The RTX series is here, which means the dawn of the Ray Tracing GPUs is finally upon us. Nvidia promises that RTX, based on their new Turing architecture, is a massive leap in computer graphics and that it promises an exceptional jump from the performance achieved by the previous generation, that is, the Pascal architecture. Having already tested the graphics card at Gamescom 2018, I was pretty impressed with the actual results of the all the new GPUs. However, I did want to try things on my own, and thankfully, Nvidia was grateful enough to send over the middle brother in their 20xx lineup, that is, the RTX 2080, priced at $799 (Rs. 68,500 in India). Now, the first thing I did was run the benchmarks, and boy, was I amazed. Or was I? Well, I do like to maintain a bit of suspense for our readers, so let’s see how the new GPU from Nvidia actually performs, shall we?
Note: For this review, we are using the Nvidia RTX 2080 Founders Edition. Performance may slightly vary with the Add-In-Board (AIB) variants of the GPU.
Test Bench
Before we move on to the actual benchmarks, I think it is worth pointing out the test bench that I had used for this review:
- Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K (Rs. 37,000)
- Motherboard: MSI Z370 Gaming Plus (Rs. 12,400)
- RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32GB (4x8GB) 3200MHz DDR4 (Rs. 42,000)
- SSD: Kingston UV400 120GB (Rs. 2,300)
- HDD: 2TB 7200RPM Seagate HDD (Rs. 5,450)
- Display: Samsung C24FG70 (Rs. 24,000)
- OS: Windows 10 Pro (Rs. 14,799)
- Drivers: Official Nvidia GeForce Drivers v411.51
Synthetic Benchmarks
For the purpose of benchmarking the RTX 2080, I relied on my beloved and also the industry standard benchmarks of 3DMark and Unigine. Unlike the leaks that have been flooding over the internet for the past few days of 3DMark listing the RTX 2080 as an unrecognized GPU, the software was able to recognize the GPU on my device from the get-go. Here are the results of my Nvidia RTX 2080 Benchmarks:
As you can see, RTX 2080 handles benchmarks quite well. It blazes past the 3DMark FireStrike Benchmark, which is pretty much the industry standard for DirectX12 Gaming. Even in all other benchmarks, the RTX 2080 manages to beat its opposition quite easily. It is worth pointing out that all these benchmarks are for 1920x1080p resolution, but considering the strength of the test bench, the GPU was in no way restricted to its performance.
Gaming Benchmarks
Now, synthetic benchmarks are one thing, but gaming is another thing, right? Well, if you were expecting the Ray Tracing factor to bring out improvements, let me make one thing very clear that Ray Tracing in itself is an entirely different concept for lighting the objects in the game, and would provide no difference over the performance over the current games. Also, RTX would only work once Microsoft has pushed their DTR (DirectX Ray Tracing) update, which is scheduled for release next month. As such, do note that the benchmarks below are of the performance that you’d get with Ray Tracing off, even in the games that would support it.
As evident from the results above, the RTX 2080 takes gaming up a notch as well. Do note that all the games were running at the highest settings possible at 1920x1080p resolution, with V-Sync turned off for maximum frames. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite are two of the most played games on PC, and the RTX 2080 promises the highest frames in that aspect. The GPU oozes past through previous flagships like The Witcher 3 and manages a score of 109 in still the industry standard, that is Metro Redux. While I couldn’t get the latest Forza Horizon 4 demo to work with the RTX 2080, an average framerate of 119 on Forza Horizon 3 is pretty promising. Hunt Showdown, a masterpiece in visuals from Crytex, was able to push the RTX 2080 to its limits, being the only game managing to bring the card under the 100 FPS limit.
While I’ll be doing a proper comparison of the RTX 2080 with the previous generation flagships, that is, the GTX 1080 and the GTX 1080 Ti, you can check out our review of the GTX 1080 Ti to get a glimpse at the difference that the RTX 2080 offers.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080: Worth The Hype?
Well, if you’re gonna ask me about whether the RTX 2080 is worth the hype, I would definitely have to say yes. The GPU is all sorts of wonders and blows the benchmarks out of the park. While we will be comparing the RTX 2080 with the GTX 1080 as well as the GTX 1080 Ti, the preliminary benchmarks do suggest a whopping boost in performance. Also, if you’d like to know whether the RTX 2080 is even worth your money, make sure to stay tuned for our complete review of the RTX 2080.
