Nvidia kicked off this year’s Consumer Electronics Show by announcing a brand new mid-range graphics card: the RTX 2060. According to Nvidia, the RTX 2060 serves as an enticing entry point into the company’s GPU lineup, by combining powerful performance with a relatively modest price point.
We’ve got the full breakdown on what the RTX 2060 is packing, and why it represents the next big step in affordable GPU technology.
What is the RTX 2060?
The RTX 2060 joins Nvidia’s existing current-gen lineup of the RTX 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti GPU’s. Much like its three siblings, the RTX 2060 is equipped with advanced graphics-rendering features such as Turing architecture and ray tracing. In terms of performance, Nvidia claims the RTX 2060 outperforms the GTX 1070 Ti, and is an impressive 60 percent faster than the GTX 1060.
Nvidia accompanied the unveiling with a video demo of Battlefield V running on the new RTX 2060 card. The demo had full ray tracing enabled, and Nvidia later claimed that the RTX 2060 can easily run Battlefield V on high settings at 60 frames per second with 1440p resolution and ray tracing support. The ray tracing part of the equation is mainly possible thanks to the card’s Turing RT and Tensor Cores which can keep up with the more demanding process of rendering ray tracing graphics in real-time.
Here’s a spec sheet to quickly recap Nvidia’s talking points for the RTX 2060:
- 6GB of GDDR6 memory
- 240 Tensor Cores capable of delivering 52 teraflops of deep learning performance
- Support for Deep Learning Super Sampling (or DLSS)
- Real-time ray tracing
- Adaptive shading technology
Battlefield V and DLSS
According to Nvidia’s RTX 2060 press announcement, the PC version of Battlefield V is getting an update that will specifically enable DLSS functionality.
Here’s Nvidia’s explanation of why PC gamers should care about DLSS:
“DLSS leverages a deep neural network to extract multidimensional features of the rendered scene and intelligently combine details from multiple frames to construct a high-quality final image. The result is a clear, crisp image with similar quality as traditional rendering, but with higher performance.”
PC gamers can expect additional games to receive DLSS support as the RTX line of GPU’s continues to roll out. In fact, as you’ll soon see in the below RTX 2060 bundle deals, there’s an upcoming Electronic Arts game which will likely have DLSS support at launch.
Pricing
One of the biggest selling points for the RTX 2060 is its $350 price tag. That’s a noticeable step down from the RTX 2070, which retails for $499. Also, unlike the 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti, the 2060 will be available both from Nvidia and from third-party sellers when it launches.
Speaking of which, the RTX 2060 is scheduled to launch on January 15. At launch, Nvidia will be offering a special “Founder’s Edition” stock-clocked version of the card. Third-party sellers such as ASUS, EVGA, Gigabyte, and MSI will also offer both stock-clocked and factory-overclocked options.
Nvidia also announced a series of special bundle deals which will apply to select RTX graphics card purchases for a limited time. Buyers who purchase qualifying RTX cards or pre-built systems containing an RTX card can snag a free copy of either Battlefield V or the upcoming sci-fi shooter Anthem. RTX 2060 and 2070 purchases come with one game or the other while RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti purchases come with both games bundled.
