Nvidia Announces GeForce RTX 2060

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13796/nvidia-announces-geforce-rtx-2060-349-dollars-january-15th

by zdw • 8 years ago

106 86 8 years ago

wlesieutre5• 8 years ago

Have to wait for benchmarks to say anything definitive, but from the specs table it looks like performance is in the ballpark of the 1070. Same TFLOPS, faster memory clock but not as much memory, TDP is 10W higher.

At $350 that sounds like a tough sell over the 1070, which is finally down to $300 after rebate. Unless you're really excited about the raytracing stuff.

I'm underwhelmed for 2.5 years of progress since the 1070 (mid 2016). Just sticking it out with my 970 until it dies, which will hopefully be until there's something new worth upgrading to.

Maybe AMD has something more impressive up their sleeves in the mainstream price range.

ohithereyou2• 8 years ago

RTX 2060 has Tensor cores on a mainstream, desktop offering, which might be of some interest if you want to play with deep learning at home

Edit: I'm also sticking with a GTX 970 right now, mainly because I game at 1080p. When I can't get a consistent 1080p@30FPS (though I prefer 1080p@60FPS) then I will consider upgrading. Right now I'm CPU bound, not GPU bound, in any title where I get sub-60FPS.

wlesieutre5• 8 years ago

True, and I think these are also used for their Deep Learning Super-Sampling system, which is another potential difference between the 1070 and 2060. Render at lower resolution and upscale with a specially trained neural network for each game.

Jnr• 8 years ago

I'm also sticking to Nvidia GTX 970 for now but would be nice to upgrade at some point. I was hopeful about AMD's offering but after trying Ryzen 2400G APU on my Linux media box I am not going to touch new AMD hardware again with a ten foot pole any time soon. Their Linux drivers are a nightmare, freezing display all the time, requiring power cycling. Nvidia works nicely and I don't really mind the bigger price tag.

Crespyl• 8 years ago

This is exactly where I'm at, my 970 handles everything I've needed so far.

I'm interested in exploring VR dev, but am waiting until I have a new GPU, and can't really justify the upgrade yet. I've had my eye on the recent Ryzen cards, but I'm not sold on the reliability yet compared to Nvidia.

I do like that AMD at least seems to be trying to play nice with the open source drivers and kernel infrastructure, but in practice Nvidia still seems to be the most straightforward solution, so... meh.

scarejunba• 8 years ago

The 970 also works smoothly on Ubuntu with Nouveau.

LinuxBender• 8 years ago

Similar for me. I had to get the 1050Ti for VR (vrchat optimization issues) and that should suffice for some time.

holtalanm5• 8 years ago

I can't speak for linux currently, as I stopped running that in lieu of the Windows Subsystem for Linux, but I havent had any of those problems on either of my AMD-gpu-powered machines on windows. (one running Vega 8 integrated, the other running an RX 580 4G).

it definitely sounds like a driver compatibility issue. AMD cards have had....issues on linux for a long while now. I remember running a laptop with a dedicated AMD card about 10 years ago that wouldn't work on linux without installing a 3rd-party driver because their switchable graphics implementation was god-awful.

opencl• 8 years ago

Raven Ridge APUs in particular are terrible, every other piece of AMD hardware has very dramatically better Linux support than NVIDIA's GPUs.

dave7• 8 years ago

It's probably done enough damage to their reputation in your estimation to not matter, but please note these Linux problems are specific to the Raven Ridge APU [1] - not the case using a discrete AMD GPU, the open source drivers for which are by many accounts absolutely superb these days.

It's a shame, I want a 2400G to replace my ageing A10 Trinity media box, will probably give it a try fairly soon expecting latest kernels have this solved by now...

[1] https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/linux-graphics-x-org-d...

alexott2• 8 years ago

And it’s only 6Gb memory :-(

Brockenstein• 8 years ago

Well that's only a problem if 6GB isn't enough, and for the time being it's more than plenty.

onli4• 8 years ago

For games, benchmarks are released. Computerbase for example has their review article online, https://www.computerbase.de/2019-01/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-.... For that workload it's at the level of a GTX 1080/RTX 2070 when overclocked, only a bit lower on stock. Pretty good, and clearly faster than the 1070.

wlesieutre5• 8 years ago

Interesting, that does make it look compelling over the 1070.

