Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Review: Pro’s & Con’s

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An overview of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060

While the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 is certainly going to cost a little bit more than the graphics card in the Nvidia lineup that it is replacing, the truth of the matter is it is light years ahead of that older technology and a real standout when compared to ALL of the new graphics cards Nvidia has released.

Every single year, one particular model in the Nvidia lineup is overhauled and supercharged from top to bottom compared to its predecessor – and this year the honor goes to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060. Pumped up like never before, this is an absolute monster of a graphics card that can still be classified as a “midrange” card even if it is a full-blown heavy hitter.

If you’re looking to upgrade your card and run the latest graphics intensive video games on your PC at the highest levels without losing any frames along the way, this is the beast you’ll want to toss into your box.

Coming complete with full HD and QHD capabilities, the ability to play games at 4K with absolutely zero lag whatsoever, and even ready to accommodate games that leverage next-generation technology like ray tracing right out of the gate this is a graphics card that’s going to set you up for years of gaming come at a very affordable price tag.

You’ll be amazed at just how well the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 punches above its weight class, especially since it is slated right there in the midrange lineup to go toe to toe with the new AMD Radeon RX 5700. That card is anticipated to be $30 more expensive than this one from Nvidia and not nearly as capable or as complete.

Features

As we highlighted earlier, the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 is a major step up from its predecessor.

Featuring 6 GB of the latest 14 Gbps GDDR6 video memory, as well as 50% more CUDA cores to handle all of your processing heavy lifting, it should come as no surprise to anyone serious about gaming that the folks at Nvidia have outdone themselves once again

These black and green cards have always been regarded as the industry leader, and even though AMD has made major inroads and improvements over the last decade or so Nvidia cards – like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 – still lead the pack thanks to their feature set and innovative technology.

This is not a card designed with 1080p HD gaming in mind but instead, a game that is more than comfortable handling 1440p – true 4K – right out of the box, even when you are running Full HD settings. There aren’t a lot of other cards on the market today that can offer this kind of performance (particularly at this price point) without really crippling your frames per second.

That isn’t ever going to be a problem with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060.

The heartbeat of this new graphics card is a Turing TU106 GPU. This is a slightly modified version of the GPU that was leveraged in the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 (the next card up in the Nvidia lineup), which means you’re getting a slightly watered-down version of one of the most high-end video cards on the planet calling all the shots your “midrange” card.

You should know that there is zero SLI support with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 card. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, either, as SLI is really starting to fall out of favor as the Nvidia company instead looks to pivot away from running dual cards and instead just running a single card with more horsepower than ever before.

Only the folks at Nvidia really understand how they’ve been able to squeeze so much extra power when it comes to graphics by eliminating a secondary card, but everyone universally agrees that they’ve not only been able to do it but they are doing it better than anybody else out there as well.

There’s a reason why almost every single one of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 reviews out there speaks to the power, the performance, and the capabilities of this card without even really mentioning SLI all that much. Cards like this have made SLI outdated and obsolete, even though it’s GPU technology that isn’t all that old at all.

Pros

  • Incredibly strong refresh rates even when running 1440p Full HD resolutions
  • Very competitively priced and stacked up against current generation “midrange” cards
  • Super high-quality construction materials throughout (no surprise when you’re talking about and video)
  • Display port, HDMI, and DVI ports guarantee that you have plenty of modern and legacy connectivity options
  • The blazing-fast card offers super-smooth performance, particularly when paired with high-end modern processors and RAM modules
  • Isn’t going to run as hot as a blast furnace even when you have settings maxed and are playing games for hours on end

Cons

  • Some unoptimized AAA games (especially those that use ray tracing) are going to push this card to the max right out of the gate and particularly in years to come

Pricing

We have talked a couple of times in this quick Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 review that the graphics card is slightly more expensive than the predecessor it is replacing in the Nvidia lineup, but that’s to be expected when you’re talking about all the game-changing new technology that this major upgrade includes.

At the same time, we’re really only talking about a price increase of about $30 over the graphics card it is replacing. There aren’t too terribly many Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 reviews out there that are going to complain about this small extra investment necessary to get such outsized performance in return.

Interestingly enough, its closest competitor in the world of graphics cards today comes from AMD and that competing graphics card is actually $30 MORE expensive than this card (the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060) – which makes it $60 more expensive than the previous iteration of this graphics card.

When you lay it out like that it really becomes a no-brainer kind of decision to snap up this new technology from the folks at Nvidia just as soon as you get the opportunity to do so.

Reviews

“This is literally the greatest graphics card I have ever owned, and I’ve been building gaming PCs for more than two decades. Right out of the box it offered plenty of horsepowers to play AAA titles like Battlefield effortlessly, even when I had my settings dialed through the roof. I brought them back to earth a little bit (like you should with every first-person shooter) but am still amazed by the performance”.

“I thought ray tracing was going to be kind of a gimmick, little bit of marketing mumbo-jumbo, and wouldn’t really help put games over the top. After installing this graphics card and playing a couple games with ray tracing ready to rock and roll I can freely admit I was wrong. This changes the way lighting works in games and it is so much more immersive. Nvidia has a homerun on their hands with this card!”

“Trying to pick between the new Nvidia card (this one) and the new AMD card was pretty tough considering help far AMD has come in the last few years. The thing that really put me over the top with the inclusion of the high-end GPU, the blazing fast video RAM, and the fact that Nvidia just seems to do a better job at making midrange and top-tier video cards than AMD does. I don’t regret this choice even a little bit!”

Final Verdict

You’ll have a tough time finding even just a handful of Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 reviews out there that aren’t glowingly positive when they speak about everything that this card has to offer.

Featuring incredible build quality (which is what you should expect from a hardware manufacturer like Nvidia), the kind of durability you expect, as well as slick engineering that cuts this card down from the big and bulky cards of the past to something a lot more streamlined – and a lot more energy/heat efficient – and it’s easy to see why this is so special.

Plenty of people are gearing up to overhaul their PC gaming box with all of the new video cards and processors coming out. AMD is a worthy contender for sure (which wasn’t always the case), but this Nvidia card is light years ahead of anything that they are able to bring to the table right now.

If you are serious about squeezing every single drop of power and performance out of your new video card, and want to guarantee that your new PC is as “future proof” for upcoming games – especially AAA titles – you’ll want to be sure that you are running the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060.

The fact that it is 4K ready straight out of the box and comes with plenty of “juice” to handle ray tracing (the next big breakthrough in videogame graphics and lighting) makes this a no-brainer decision.

 If you want the best of the best when it comes to graphics cards you go with Nvidia – and that means grabbing Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 ASAP!