Review of Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition

Historically, Nvidia's second x70 cards offer the best price / performance ratio, making it easy to choose the best graphics cards. Of course, the x80 model was faster, but it also cost a lot more. The GTX 970 and GTX 1070 were the most popular cards of their time, and the RTX 2070 was to continue this tradition. Unfortunately, AMD's lack of competition could make the RTX 2070 the least desirable progressive graphics card in Nvidia's history, and with a base price of $ 499- $ 599 for the RTX 2070 Founders Edition that we examine in this article – the most recent. The Turing family members certainly do not go beyond the price level of $ 300 to $ 400 that we love for conventional GPUs.

That's the bad news. The good news is that, according to Nvidia, RTX 2070 "reference" cards should be widely available, which means that the $ 100 premium on the Founders Edition should not be required. The RTX 2070 is also very fast, beating the previous generation GTX 1080 in virtually every game I've tested. But we were spoiled by the big generational upgrade of the GTX 1070 and, by contrast, the 2070 seems more than disappointing.

The GTX 970 remains one of the most popular graphics cards ever produced, even with its segmented 3.5GB + 512MB snafu VR. The performance of the GTX 1070 has been significantly improved, surpassing that of the previous generation GTX 980 Ti at a significantly lower price. Meanwhile, the RTX 2070 is significantly lower than the GTX 1080 Ti and provides a modest improvement of 10% over the GTX 1080. Is this enough to entice players to move to the higher version or will they stay away from this generation?

There is hope in the path of ray tracing and DLSS-enabled games. We're still waiting for games to come in both directions – we only have a few technical demonstrations of technology for the moment – but RTX 2070 includes all the new features that can make Turing architecture the most great graphic revolution possible. processors for more than ten years. The question is whether the chip will be powerful enough to make ray tracing viable. With just over half as many processing cores as the TU102 used in the RTX 2080 Ti and similar clock speeds, the performance potential is also halved.

I've already talked about these areas and, with the RTX reviews 2080 and 2080 Ti in the books, the time has come for the third leg of Turing's trip to Nvidia. I start with the RTX 2070 Founders Edition, which offers design updates similar to those of the other two models. Its shorter design allows it to fit more compact housings, but it retains dual axial fans and thick metal backplate. It also comes with a basic overclocker for 90 MHz graphics processor compared to the 2070 reference, as well as the VirtualLink connector for future virtual reality headsets.

Incidentally, the 2080 Ti and 2080 are heavy compared to previous models: 1327g and 1257g to be precise, compared to 1013-1037g for the GTX 1070 to 1080 Ti (which used the same basic design). The shorter length of the 2070 makes it a slightly lighter card, with an accuracy of 970g, but the EVGA RTX 2070 weighs 200g less. I'm still studying the potential for cooling and overclocking, and heavier does not mean, in itself, better cooling, but the RTX Founders editions are certainly larger compared to previous models.

This round will focus on gaming performance in the real world. In terms of raw specifications, the RTX 2070 seems to have similar performance potential as the GTX 1080. It has fewer CUDA cores, but it also has a new architecture and GDDR6 memory that should keep it in mind. In the future, games using ray tracing and DLSS (or other elements of Turing architecture) should record even greater gains, but all games currently in my suite of tests use a traditional rendering pipeline.

I've had the time to invest in overclocking the 2070 on this occasion. Under Founders Edition, most games display a GPU clock close to 1800 MHz, a speed higher than that announced by the GPU Boost, typical of Nvidia's game cards. After digging with MSI Afterburner and EVGA's Precision X1, I came across a 750 MHz GDDR6 overclocking (effective efficiency of 15.5 GT / s), which represents a clear improvement of 10%. I was able to increase my performance to 16 GT / s, but a little bit. For the heart of the GPU, I increased the voltage by 100 mV, adjusted the fan speed to promote cooling compared to noise, set the power level to 114% and the heart of the GPU to + 125 MHz. This resulted in a relatively stable 2000-2040 MHz frequency and, more importantly, I was able to finish all my gaming tests without crashing. The overclocked results for the FE 2070 are included in the graphs.

Performance of GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition

I have retried all the graphics cards for the Turing launch and, even though some driver updates have been released over the past month, the performance of my test suite seems stable. My graphics card uses a 5.0GHz overclocked Core i7-8700K, which should help reduce processor bottlenecks during testing. Previous Nvidia and AMD GPUs have been tested with Nvidia 399.07 and 18.8.2 drivers, the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti have been tested with 411.51 drivers, and the RTX 2070 has been tested with 416.33 drivers provided by Nvidia.

