The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition Review: Mid-Range Turing, High-End Price
by Nate Oh on October 16, 2018 9:00 AM ESTMeet The GeForce RTX 2070 Founders Edition Card
Touching quickly on the card itself, there's little we haven't already seen with the RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 Founders Editions. The biggest change is, of course, a new open air cooler design. Along with the Founders Edition specification changes of +10W TDP and +90 MHz boost clockspeed, the cards might be considered 'reference' in that they remain a first-party video card sold direct by NVIDIA, but strictly-speaking they are not because they no longer carry reference specifications.
Wrapped in the flattened industrial design introduced by the other RTX cards, the RTX 2070 Founders Edition looks essentially the same, save a few exceptions. The single 8-pin power connector is at the front of the card, while the NVLink SLI connectors are absent as the RTX 2070 does not support SLI. Internally, the dual 13-blade fans accompany a vapor chamber, while a 6-phase system provides the power for the 185W TDP RTX 2070 Founders Edition.
So while the single 8-pin configuration, suitable for up to 225W total draw, has remained the same from the GTX 1070, the TDP has not. The RTX 2070 Founders Edition brings 185W, with reference specification at 175W, compared to the 150W GTX 1070 and 145W GTX 970, following the trend of the 2080 Ti and 2080 pushing up the watts.
As for I/O, there is one difference between the 2070 and its older siblings. The RTX 2070 Founders Edition drops the isolated DisplayPort for a DVI port, matching the GTX 1070's outputs. This is in addition to DisplayPort 1.4 and DSC support, the latter of which is part of the DP1.4 spec, as well as the VR-centric USB-C VirtualLink port, which also carries an associated 30W not included in the overall TDP. While the past few years have seen DVI excised from the top-end cards, it's more of a matter of practicality for mid-range cards (inasmuch as $500 is a midrange price) that are often paired with budget DVI monitors, particularly as a drop-in upgrade for an aging video card.
As mentioned in the RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 launch article, something to note is the potential impact on OEM sales with this reference design change. The RTX 2070 also arrives as an open air design and so can no longer guarantee self-cooling independent of chassis airflow. In addition to the price and lower volume nature of these GPU parts, these aspects make the RTX reference cards less suitable for large OEMs.
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FreckledTrout - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
That pretty much sums it up.Doesn't this entire generation seem like it should have been made on 7nm to keep die sizes and costs down along with the heat?
Wwhat - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
in games*You forgot to add.
Personally I'm curious about what non-gaming software will use those tensor and RT cores and what that will bring. I mean if for example Blender traced 3 times faster it would be quite a thing for Blender users. Same for video editing software users I imagine.
And then there's the use for students and scientist.
And the whole wave of AI stuff that people are now getting into.
It's funny because I would have thought that Anadtech would the site that was the one with not exclusively gamers and people using graphics cards exclusively for gaming, but going through the comments you'd think this was a gamer-oriented site - and a gamers site only.
althaz - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
So that's a solid "no" then? You can get better performance for significantly less. This card isn't targeted at me (a 1080 owner), but until the ray tracing stuff starts to be worth anything, this card seems just too overpriced for a reasonable person to consider.ballsystemlord - Wednesday, October 17, 2018 - link
Spelling and grammar corrections.I did not read through the whole thing, but this is what I did find.
"The card is already coming in with a price premium so it's important to firmly faster."
Missing "be".
"The card is already coming in with a price premium so it's important to be firmly faster."
"For the RTX 2070, 4K and 1440p performance once agani settles near the GTX 1080." Right letters, wrong ordering
"For the RTX 2070, 4K and 1440p performance once again settles near the GTX 1080."
Also, I am of the opinion that you should focus your reviews on the performance of the cards vs. price/speed positioning/slot. For example, you could note that the 20 series tends to have better 99th percentile frame rates. This was a big win for the Vega when it first came out. I have not actually crunched the numbers to see if the Vega is better or worse than the 20 series. The calculation would be (minimum*100)/average == % a lower value being a larger discrepancy (worse).
FullmetalTitan - Thursday, October 18, 2018 - link
Certainly makes me feel better about pulling the trigger on a $525 overclocked 1080 with a free game last weekend. 2070s are certainly less abundant, and definitely not for $525. The premium only buys 5-10% performance at base clocks, not worth another $100lenghui - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Dear AT, please stop auto-playing your "Buy the Right CPU" video. Pleeeeeeeeeeeze. It's driving me away from your site. I am on my last thread.DominionSeraph - Friday, October 19, 2018 - link
Unfortunately the design makes it look like a terrible XFX AMD card.rtho782 - Saturday, October 20, 2018 - link
2070 incurs less of a perf hit in HDR? Ryan seems to think it has no impact: https://twitter.com/RyanSmithAT/status/80115626506...Luke212 - Thursday, October 25, 2018 - link
Nvidia gimped the tensor cores on consumer RTX, that’s why tensor core benchmarks are half a titan V or Quadro RTX. It can’t do FP32 accumulate full speed.dcole001 - Friday, October 26, 2018 - link
I currently have GTX 1070 and just can't justify upgrading due to the fact that Ray Tracing is currently not being used in any games right now. yes there is 15 - 25 FPS performance boost running 1440P still not worth $499 - $599 cost. Wait a year and this Video Card will drop and there actually might be some games taking advantage of Ray Tracing.