I wish they'd stop bumping everything further up the price ladder every generation though.

kevingadd• 8 years ago

One thing of note about the 20xx cards that doesn't get talked up much is that they have an updated version of the NVENC video encoder that produces much better quality than the 10xx cards' at the same bitrate. A big deal if you're aiming to do realtime video capture or live streaming.

tapland• 8 years ago

How do you take advantage of that while streaming?

tracker1• 8 years ago

Wonder how h.265 compares to x265 in terms of quality... on my 1080 it took about 50% more size to get the same quality (so between x264/x265 sizes respectively), but oh so much faster to encode.

setgree• 8 years ago

Have to wait for benchmarks to say anything definitive

ask and ye shall receive https://www.anandtech.com/show/13762/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060...

zokier2• 8 years ago

Seems like ~10% faster and 10% more expensive. So not completely unreasonable deal imho.

webaholic• 8 years ago

That is the whole point of pricing it so high. They want to move the 1000 series stock of which they are sitting on a huge pile of.

ksec2• 8 years ago

I'm underwhelmed for 2.5 years of progress since the 1070 (mid 2016).

Cant blame Nvidia or AMD. GPU's performance Scales very well with transistors count. As long as the next node is ready in GPU maker's pricing equation, you will get more transistors and hence more performance. And this is now largely down to TSMC.

At the current schedule it may take up to Mid / late 2021 before a 7nm 2060 drop price by half.

pizza234• 8 years ago

I'm not very convinced.

Nvidia has been very commendable by breaking new ground with the RTX technologies, but it seems that at least ray tracing has a huge performance impact, therefore, I wonder how this card will fare, given its (relatively) low-level position.

Moreover, with the RTX series, Nvidia has "pulled an Intel": they raised the TDP for each model, so that they on generic (non-RTX) benchmarks, they look good, but they actually have a negligible performance per watt gain compared to the previous generation.

GTX x60 cards traditionally had fixed power requirements (6-pin); this doesn't apply anymore.

My suspicion is that GTX 11x0 cards (1160, 1150) are not yet showing, because Nvidia hasn't figured out a way to show a performance per watt improvement yet.

paulmd• 8 years ago

Perf/watt on traditional raster is about 15% higher at 4K. Not massive, but not bad considering there wasn't a big node shrink either.

https://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_RTX_2080_Ti_Founde...

suresk• 8 years ago

My suspicion is that GTX 11x0 cards (1160, 1150) are not yet showing, because Nvidia hasn't figured out a way to show a performance per watt improvement yet.

My guess is slightly different - they know that the RTX technology isn't really there yet, and models that were just faster version of the current generation would probably kill any RTX sales.

Putting RTX on a 2060 is odd to me. The 2080 can't really run ray tracing at usable performance levels, I don't even want to know what it would look like on a 2060. There might be some more rounds of improvements coming to software, but are those enough to make it playable two tiers down?

Wowfunhappy• 8 years ago

Nvidia has been very commendable by breaking new ground with the RTX technologies, but it seems that at least ray tracing has a huge performance impact, therefore, I wonder how this card will fare, given its (relatively) low-level position.

Phrased more simply: "Is anyone going to want to use Raytracing on this card?"

I'd expect the answer to be "no."

TwoNineA• 8 years ago

I refuse to buy Nvidia cards until they stop blocking drivers in VMs with passed through video cards. Yes I know, you can bypass the dreaded code 43, it's more on principle.

withinrafael• 8 years ago

Interesting, never heard of this until now. A KVM maintainer seems to confirm this behavior too [1], albeit 3 years ago. Some newer anecdotes are around but it isn't clear if this is still happening [2][3]. (I used to virtualize the GPU via RemoteFx in Hyper-V many years ago and didn't run into this then. But now I'll have to give it another shot!)

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2twq7q/nvidia_appare...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/5sh41p/any_other_reas...

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/HyperV/comments/5u2ge2/nvidia_consu...

the_pwner2242• 8 years ago

I can add another anecdote in favor of this happening.

Tried it ~6 months ago with an old GTX 680 (had to update the video bios to get it to pass through to the VM, then got code 43), and about 1 year ago on a laptop with a GTX 1050m (detected by the VM, but code 43).

