RTX 2060: Raytracing for beginners?
After the high-end models, Nvidia presented the RTX 2060, a ray-tracing-capable graphics card for beginners, in the run-up to CES. The increase in performance compared to the previous model is impressive - but so is the price.
The RTX graphics cards available to date cost well over 550 francs. Definitely too much for beginners. The RTX 2060 is now set to become cheaper. According to Nvidia, it is available in the USA from 350 dollars excluding tax. How much the card will cost here remains to be seen. However, we can expect it to cost over 400 francs. But for now, let's take a look at the specs.
Faster than GTX 1070 Ti
The RTX 2060 gets the same chip as the RTX 2070. However, it is trimmed slightly. Ultimately, there are 1920 shader units, 240 tensor units, 30 ray tracing units, 120 texture units and 48 ROPs. In terms of shaders, the RTX 2060 therefore has 384 fewer units than the RTX 2070, and six fewer ray tracing units. In addition, there is a base clock of 1365 MHz, a maximum clock of 1680 MHz and a VRAM of up to 6 GB. The GTX 1060 already has up to 6 GB of VRAM. It's a shame that Nvidia doesn't offer up to 8 GB here. The card would be better equipped for the future.
Nvidia specifies a power consumption of 160 watts for the GeForce RTX 2060. This is 15 watts less than the GeForce RTX 2070 and 40 watts more than the GeForce GTX 1060.
According to Nvidia, the card should deliver more performance than a GTX 1070 Ti. If you believe benchmarks from VideoCardz.com, this is especially true for 1440p. Here, the RTX 2060 is ahead in eleven out of 20 games. At 1080p, the GTX 1070 Ti delivers better results in most games. Compared to its predecessor, the GTX 1060, the RTX 2060 performs over 50 per cent better. The increase in performance is therefore relatively high.
According to VideoCardz.com, the RTX 2060 also performs relatively well in terms of ray tracing. Especially in cooperation with DLSS edge smoothing. For example, "Battlefield V" should run in 1080p with the following settings:
- Battlefield V: RT off: 90 fps
- Battlefield V: RT on and DLSS off: 65 fps
- Battlefield V: RT on and DLSS on: 88 fps
DLSS is supposed to make up for the frame rate losses through ray tracing. However, this information should be treated with caution as it comes from Nvidia itself. The cards will be available from 15 January. Our colleague Jan Heidenreich will keep you up to date - including on the price.
A few words on this. As with the larger RTX models, Nvidia's price is pretty steep. Over 400 francs is a hefty price for an entry-level ray tracing card. By comparison, the GTX 1060 cost around 300 francs at launch. The successor now costs over 100 francs more at launch. The alleged performance increase of over 50 per cent is accompanied by a price increase of over 30 per cent. Sure, ray tracing is probably the biggest graphics innovation in recent years, but the high price is still likely to put many consumers off. Nvidia can still afford this at the moment due to a lack of competition.
Ray tracing for notebooks too
Nvidia has also announced that RTX chips will also be available in notebooks in the future. According to Nvidia, the first models will be released at the end of January. For us, it's more likely to be February. Our colleague Anadi Singh tells you more about these new products.
You can find all articles on CES 2019 here.
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