I use "maximum" settings in twelve popular games for my main benchmarks. This includes all extras from the GTA5 advanced graphical menu (other than super-caling), HBAO + in The Witcher 3, and so on. Some games punish cards with less than 6 GB, or even 8 GB of VRAM with these settings, but high-end cards like the RTX 2070 will typically be used with higher quality settings. I've also included 1080p average quality testing, although bottlenecks in the CPU are often a limitation at this point.

The RTX 2070 does not really target the 4k, but I'll start from the top. Performance in the games of the current generation are significantly behind the GTX 1080 Ti: 16% less at 4k ultra, and compared to the GTX 1080, the RTX 2070 FE is on average 12% faster. Forza Horizon 4 is the only game where the 1080 is at the top of the 2070, perhaps thanks to better optimizations for the existing Pascal architecture. It is important to remember that the RTX Founders Edition cards are overclocked at the factory and that the EVGA RTX 2070 is only about 8% faster than the GTX 1080.

1440p Ultra is the perfect place for the RTX 2070, with almost all games tested that exceed 60 fps (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the only exception). Many games run at 100 frames per second or higher, making it an interesting upgrade if you have a 144Hz G-Sync display. Most graphics cards are completely limited by the GPU, so the net benefit of the 2070 versus the 1080 remains at 12%. And DLSS in particular still offers future potential – see below for more details on the tests.

The RTX 2070 is not really designed for 1080p gaming, especially if you use lower quality settings. Almost any decent GPU will suffice here. But to be complete, you can see the results in the gallery above. In 1080p ultra, the 2070 still displays an 11% advantage over the GTX 1080. So we do not reach all the limits of the processor. The 1080p support, meanwhile, reduces the performance advantage to only 5%.

1080p resolution could also be a reasonable target for future games using ray tracing. I'm skeptical that even a 2080 Ti will handle 4k with a ray cast at 60 frames per second or more, and that the 2070 will certainly not hit such a noble target. But 1080p, perhaps with a "medium-quality ray shot", is another matter. Too bad we do not have any ray tricks yet.

A foretaste of the future: DLSS and ray tracing

I have already mentioned that we have not yet games with ray tracing or DLSS, which is true, but we have some demos provided by Nvidia. On the ray tracing front, Nvidia's Star Wars Elevator demo uses DXR (DirectX Ray Tracing) and works theoretically on any DX12-compatible GPU. I could not run it on a 1080 Ti at 4k, but at 1440p, it managed to complete the test sequence – and at 10.1 frames per second incredibly cinematic. Yeah. (And whoever suggests that you can not see more than 10 frames per second in a movie needs his view to be verified.) What about the RTX 2070? Even at 4k, it doubles the frame rate of the 1080 Ti: 19.7 fps. Drop to 1440p and it runs at 34.5 fps. Earn a major win for the RTX 2070 on the 1080 and 1080 Ti, as long as you use the ray tracing equipment.

The other two tests ignore raytracing and instead turn to the more easily enabled DLSS system. Using half the resolution (2716×1527 instead of 3840×2160) and then using a deep training network to improve and eliminate irregularities, DLSS aims to provide image quality equivalent to or greater than 4k TAA, but with significantly better performance . It's hard to say if the quality is really equal or not, but to me, I'm sure I can not tell the difference without capturing screenshots and carefully analyzing the frames. Which is another way of saying that Nvidia seems to have achieved its goal. And unlike ray tracing, you can hardly use DLSS without Turing Tensor cores, without achieving acceptable performance levels.

DLSS is currently available in two demonstrations. The first is a special version of the Final Fantasy 15 evaluation tool that supports DLSS. (It should be available to the public by the end of the month.) It is currently limited to testing at 4k, with either TAA or DLSS. As a reference, a GTX 1080 Ti marks 3273 (32.1 frames per second) with TAA, the RTX 2070 marks 2735 (26.7 frames per second) and a RTX 2080 Ti gets 4358 (43.1 frames per second) . The 2070 loses at 1080 Ti, but DLSS rocks tables and the 2070 gets 3766 (37.2 ips) – and the 2080 Ti has 5963 (59.0 ips). If you wonder, these framerates are captured with the help of PresentMon – which I've also used for the Star Wars Elevator demo and the final reference.

The Infiltrator demo is similar to FF15, but it only uses Epic's Unreal Engine 4 with added DLSS support. Again, it is currently limited to 4k, with TAA or DLSS. Working with TAA, the GTX 1080 Ti displays a resolution of 45.3 frames per second, RTX 2070 a resolution of 36.5 frames per second and RTX 2080 Ti a frame rate of 60.1 frames per second. Switch to DLSS and the RTX 2070 gets 52.7 fps while the RTX 2080 Ti goes up to 83.1 fps. Mission accomplished, at least in the form of demonstration.

