GeForce RTX 2060 vs GTX 1070: Which graphics card should you buy?
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Gamers had little time to catch their breath after the cryptocurrency market crashed ahead of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX series, which in turn presented a conundrum – pay a premium for one of the latest and greatest graphics cards on the market, or save some money and Invest in “old” technology. For many, the answer is simple.
Nvidia later lamented that sales of RTX cards fell short of expectations due to price and a lack of games that support RTX’s main features (real-time ray tracing and deep learning supersampling). But then came the GeForce RTX 2060, making the road to RTX more affordable. You’re probably wondering now, should you buy a GeForce RTX 2060, or save a few bucks for a previous-generation GeForce GTX 1070.
Current prices for the RTX 2060 and GTX 1070
The answer is not simple. Part of the decision comes down to whether you want the latest technology and are willing to pay extra for it, even if support is currently limited. That’s a fair question, since the price difference between a GeForce GTX 1070 and a GeForce RTX 2060 is about $20 to $50, whereas before you would consider spending a few hundred dollars more for an RTX card. So, here we break it down.
get technology
Let’s start with the technical specifications. The GeForce RTX 2060 has 1,920 stream processors (or CUDA cores), 120 texture units, 48 ROP units, and 240 tensor cores, as well as 6GB of GDDR6 memory. Unlike other RTX cards, Nvidia’s Founders Edition isn’t overclocked, so there aren’t two separate sets of clock speeds — the GeForce RTX 2060 has a base clock of 1,365MHz and a boost clock of 1,680MHz.
Since the GeForce RTX 2060 is based on Nvidia’s latest Turing GPU architecture, it also has dedicated RT cores (30 of them) to handle real-time ray tracing and supports DLSS. This card is basically a low-profile version of the GeForce RTX 2070 at a more attractive price ($349 instead of $499 and up).
The GeForce GTX 1070 also has 1,920 stream processors/CUDA cores and 120 texture units, but has 64 ROPs and 8GB of GDDR5 memory. The reference and boost clocks are set to 1,506MHz and 1,683MHz, respectively.
You’ll notice no mention of tensor cores. That’s because they’re not in Pascal, only Turing (and Volta). Tensor Cores empower GeForce RTX cards with deep learning capabilities for DLSS. RT cores are apparently also being phased out.
Performance
Tech specs are one thing, but what really matters is the performance of each card. In short, the GeForce RTX 2060 is a faster graphics card that consistently delivers higher frame rates than the GeForce GTX 1070. The case is closed, right? Well, let’s see.
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In our tests of 17 different games, the GeForce RTX 2060 was on average around 15% faster at 1080p using ultra settings and 14.5% faster at 1440p, also at ultra settings.
We generally don’t recommend buying a $299 or $349 graphics card for 4K gaming, as it’s unrealistic to expect a free experience in every game. That said, the GeForce RTX 2060 is also around 13% faster at that resolution. That’s a bit of a lie, though, as neither card is a good choice for 4K ultra-gaming. You can get away with it in some games, but two cards will definitely struggle in more demanding games.
This lets us analyze the 1080p and 1440p results. Given the specs, the GeForce RTX 2060 is the clear winner, as we’d expect. In a game like Fortnite, it doesn’t really matter that the GeForce GTX 1070 averages 83 fps at 1440p, but in a game like Middle-earth: Shadow of War, it could be hitting the magical 60 fps mark or The upcoming difference is below.
Still, for the most part, we’re not talking about day-night differences, so let’s move on.
Pricing
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The GeForce RTX 2060 starts at $349.99, and you can even find factory overclocked models at that price point, like Gigabyte’s GeForce RTX 2060 OC GG. You can now also get free games – you can choose between Anthem or Battlefield 5.
Again, the GeForce GTX 1070 is about the same price, though depending on where you live and availability becomes limited. But if you strike at the right time, you can find it for $299, like this Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming on sale. If that’s important to you, that particular card also comes with a Fortnite bundle.
Typically, though, the GeForce GTX 1070 is a bit more expensive, usually over $330. It’s still moving forward at a slightly higher rate of fps per dollar, albeit not by much.
Meanwhile, for the UK and European markets, it’s hard to find a GTX 1070 at a reasonable price, so the RTX 2060 is an easy choice. But if you already own a 1070, that’s another story — we wouldn’t recommend spending money on such a small performance boost.
If you’re considering building a new gaming PC, the cost of the remaining components makes the RTX 2060 an easy choice. Spending an extra $20 or even $50 on a $1000 build is well worth the performance upgrade.
The last sentence
At the end of the day, the GeForce RTX 2060 is a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 1070, it’s more widely available (Pascal cards are starting to disappear), and it’s more powerful, although games that support real-time ray tracing or DLSS aren’t much. In fact, only two are currently supported at the same time – Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus.
However, the lack of support is a bigger concern when comparing Nvidia’s more expensive GeForce RTX cards. Unless sold, the price difference between the current-generation GeForce RTX 2060 and the previous-generation GeForce GTX 1070 is about $20, and in some cases no difference at all.
Bottom line: As we said in our review of the GeForce GTX 2060, it’s the best mid-to-high-end graphics card (or low-end high-end card) we’ve seen since the GeForce GTX 1070 Ti. It makes sense to spend a little more (on a GeForce GTX 1070) for speed, and consider the extra (ray tracing, DLSS) capabilities as a bonus.
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