Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060: Everything We Know (Updated)

Updated 12/31/18, 1:45 p.m. ET: Graphics card website VideoCardZ released leaked photographs, benchmarks, availability and pricing for Nvidia's soon-to-be-released GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card, which we've covered below.  

At the moment, Nvidia has put out three Turing-powered graphics cards: the GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Ti. However, the owners of last-generation graphics cards are holding out for an upgrade until the long-rumored GeForce RTX 2060 hits the market. History has shown us that Nvidia's x60 graphics cards, such as the GeForce GTX 1060, GTX 960, GTX 760, and GTX 560 offer the best bang for your buck. Naturally, gaming enthusiasts will want to evaluate the upcoming GeForce RTX 2060's performance before making a purchase decision.

Nvidia hasn't officially announced the RTX 2060 card, but that hasn't stopped the rumor mill. Here's everything we know so far.

VideoCardZ Releases Leaked Photographs, Benchmarks, Availability & Pricing

On the eve of 2019, graphics card website VideoCardZ published most of the missing details about Nvidia's latest Turing model, including a January 15th availability date, $349 US price (~ £274), and confirmation that the card will come with 30 RT cores for ray tracing.

Image 1 of 2

According to VideoCardZ, Nvidia claims the RTX 2060 will be able to handle Battlefield V with ray tracing enabled at between 65 and 88 frames per second (FPS) at 1080p, depending on whether Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS) is enabled or not. For a full list of the leaked specs and details of the RTX 2060, you can head to VideoCardz story or our own Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Launch Date, Pricing and Benchmarks Leaked news story.

Will the RTX 2060 Support Ray Tracing?

According to some rumors, the chipmaker will reportedly introduce Turing graphics cards with and without ray tracing capabilities. To distinguish one from the other, Nvidia would market graphics cards with RT cores under the new RTX moniker while retaining the old GTX branding for the non-ray tracing models.

Initially, we thought that only the GeForce RTX 2070, RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards could come with hardware-assisted ray tracing. Real-time ray tracing is a pretty demanding activity, and it would make a lot of sense for Nvidia to keep the feature only on its higher tier models. In our own tests, the GeForce RTX 2070 barely pushes over 40 frames per second on average in Battlefield V on the Ultra quality preset and with the DXR Reflection Quality setting configured to Medium at 1920 x 1080.

However, the latest Tweet from Andreas Schilling, one of HardwareLuxx's editors, revealed the GeForce RTX 2060's marketing materials, and apparently, the RTX 2060 does come equipped with RT cores for ray tracing. Given that the GeForce RTX 2070's ray tracing struggles at 1920 x 1080, the GeForce RTX 2060 probably has no chance of providing users with a decent ray tracing experience at the aforementioned resolution. The graphics card might be more adept at ray-tracing games at 1280 x 720, but even that remains to be seen.

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Specifications

Surprisingly Nvidia has done a decent job of keeping a tight lid on the GeForce RTX 2060. However, small pieces of the puzzle have started to emerge that's allowed us to put them together and get a general idea of the GeForce RTX 2060's possible specifications. 

*=unconfirmed

Being part of the Turing family, the GeForce RTX 2060 reportedly features the TU106 silicon, which is the same as the GeForce RTX 2070. A recent Geekbench leak listed the GeForce RTX 2060 with 30 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs). Each Streaming Multiprocessor on the Turing silicon houses up to 64 CUDA cores, eight Tensor cores, and one RT core. As a result, it looks like the GeForce RTX 2060 comes with 1,920 CUDA cores, 240 Tensor cores for AI, and 30 RT cores for ray tracing. 

The mid-range GeForce RTX 2060 could feature a 1,365MHz base clock and 1,680MHz boost clock. It also purportedly sports 6GB of GDDR6 memory. 

Meet The First Custom GeForce RTX 2060

VideoCardz got its hands on a couple of rendered images of what is allegedly Gigabyte's upcoming GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card. The Gigabyte model features a dual-slot design and a twin-fan cooling solution. It's possible that Nvidia will replicate the GTX 1060's 120W TDP (thermal design power) and 6-pin PCIe power connector on its forthcoming GeForce RTX 2060. The 8-pin PCIe power connector on the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 suggests that this model probably comes with a hefty factory overclock out of the box.

The leaked image of the alleged GeForce RTX 2060 shows the graphics card with an HDMI port and three DisplayPort outputs, just like the GeForce GTX 1060. It also has the USB Type-C connector for Nvidia VirtualLink like its RTX brethren.

Just How Fast Is The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060?

In the last couple of months, we've seen results from the Final Fantasy XV benchmark for unannounced graphics cards from both Nvidia and AMD. The GeForce RTX 2060 was seemingly benchmarked with the tool on the High Quality preset at 3840 x 2160. The graphics card's initial performance was pretty impressive.

The GeForce RTX 2060 is reportedly up to 30.43 percent faster than the previous GeForce GTX 1060 6GB and 6.18 percent slower than a GeForce GTX 1070.

When comparing it to the competition. the GeForce RTX 2060 supposedly performs up to 22 percent faster than AMD's current Radeon RX 590 and only a mere 4.44 percent behind the Radeon RX Vega 56.

How Many Variants Of The GeForce RTX 2060 Can We Expect?

Gigabyte recently registered 39 different GeForce RTX 2060 models with the Eurasian Economic Commission (ECC). Interestingly, it appears that Nvidia could launch the GeForce RTX 2060 with up to three memory configurations of 6GB, 4GB, and 3GB. If Gigabyte's graphics card nomenclature remains untouched, the models with the GC suffix should come with GDDR6 memory, while the models with the GD suffix would come equipped with GDDR5 or GDDR5X memory. This means that the future GeForce RTX 2060 would be available in as many as six different variants.

One important thing to keep in mind is that hardware vendors often submit products that are still under consideration. Many of these cards might not make it past the drawing board. Unless Nvidia officially announces the GeForce RTX 2060 with the aforementioned memory configurations, Gigabyte's lengthy listing should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Gigabyte's Submitted GeForce RTX 2060 6GB Models

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 4GB Models

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 3GB Models

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Release Date

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will be held on January 8, 2019 and would be the perfect venue for Nvidia to launch the GeForce RTX 2060. Andreas Schilling seems to think that Nvidia will announce the graphics card in the second week of January which coincides with CES. As always, we'll be roaming around the event to bring you the latest news, and we'll update as more information becomes available.