NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 4K & Ultrawide Gaming Performance

The third GeForce RTX from NVIDIA is the RTX 2070, and in some ways, it could be the most interesting Turing GeForce so far. How could that be? Well, it’s the most affordable, for starters, priced at $499. That becomes the least-expensive way for people to join the RTX world, which of course includes special RTX features not found on other cards – including last-gen Pascal.

It’s hard to call the RTX 2070 a “replacement” for another, because there are multiple angles to look at it. From a raw performance standpoint, the RTX 2070 should come behind the GTX 1080 most often, but the opposite is true in testing. Ultimately, the RTX 2070 falls behind the GTX 1080 Ti, but in some cases, it’s not that far behind.

This review is going to be a lot quicker than I’d like, so if you have any questions that I haven’t tackled, please holler in the comments. As I’ve been focusing rather ardently on workstation stuff lately, the gaming stuff hasn’t gotten as much attention as I’d like to give it. Fortunately, workloads are clearing out, and once RTX-capable Windows comes out, it’ll be a good time to retest the whole kit and kaboodle.

As just mentioned, the RTX 2070 technically falls behind the GTX 1080 from a raw performance standpoint, but Turing brings some optimizations that help propel the card ahead quite often.

Here’s the current and last-gen lineup from NVIDIA:

Nowadays, it feels like specs only tell half the story, which is actually pretty important when it comes to Turing. In some workloads, namely DirectX 12 (but including others), Turing can push GeForce quite a bit ahead over last-gen, leading a card like the 2070 to almost catch up to a 1080 Ti. Unfortunately, those are rare cases, and most seen in synthetic tests, but it gives us hope for better game optimization for the architecture in time.

ASUS’ Republic of Gamers STRIX version RTX 2070 sports a factory overclock, triple fans, customizable RGB, and a cooler that takes up just a bit more than 2 slots. It’s a good thing 2070 doesn’t support SLI… right?

Because this is a pre-overclocked card, please be aware that scores will be slightly higher than the reference design.

A Look At Test Methodology

Games Tested & Vendor Neutrality

A total of eight games are included in our current test suite. Some have appeared here before, while others make their first appearance: Monster World Hunter, Fortnite, and F1 2018. I had planned to include PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds as a ninth title, but the results were too sporadic to inspire any sort of confidence (an issue not seen in Fortnite, by comparison).

Here’s the full list of tested games and developer allegiances, as well as synthetic tests also used:

• Battlefield 1
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided – AMD partner
• F1 2018
• Far Cry 5 – AMD partner
• Fortnite
• Monster Hunter World
• Rise of the Tomb Raider – NVIDIA partner
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands – NVIDIA partner
• UL 3DMark & VRMark
• Unigine Superposition

Battlefield 1 - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

Battlefield 1 as-tested settings

Battlefield 1 - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

Battlefield 1 as-tested settings

Deus Ex Mankind Divided - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided as-tested settings

Deus Ex Mankind Divided - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided as-tested settings

Deus Ex Mankind Divided - Techgage Tested Settings (3)

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided as-tested settings

F1 2018 - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

F1 2018 as-tested settings

F1 2018 - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

F1 2018 as-tested settings

Far Cry 5 - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

Far Cry 5 as-tested settings

Far Cry 5 - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

Far Cry 5 as-tested settings

Far Cry 5 - Techgage Tested Settings (3)

Far Cry 5 as-tested settings

Fortnite - Techgage Tested Settings

Fortnite as-tested settings

Monster Hunter World - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

Monster Hunter World as-tested settings

Monster Hunter World - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

Monster Hunter World as-tested settings

Rise of the Tomb Raider - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

Rise of the Tomb Raider as-tested settings

Rise of the Tomb Raider - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

Rise of the Tomb Raider as-tested settings

Rise of the Tomb Raider - Techgage Tested Settings (3)

Rise of the Tomb Raider as-tested settings

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands - Techgage Tested Settings (1)

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands as-tested settings

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands - Techgage Tested Settings (2)

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands as-tested settings

For our apples-to-apples testing, the graphics settings seen above apply to every one of our tested resolutions so as to deliver standard apples-to-apples results. In most cases, each configuration is tested twice, with more runs added if the initial results make the extra testing necessary. Fortnite is the only game tested three times by default due to its variable nature.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider will replace Rise of the Tomb Raider in our suite as soon as its RTX enhancements come along. Similarly, those same RTX enhancements can’t be taken advantage of until Microsoft releases its DXR API to the wild, something expected to happen with the Redstone 5 fall update. For now, we’re largely stuck to traditional testing. Speaking of, let’s get on with it.