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Review: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition

by Tarinder Sandhu on 7 January 2019, 14:01

Tags: NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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Conclusion

Putting said numbers in context, RTX 2060 is a smidge better than the last-generation GTX 1070 Ti and about the same speed as the Radeon RX Vega 56.

Nvidia is fully aware that it needs to broaden the appeal of the RTX series of graphics cards quickly.

In a move that may surprise some, the GeForce RTX 2060 is based off the same die as the RTX 2070, marking a departure from how Nvidia usually introduces its mainstream champion GPU.

Healthy snips to both the front- and back-end of the architecture - fewer SMs, fewer ROPS, narrower memory bus, etc. - ensure that it is no immediate performance rival, but numbers remain very healthy at FHD and thoroughly decent at QHD.

Putting said numbers in context, RTX 2060 is a smidge better than the last-generation GTX 1070 Ti and about the same speed as the Radeon RX Vega 56, putting it firmly in the premium firmament. This is a proper gaming card.

The Founders Edition takes the same reduced-size form factor as the RTX 2070, which comes as absolutely no surprise, though the decision not to overclock the core goes against the RTX grain. It remains a lovely bit of kit, exuding quality throughout.

Nvidia would have preferred a dedicated, optimised die for this GPU, as was the case for the volume-selling GTX 1060, thereby reducing build cost, but even so, the $349 (£329) price is attractive in the current climate.

There are still large question marks over how the RTX-specific features such as ray tracing and DLSS will play out on major gaming titles - updates are coming through rather slowly - and one may argue that the 6GB framebuffer is not in keeping with the times, yet the GeForce RTX 2060 offers really good gaming performance at what is considered a decent price.

Were you thinking about buying a last-gen GTX 1070 Ti, 1080, or Radeon RX Vega? The GeForce RTX 2060 is arguably the pick of the bunch at its supposed RRP.

The Good
  
The Bad
Great performance at QHD
Lovely build, as usual
Cool and quiet
Good price
  
6GB framebuffer?
FE not overclocked



Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition

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The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card will be available to purchase from Scan Computers.

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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.



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HEXUS Forums :: 22 Comments

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Posted by jimbouk - Mon 07 Jan 2019 15:07
Solid card, but about £150 too rich for me to consider purchasing. Mainstream is now over £300? Just for Nvidia I think…
Posted by ET3D - Mon 07 Jan 2019 15:23
Must be a driver update in the works for some of these performance anomalies. Shadow of War 16 FPS min? Even the 1060 has almost double that.
Posted by Tabbykatze - Mon 07 Jan 2019 15:46
The big hullabaloo is the performance in BF:V and it's not there, why?

Nor are you making any initial distinction on your graphs and notes that there will be 6 variants of the RTX2060 with varying performance levels. This is the 2060 at its best, this does not highlight the perf of the other 5 models.

Or does your Nvidia reviewing agreement not allow you to have negative connotations that conflict with their marketing materials?
Posted by Tarinder - Mon 07 Jan 2019 16:10
Tabbykatze
The big hullabaloo is the performance in BF:V and it's not there, why?

Nor are you making any initial distinction on your graphs and notes that there will be 6 variants of the RTX2060 with varying performance levels. This is the 2060 at its best, this does not highlight the perf of the other 5 models.

Or does your Nvidia reviewing agreement not allow you to have negative connotations that conflict with their marketing materials?

BFV is an ever-evolving game-update cycle that is proving difficult to benchmark. An update renders previous results semi-useless. There continue to be lots of updates, so we reckon it makes most sense to take a look at it when it is more final.

As to the other models, Nvidia is only releasing this version for now. It hasn't spoken about others either privately or publicly. When it does, we will fill you in.
Posted by Tabbykatze - Mon 07 Jan 2019 16:21
Tarinder
BFV is an ever-evolving game-update cycle that is proving difficult to benchmark. An update renders previous results semi-useless. There continue to be lots of updates, so we reckon it makes most sense to take a look at it when it is more final.

As to the other models, Nvidia is only releasing this version for now. It hasn't spoken about others either privately or publicly. When it does, we will fill you in.

I disagree with that response, all the other games can receive updates and driver optimisations of which how often does yourself or any reviewer go back and re-review new updates with driver optimisations?

BF:V is the big kid on the block and the mainstay of Nvidia advertising for Ray Tracing, to not include it in the benchmarking here looks dubious/nefarious to me.

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