Asus has released its first graphics card under The Ultimate Force (TUF) Gaming brand. Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060 is the first graphics card to receive the TUF treatment from the Taiwanese motherboard and graphics card manufacturer.
Standing firm to its TUF roots, the TUF GeForce RTX 2060 carries a distinctive military camouflage exterior devoid of any RGB elements. Asus proudly proclaims that it built its TUF graphics card upon three pillars of durability, compatibility, and performance. The TUF GeForce RTX 2060 features a compact design that's 20.4cm long. However, the graphics card does present an impression that it's pretty thick due to its 4.6cm depth measurement.
Asus produces the card with its Auto-Extreme automated manufacturing process. The cooler uses a pair of high-quality dual-ball bearing cooling fans that Asus claims provides twice the normal lifespan. The fans are also IP5X certified, which means they are dust-resistant. Asus also outfitted the TUF GeForce RTX 2060 with a sleek matching backplate to protect the graphics card's PCB. There's also added supports that connect the backplate directly to the shroud, which supposedly helps create a solid frame that protects during handling.
As normal, the TUF GeForce RTX 2060 has passed Asus' 144-hour validation program that includes performance and stress tests with different titles, such as Fortnite, League of Legends, Overwatch, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, and other benchmarking software, like 3DMark.
The TUF GeForce RTX 2060 operates with a 1,365MHz base clock just like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition. However, the two models have higher boost clocks. The TUF GeForce RTX 2060 (TUF-RTX2060-6G-GAMING) runs with a 1,689MHz boost clock in Gaming Mode and a 1,710MHz boost clock in OC Mode.
The TUF GeForce RTX 2060 OC Edition (TUF-RTX2060-O6G-GAMING) flaunts a 1,710MHz boost clock in Gaming Mode and 1,740MHz boost clock in OC Mode.
Similar to the Founders Edition, the Asus TUF GeForce RTX 2060 gets its power from a single 8-pin PCIe power connector. However, the graphics card does come with a small twist in terms of display outputs. The TUF GeForce RTX 2060 is one of the very few to still come with a DualLink DVI-D port. The other remaining ports include one DisplayPort 1.4 output and two HDMI 2.0b ports. There's no USB-C port on the TUF GeForce RTX 2060.
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Asus haven't disclosed pricing or availability for the TUF GeForce RTX 2060 graphics cards.
Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.