Had I known ahead of time that this would happen, I would not have bought the 680 or this laptop.

exrook• 8 years ago

It's definitely still happening, however there are workarounds that bypass the driver's checks by changing hypervisor settings. One particularly insidious "feature" is that on the Quadro series of cards, which are ostensibly meant for this use case, it will disable some features if a VM is detected (in my usage, the displayport 1.2 support for 4k@60hz was not enabled until I enabled the workarounds)

sadris• 8 years ago

Do ATI cards allow pass thru?

mort96• 8 years ago

Yes.

sneakernets2• 8 years ago

It's still ridiculously huge.

moftz• 8 years ago

It's not much different than any other Nvidia card. Dual fans, dual slot, it's probably smaller than some of the monster Radeon cards AMD used to make. They make smaller versions of some chipsets but what you lose in volume you lose in cooling.

sneakernets2• 8 years ago

That is true. To be honest, I'm still salty about some older OEM mobos I had to upgrade, which decided to crowd the PCI-e slots with capacitors. All that did was make the slots impossible to use!

swalsh• 8 years ago

How would this compare to my 980ti? It's been working pretty well for VR, but I've been wondering if maybe there's some value in upgrading soon.

onli4• 8 years ago

This will be a little bit faster than the 980 Ti, as the 2060 is at the level of a GTX 1070 Ti, while the 980 Ti is bit slower than a GTX 1070. But I'd wait a generation longer, the jump is not worth it (if you don't get a great price when selling the 980 Ti).

zokier2• 8 years ago

https://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/2372?vs=2141

I wouldn't bother unless you care about power consumption

oldboyFX• 8 years ago

I wonder if low sales numbers for the new generation of Nvidia cards will negatively impact the current and future development of the ray tracking tech.

blt• 8 years ago

Doubtful since the ideas behind ray tracing are very mature. Advances in real time ray tracing will take the form "x advancement in offline ray tracing from 30 years ago can now be done in real time."

kristofferR3• 8 years ago

I really hope AMD can offer some real competition to Nvidia soon, right now NVIDIA is fleecing customers because they have no real competition. $350 for a mid-tier GPU is shameful.

brianwawok• 8 years ago

NVidia stock has lost half their value since peak, if fleecing they aren't doing a very good job at it.

kristofferR3• 8 years ago

It's the Apple syndrome, when you increase the product prices too much people stop buying and your stock goes down.

Also don't forget the crypto boom, it would've been impossible to keep that level up.

AWildC182• 8 years ago

I don't think the peak stock price is indicative of anything. It's been all over the place with bitcoin and retail investors causing havoc and pumping up the price.

mattnewton• 8 years ago

Personally I think the price explosion had two groups of people driving it: The first group, which I am in, believes nvidia with its proprietary CUDA will continue to grow its datacenter presence rapidly, and get some big contracts for field ML hardware. The second was looking for crypto exposure. The etherium bubble has mostly burst and it isn’t profitable (probably hasn’t been for a long time in most places) to buy nvidia cards for crypto mining. That and the trade war with China have taking half of the stock’s overheated value off. It’s still up quite a bit from ~$30 in 2016, and I think that reflects its real edge in ML hardware as well as some modest healthy growth in consumer gaming. I think, previously I assumed all the growth was from investors thinking like I was about their AI prospects and missed that I had picked a winner based on the crypto craze. I think a lot of smart money realized that and got out.

Disclaimer: was very long nvidia, sold a lot in the 200s and hold a lot less these days.

TomVDB5• 8 years ago

For $350 you can get an RTX 2060 or a slightly slower Vega 56.

So AMD is fleecing customers too?

kristofferR3• 8 years ago

The Vega 56 was barely competitive when it was released in 2017, it's overpriced simply because AMD can't compete (let's hope for interesting CES news though).

The fact that the clear market and product leader releases a new product barely competitive with an old mediocre competitor product is troubling. The only reason they are allowed to increase the price of the *60 series by $100 this generation is since they don't have any real competition, something they're taking advantage of to the detriment of the GPU market.

ksec2• 8 years ago

Their "mid-tier" GPU has a bigger die, and die size directly effects pricing. And the absolute most important point, they have 90+ days of GPU Stocks sitting on shelfs and Channels, that is a whole quarter worth of stocks. They have their RTX Order placed early with TSMC, so they will need to price both approximately to move them.

