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Nvidia's RTX market continues this week with the launch of its GeForce RTX 2070 video card. After the high-end RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti GPUs of last month, the 2070 is more affordable. At $ 500, it is at the extreme end of the nebulous definition of the term "general public". But that should be part of the conversation when we talk about building a powerful new PC today.
But should you buy the RTX 2070 if your budget is around $ 500? Yes. Probably. With perhaps a handful of exceptions that depend mainly on your monitor.
To be clear, I have not used the RTX 2070 yet. I am basing myself on a mass of PC World, Gamers Nexus and other test benchmarks. So even though I do not make assumptions about his performance, I guess the 2070 has no quirks that would bother me. That said, I am convinced that my reasoning is good.
Tech luxure vs value
The main thing about RTX 2070 is that it corresponds to a GTX 1080 of last generation. This is true for both price and performance. Each card sells for about $ 500. And these are powerful processors for 1440p and some 4K games at lower settings.
This is disappointing from the point of view of technological progress. In the past, we expected a performance increase of up to 30% between two cards of the same price from one generation to the next.
But if you buy a graphics card because you care about the state of the art, what do you do in the $ 500 category? Nvidia will be happy to sell you a RTX 2080 Ti at $ 1,200. This is not to say that the increase (or lack thereof) of RTX 2070 performance is not disappointing. It is absolutely. But the fact is that disappointment should not be taken into account in your purchase decision.
And I do not think a lot of material evaluations help people understand it. Most of the RTX 2070 reviews I've read cover both robustness compared to previous generations and good value for money. But they also confuse these two concepts when I think they have to stay completely separate.
The RTX 2070 is your best choice in terms of value at $ 500, and this has nothing to do with a disappointing jump compared to the GTX 1080.
It's not exciting, but it's new
So if you can get a GTX 1080 or a Vega 64 at $ 475 to $ 500, why would not you want one? Well, because these cards are old. The GTX 1080 was released in 2016 and Vega cards were launched in 2017. If you are building a new computer or upgrading today, I do not know why you would spend about the same amount for a two-year graphics processor.
The RTX 2070 will last longer from today by definition. Nvidia will support its drivers longer. If developers start implementing RTX branding technology that gives its brand name to RTX, the 2070 has tensor cores for use. If we succeed in one way or another in a future focused solely on ray tracing, 2070 should also survive.
We do not know if RTX or other Nvidia rendering technologies like Deep Super Sampling (DLSS) will take off. And I would not buy a card for any of these points, but you'd better take them into account in your purchase decision than to know if the 2070 is relatively disappointing.
None of this is exciting. I agree. I even agree that it is mentally difficult to deposit $ 500 on something that is actually the same as the $ 500 card that was launched two years ago. It stinks. But it does not mean either whether the GPU is worth your money and how it will work when you play.
Exceptions to RTX 2070
Sales and energy consumption
I would never say that RTX 2070 is the right $ 500 card for everyone all the time. A sale could happen and drop the GTX 1080 to $ 350 or a 1080 Ti to $ 500. You may be more concerned about the cost of power consumption and the RTX 2070 is designed for a TDP of 185W compared to 180W in 1080. That's not a big difference (and I'm wondering if this is with RTX enabled), but still – maybe electricity is expensive where you live.
Opportunity purchase
Some people may want to buy something used to save money. Everyone's situation is different, but I'm pretty nervous about the current state of the used graphics card market after the craze for cryptomechanics came out last year. You can probably find a lot of inexpensive and powerful cards that work at maximum load 24/7 for months, and you'll never know when you look at them.
Freesync against Gsync
But the only alternative RTX 2070 that I think is viable is the Vega 64 (or maybe a swollen Vega 56). I will write about this separately, but you should buy a video card based on your screen. And if you're looking for a new monitor, you can get an excellent one with AMD's FreeSync adaptive sync technology at a much more affordable price than the equivalent Nvidia GSync panel. So, if you think of the video card and its display as a package, as you should probably do, the Vega 64 is proving to be a much better value.
What if something better happens soon?
Finally, you can still keep waiting.
Maybe AMD will come back with a way to compete on the high end. Nvidia needs competition. I also think that AMD should stay in the conversation. I love its Radeon RX 580. For 1080p60 games, you do not need much more power than that. But this map, and AMD as a whole, are easy to ignore. And that's because AMD has nothing close to the 2080 Ti. If you could start something similar, you would expect prices to start to fall
The problem is that it's a scary wait moment. The tariffs are coming for virtually all PC components made in China. And a $ 500 RTX 2070 might seem like a great deal in a few months.
The RTX 2070 is a good deal for the moment. That makes a lot more sense than the $ 800 RTX 2080. And it should have the long-term support and additional features that will make it a better investment than a 1080 or a Vega 64. So, if you've been waiting to buy a new card, get started and jump on the RTX 2070. I would do it.
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