Nvidia makes real-time ray tracing affordable with the entry-level GeForce RTX 2060.
GeForce RTX 2060 at a glance
How powerful is the RTX 2060? 60% faster than the GTX 1060, making it easily capable of hitting 60fps at 1080p in modern games.When does the RTX 2060 come out? The RTX 2060 goes on sale 15 January 2019.
How much does the RTX 2060 cost? $599 for the Nvidia-branded Founder's Edition model.
What is the RTX 2060?
Announced at CES 2019, the GeForce RTX 2060 is the first budget-level graphics card in Nvidia's RTX line. Like the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080, the RTX 2060 supports both ray tracing and machine learning, features which are still in their infancy but promise significant performance increases in the near future.
As the name implies, the RTX 2060 follows a similar model to the previous generation's GTX 1060. It pares back some of the higher-end specifications of the RTX 2070 and RTX 2080, sticking with a narrower 192-bit memory bus and 6GB of RAM instead of the 256-bit memory bus and 8GB of RAM sported by its more expensive siblings.
Those sacrifices allow Nvidia to price the RTX 2060 much more affordably. An RRP of $599 is far more palatable than the $999 the RTX 2070 commands, making it an attractive choice for PC gamers wanting top-of-the-line performance without spending a small fortune.
What features does the RTX 2060 support?
Despite the discounted price, the RTX 2060 packs all the features boasted by Nvidia's high-end RTX 2070 and RTX 2080 cards. This includes tentpole capabilities like real-time ray tracing and AI-driven image processing, as well as a raft of additional hardware and software features.
The most pertinent features are listed below:
- Real-time ray tracing
- VirtualLink for single-USB VR connections
- Tensor Cores for enhanced AI
- Nvidia NVLink for faster multi-GPU configurations
- G-Sync
- HDCP 2.2
- OpenGL 4.5
- Display Port 1.4a with support for 8K resolution
- HMDI 2.0b
- Nvidia Ansel
- Nvidia Shadowplay
- DirectX 12
- Variable Rate Shading
- Multi-view rendering
- VRWorks Audio
How powerful is the RTX 2060?
Nvidia's claim with the RTX 2060 is that it is up to 60% faster than the GTX 1060, one of the most popular graphics cards from the previous generation. The GTX 1060 targeted 60fps gaming at 1080p, meaning the RTX 2060 should have no trouble delivering top-quality performance not just at 1080p, but at higher resolutions like 1440p and even 4K. Alternatively, it's also powerful enough to maintain a smooth experience at higher refresh rates like 120Hz and 144Hz, though you'll likely want to keep the resolution locked to 1080p to ensure the best performance.
The RTX 2060's support for Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) holds a lot of promise, too. DLSS is a machine-learning technique that optimises the rendering of a scene, combining visual elements from multiple frames to produce images with similar quality to current rendering techniques but at a lower cost to performance. Application support for DLSS is currently minimal, but if that changes, the RTX 2060 could be capable of even higher performance than its specs would suggest.
RTX 2060 availability and price
After announcing it at CES 2019, Nvidia set the global launch date for the GeForce RTX 2060 as 15 January 2019. The standard RRP sits at $599, but different variants of the RTX 2060 from brands like MSI, Gigabyte and Asus can cost more or less depending on their specific configurations.
RTX 2060 specs
- Base clock speed
- 1365MHz
- Boost clock speed
- 1680MHz
- Memory
- 6GB GDDR6
- Memory speed
- 14Gbps
- Memory bus
- 192-bit
- Card length
- 228.60mm
- Card width
- Dual slot
- Card height
- 112.6mm
- Power draw
- 160W
- Recommended system power
- 500W
- Power connectors
- 8-pin
- No. HDMI ports
- 1
- No. display ports
- 1
- No. DVI ports
- 1
- DirectX support
- 12