Using better cooling, albeit taking up three slots, and outfitted with RGB, an additional six-pin power connector, a higher power target, and an extra 105MHz boost speed, you would think that a reasonable premium would be worth it.

Sure, a $70 premium, as is the case in the US, is manageable, but the £90 premium, taking it to £549, in the UK is a step too far. The XC Ultra Gaming needs to be no more than £519 for it to make sense in our eyes.

The bottom line is that EVGA, as expected, has a thoroughly decent RTX 2070 line-up. We'd invest in the Black Gaming and put the money saved by eschewing an overclocked model into a game or three.

The Good
  
The Bad
Futureproof architecture
Attractive design
Quiet under load
Good cooling performance
  
Price (XC Ultra)
2.75-slot form factor (XC Ultra)
No backplate (Black Gaming)



EVGA GeForce RTX 2070 Black Gaming

HEXUS.where2buy*

The reviewed cards are available to purchase from Scan Computers.

HEXUS.right2reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.


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HEXUS Forums :: 17 Comments

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Posted by syristix - Tue 23 Oct 2018 15:33
Almost £500 to slightly better a 1080 that was released in may 2016.. Er NO.

This might be “better” technology on paper than a 1080 but for 2 and a half years work call me underwhelmed. In fact call me underwhelmed on all of these RTX products apart from the 2080TI which is really the first card possible to play 4k games at decent frame rates. Note please I am talking performance not pricepoint which I find akin to daylight robbery.

RTX overall offers ray tracing and other goodies but why are people getting sucked in, even optimised these technologies hamstring the cards ability to function at any decent frame rate over 1080p resolution. At best the 2080ti £1000 card will eventually enable you to play at 1440p with ray tracing - wooopy doo.

Looking forward Navi AMD's next offering GPU wise might be a sensible price point <<applaud>> but it's mid range. If Raja K can do something at Intel, great, bring on more competition. I just feel like many others still with their money in their pocket I want to upgrade but can't support stupid prices or drip fed limited advances in tech due to a lack of competition.
Posted by Bagpuss - Tue 23 Oct 2018 16:08
Go die, EVGA.

Money grabbing @#X#!
Posted by Syphadeus - Tue 23 Oct 2018 19:59
Bagpuss
Go die, EVGA.

Money grabbing @#X#!

Interesting that you're targeting your ire at EVGA. For one, at least they're offering a ‘base’ model around the suggested RRP that isn't a waste of time. It's Nvidia you need to direct your anger toward. They are throroughly abusing their market position and they have lot of these board partners by the balls because, like us, they have little alternatives. The margins on these cards are tighter than a nun's snatch so they're having to work hard to turn a profit. Most of the money is going to Nvidia, not EVGA but be glad that EVGA and other partners exist because if they didn't you can bet the only models you could get would be Nvidia's own, more expensive FE ones and you REALLY don't want that.
Posted by Tunnah - Tue 23 Oct 2018 20:26
syristix
Almost £500 to slightly better a 1080 that was released in may 2016.. Er NO.

This might be “better” technology on paper than a 1080 but for 2 and a half years work call me underwhelmed. In fact call me underwhelmed on all of these RTX products apart from the 2080TI which is really the first card possible to play 4k games at decent frame rates. Note please I am talking performance not pricepoint which I find akin to daylight robbery.

RTX overall offers ray tracing and other goodies but why are people getting sucked in, even optimised these technologies hamstring the cards ability to function at any decent frame rate over 1080p resolution. At best the 2080ti £1000 card will eventually enable you to play at 1440p with ray tracing - wooopy doo.

Looking forward Navi AMD's next offering GPU wise might be a sensible price point <<applaud>> but it's mid range. If Raja K can do something at Intel, great, bring on more competition. I just feel like many others still with their money in their pocket I want to upgrade but can't support stupid prices or drip fed limited advances in tech due to a lack of competition.

This is the big point though isn't it. All these tech sites, not just Hexus, are focusing on the wrong thing. Technology advances should give an increase in performance for a fair increase in cost. The RTX cards simply don't do that.

Same goes for the 9900K, I've seen weird arguments being made to explain how the price is OK. It's only expensive when you measure vs the old one! But if you break it down to how much it costs per core, then it's a bargain! But then they go on to make that measurement against older tech. Why have we suddenly stopped expecting an improving curve at a similar price point ? Now it's all “you want the improvement, better pay more!”
Posted by Ozaron - Tue 23 Oct 2018 22:57
Tunnah
Why have we suddenly stopped expecting an improving curve at a similar price point ? Now it's all “you want the improvement, better pay more!”

On the CPU front, I'm not sure. But for GPUs, I assumed that the bitcoin fad had everything to do with it.

Usually, GPUs had to outperform at the same price point by a fair margin every new generation to give people a reason to buy, no? But what happens if the market stops being so saturated (miners swallow up every reasonably priced card for an extended period of time) and there's only one supplier waiting at the end of the fad with a set of new products (RTX series)? You have a market which *will* want to buy, nobody to compete with, and you don't even need to discontinue your old line because it serves lower end gamers just fine now that you can keep it in stock and compare it upwards with your new RTX cards to enforce a belief of “value”. I mean, even for Nvidia, bashing Vega must be a bit of a dead horse thing by now…

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