Just to give some context, having 90 days of Stocks sitting during any Normal Quarter is already bad, having it sitting there Before your next gen product launch is even worst. ( Hence why the Stocks has been hammered )

We will see in their next report if Christmas has helped to Lower those stock pile.

ricardobeat• 8 years ago

If only NVIDIA would drop their expensive G-Sync and use FreeSync instead. That would eliminate the strongest reason right now to buy AMD (way larger selection of quality monitors).

SketchySeaBeast2• 8 years ago

Apparently you're a wizard, but don't let that go to your head.

https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-brings-g-sync-support-to-free...

nickflood4• 8 years ago

Nvidia is sticking to the strategy of releasing the same GPU with RTX bolted on under a lower number and charging the same price for it... 2060 ($350) is very close to 1070 ($300), 2070 to 1080, 2080 ($800) to 1080 ti ($750). Edit: not the same same obviusly, but very similar in terms of benchmarks.

Doesn't seem like progress to me. With RTX being underpowered on current gen cards there's no real benefit in being an early adopter by buying this generation of graphics cards if you at all count the money you spend. Just find a used 1080 Ti, I say.

I think, Nvidia tries to pull an Apple and move the "premium" price tier up 500 points while curiously nobody in the press is calling them out on it.

TomVDB5• 8 years ago

Would you have been ok with them calling this a 2080 while keeping a $350 price tag?

Today, I see that a new 1070 Ti goes for $400+. This new RTX 2060 has the same performance for $350.

In other words: if you ignore the name of the product, the new product line gives you better performance and more features (RTX, tensor cores) for the same price than yesterday's product.

Is your only beef with the naming of the product? Why does the name matter?

nickflood4• 8 years ago

The problem in my opinion is that in the past they would effectively shift performance down one SKU on each generation, and at the top you could get a 30% upgrade in performance for the same kind of money. Like the 980 Ti to 1080 Ti for example. Now you get marginally the same amount of performance for marginally the same amount of money.

It doesn't matter what they call it if the performance/money is what it is. I compare names because names meant a set price point going up to 10XX generation.

If you've got no use for RTX and tensor cores, those cards are very similar. RTX is available in one game only 3 months after launch, and what if I just dont want to be an early adopter? Tensor cores, yeah, if you're going to earn money or otherwise have your life improved by additional hardware in Turing, sure, it's a no-brainer. But I feel like it's not for many gamers.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying I am entitled to progress. I'm pointing out that it has slowed. I feel that this is similar to the lack of competition Intel was having. At least I'm thankful to Nvidia gods for making the higher performance card at all available, I guess...

dschuetz• 8 years ago

I'm still waiting for the AMD implementation of hardware real time raytracing. I don't trust Nvidia anymore concerning hardware quality, and the price is just ridiculous.

YegoBear• 8 years ago

Usually the new XX60's are great because you get the previous XX70's performance at the lower XX60 price. This time you're getting the previous XX70 performance for the previous XX70 price...more than 2 years later. Weak!

JohnJamesRambo2• 8 years ago

Hey, it worked for Apple!

eanzenberg• 8 years ago

I think you're being sarcastic, but it actually has according to their revenue. They've hit their targets except for the weakened China market due to increased trade wars and volatility there. Because the economy is exploding due to the tax cuts, and the increased amount of disposable income, the price increases of Apple product hasn't seemed to affect them adversely.

CobrastanJorji• 8 years ago

The bigger announcement here is that Nvidia is enabling support for FreeSync and certifying that things work correctly for certain FreeSync monitors. That's a big deal. Nvidia syncing previously required their proprietary "G-Sync," which is substantially more expensive and is usually only present on monitors explicitly aimed at gaming.

It's too early to tell whether this means G-Sync is dead and FreeSync is just the new standard, but it's a great day to own a FreeSync monitor.

markdog12• 8 years ago

And it looks like you'll be able to enable it for your monitor even if it's not one of the expensive certified ones.

Nvidia Announces GeForce RTX 2060

Related Stories