This Nvidia RTX 2070 is faster than a GTX 1080 Ti

The RTX 2070 is the cheapest way to get hold of real-time raytracing in the near future, but with DirectX ray tracking trapped in the late October update of Windows, the Holy Grail 'of the game is as tangible as the goblet itself. For the moment, the RTX 2070 will have to fend for itself with the normal rendering.

The TU106 GPU is perfectly capable of aligning the performance of the GTX 1080, even at its reference speeds with a moderate cooler. However, the performance of a latest generation card for the same price a last generation card is not convincing. No, the RTX 2070 has to go a step further to win our love. We want GTX 1080 Ti performance.

With regard to the essential components, the GTX 1080 Ti and RTX 2070 do not share too many similarities. The 1080 Ti surpasses the 2070 in memory bandwidth – 484GB / s to 448GB / s – and memory capacity. The number of CUDA cores is also largely in favor of the 1080 Ti GP102 GPU sound complete with 1280 CUDA cores more than the Turing TU106 GPU.

To overcome physical limitations, we needed the best graphics card for this job. Fortunately, it was an easy decision. We opted for the fastest silicon on this side of the Atlantic … which was right in our office: the MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z. That's way beyond the best RTX 2070 that we have under the hand, and the best chance of getting the RTX 2070 on the other side of the performance charts.

This graphics card is perfect. It features two large TORX fans, a massive heatsink, and has already done half the work for us with a factory overclock. Gaming Z is preset at the factory, resulting in a 210 MHz increase in the 2070 Boost Clock.

While the standard RTX 2070 manages to exceed a GTX 1080, it is a bit below the GTX 1080 Ti in most games. For its part, the Gaming Z is only a few images of the GTX 1080 Ti, sometimes even on par with Pascal's flagship product. With a cooling capacity capable of going a step further, the graphics processor however has a little more potential.

The EVGA X1 Precision application defines an acceptable voltage / frequency curve that will not give an empty screen and a frustrated hardware burner mid-way through the benchmarking. This results in a stable 2040 MHz clock under load on the GPU. Memory requires human touch, but the Gaming Z is capable of a fast and easy 500 MHz boost – taking this card from 14 Gbps to 15 Gbps.

The results speak for themselves, but not only has the RTX 2070 been capable of GTX 1080 Ti performance, but it can even surpass that of its predecessor Pascal in some titles.

Unfortunately, not all games take into account changes to Nvidia's Turing architecture. The CUDA and the memory superiority of the 1080 Ti occupy the top of 2070 in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Far Cry 5, although the latter was one of the first games to support the characteristic of Turing architecture.

This is not a clear victory for the RTX 2070, but the cheaper card is also more promising for the future. Although the price of the GTX 1080 Ti can only increase when stocks run out and third-party cards are dropped, the RTX 20 series should benefit from additional features through real-time ray tracing.

This is not yet a well-decided affair, I admit. Without a manual overclock pushing maximum power and thermal limits, the 2070 can not compete with the performance of a 1080 Ti in stock. Likewise, a third-party overclocked GTX 1080 Ti is out of reach of Nvidia's entry-level RTX card, no matter how lucky you get in the silicon lottery.

At least, this shows that the value proposition of RTX 2070 third-party cards may be slightly more attractive than it appears on the surface. This may not be enough to convince you to buy a 2070, but that could at least justify your rush purchase of RTX 2070.