These early results from DLSS and raytracing show the potential of Turing graphics cards, including the RTX 2070. For games that exploit the new features, the 2070 will even exceed the GTX 1080 Ti, often with a considerable margin. But until the matches begin to appear, we are in the waiting. This is also a subject that will really cloud comparisons in the future, because you can not in principle do ray tracing or DLSS at reasonable settings without the Turing material. Instead of being significantly faster, it will be a matter of choosing between image quality and framerate.

GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition is a questionable value

I've talked about performance and the RTX 2070 brings a modest improvement over a 1080 GTX. The problem is that the 2070 Edition Founders Edition costs a bit more than a GTX 1080 nowadays. . Of course, the GTX 1070 to 1080 Ti are about to come out – Nvidia will not manufacture these chips now that their replacements are exhausted. Nvidia also said that he was working to ensure that RTX 2070 cards at the point of entry of under $ 499 are available at launch, but I am skeptical.

The EVGA reference is RTX 2070, but as most 2080 Ti cards are out of stock and other graphics card vendors claim that the 2070's supplies are tight, we will have to keep an eye on this evolution. But suppose the EVGA card will sell for $ 499 and that the 2070 Founders edition will cost $ 599. The gallery above displays the number of fps per currency unit, both for the isolated graphics card and for the full installation of the system (with a computer at $ 1,000, not including the cost of the display, the system operating system or graphics card).

In the current state of things, if you build a new high-end gaming PC, RTX cards make sense. If you already have a gaming PC and you plan to upgrade the graphics card, the decision becomes much more complex. A $ 500 RTX 2070 will offer a value similar to a GTX 1080 at $ 450 – in existing games at least; it would be better in future games enabled by DLSS, of course. But mid-range cards like the RX 570/580 and the GTX 1060 remain the best overall value.

I do not know when we'll see RTX 2060 or even if we will see this – then it is a case of waiting and seeing. Prices are expected to drop over the next few months as the supply of new GPUs increases, and perhaps AMD will also offer a little more competition. But it's easy to understand why some are giving RTX 2000 cards a pass.

GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition: a mid-range card at the high end price

The purchase of the fastest graphics card has never been a good idea if you were looking for a good value for money. Rather, the second-level GPUs, such as the GTX 770, 970, and 1070, have generally won our choice for the best overall graphics cards. Unfortunately, the RTX 2070 does not continue this tradition. Everything is in place for this to be the next big GPU mid-range, except for the price that is decidedly high-end. We have seen prices fluctuate in the past, ranging from $ 400 for 670 and 770 to $ 329 for 970, then $ 449 for $ 379. With its Turing RTX 2000 series, Nvidia has inserted each product into the next higher category basket.

As such, RTX 2080 Ti has a Titan price, the RTX 2080 takes the old 1080 Ti slot and the RTX 2070 takes the place of 1080. The RTX 2070 is by no means a bad card: it is faster than a 1080 and has compelling new features that can make it faster than even a 1080 Ti. The problem is that we do not have any games using these features yet and after two and a half years, an incremental performance upgrade at a higher price is at best disappointing. But with 25 games (and more) set to support DLSS and at least a dozen games with ray tracing support, if you buy a high-end graphics processor today, we recommend to get at least the RTX 2070 – Founders Edition, for $ 100 less.

What we really need right now is that AMD provides some competition to Nvidia. RX Vega is not going to cut it, especially if we start talking about efficiency. A second Polaris refresh will not do much either, I suppose. Unfortunately, 7 nm Vega is a fuzzy question mark for mainstream cards, and Navi is likely to be in at least a year. That is why Nvidia can justify charging higher prices than previously. This is also why Nvidia can take risks and use features such as DLSS and ray tracing.

The GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition is a very powerful card. It has a decent overclocking potential, it is quiet and the temperatures under load are acceptable. If we were looking for a price similar to that of the outgoing GTX 1070, it would be an excellent upgrade, 40% faster for the same price! Unfortunately, it is 40% faster than the 1070 with a 40 to 70% higher price.

I mark the RTX 2070 Founders edition as it stands today, on the games we are currently playing and taking into account the Founders Edition pricing. DLSS and long-term ray tracing could make it a much more interesting card, but unless you are already planning a new version of PC, I would expect to use the RTX 2070. Even if you want a RTX 2070, another model is almost certainly a better value.