NVIDIA Launches Its Third Turing GeForce: RTX 2070 8GB

NVIDIA has today launched its third Turing-based GeForce GPU, the RTX 2070. As notable as the launch is, it seems to be a quiet one, with NVIDIA itself keeping mum about it on social media (from what I can tell, at least). It’s also a launch that broke tradition and didn’t see Founders Edition models be sent to reviewers; instead, vendors like ASUS and EVGA have been stepping up to the plate.

ASUS’ GeForce RTX 2070 ROG STRIX

I found out later than I should have about sampling, so our sample, coming to us in the form of an ASUS STRIX card, will land here tomorrow. Admittedly, I am behind on all sorts of testing due to internal development work, but the damn dam is close to bursting on data we can publish.

Nonetheless, out of the gate, first reactions to the RTX 2070 seem to contrast the tepid hype NVIDIA’s pushing around the product. The general consensus seems to be that if you can score the card at its SRP of $499, then it’s going to be a good value. It’ll become a great value if you consider the future possibilities around DLSS and ray tracing – aka: the features that make an RTX card an RTX card.

Here’s NVIDIA’s current and last-gen lineup (or at least most of it):

There’s nothing about the RTX 2070’s performance that I can quantify at the moment, but I’ll get to testing soon after the card arrives. So far, it appears the card will outperform the GTX 1080 without issue, which seems fair since both cards have similar launch SRPs. I’d consider that to mean that the 2070 carries a bit of a price premium generation of generation, but at the same time, it also includes features that can be relied on in gaming (and compute tasks) in the future.

Currently, I wouldn’t say RTX features are a reason to get a GPU, but if you’re in the market for a new GPU anyway, those features are hard to ignore. They might not matter right now, but they should matter in the months ahead. It’s still what I’d consider a bleeding-edge feature right now, though.

We’ll publish a review as soon as we can, in the same suite used in our RTX launch review. And when time allows, and more RTX content comes out, that will be evaluated as well. Stay tuned.