Nvidia's GeForce RTX 2060 Refresh Might Be On The Horizon

Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 (Image credit: Nvidia)

If a recent Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) submission (spotted by PCGamesN (opens in new tab)) is to be trusted, the GeForce RTX 2060 (opens in new tab) could be going under the knife very soon.

The GeForce RTX 2060 originally came with the TU106 silicon, featuring 1,920 CUDA cores and 6GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 14 Gbps. EVGA would later surgically switch (opens in new tab) the TU106 silicon for the larger TU104 silicon in its GeForce RTX 2060 KO Gaming (opens in new tab) graphics card. EVGA's swap out was insignificant as the same specifications transferred over to the new variant. This time around, however, the GeForce RTX 2060 could potentially get a real upgrade.

Asus' EEC filing, which was submitted yesterday, mentions three variants of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 with 8GB of GDDR6 memory instead of the default 6GB configuration.

GeForce RTX 2060 8GB (Image credit: PCGamesN)

There are a few possible theories before we rush to conclusions. For one, this whole thing could be a human error. Asus uses a pretty similar naming scheme for its graphics card, so it's easy to get mixed up.

For example, the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 is identified as ROG-STRIX-RTX2060-6G-GAMING while ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 Super is designated as ROG-STRIX-RTX2060S-8G-GAMING.

It's possible that the Asus employee mistyped the part numbers when submitting the entry. Perhaps, the employee wanted to register the GeForce RTX 2060 Super (opens in new tab) but forgot to add the "S" to the part number. Then again, why register them now when the GeForce RTX 2060 Super have been out since last year?

Another possibility is that Asus is just registering the part numbers in case Nvidia does decide to refresh the GeForce RTX 2060 with more memory in the future. Remember, you can submit as many products as you want to the EEC, and not every one of them will be produced or released to the market.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Model	Part Number	Header Cell - Column 2
ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 EVO OC Edition	ROG-STRIX-RTX2060-O8G-EVO-GAMING	Row 0 - Cell 2
ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060 EVO Advanced Edition	ROG-STRIX-RTX2060-A8G-EVO-GAMING	Row 1 - Cell 2
ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2060	ROG-STRIX-RTX2060-8G-EVO-GAMING	Row 2 - Cell 2

If Nvidia does upgrade the GeForce RTX 2060, it would put the graphics card on par with the GeForce RTX 2060 Super in terms of memory. The Super variant wouldn't be affected performance-wise though as it still holds a higher CUDA core count (2,176 as opposed to the GeForce RTX 2060's 1,920).

In terms of performance ranking (opens in new tab), the GeForce RTX 2060 falls behind AMD's Navi-powered Radeon RX 5700 (opens in new tab) and Radeon RX 5600 XT (opens in new tab). Our tests show that the Radeon RX 5700 on average delivers up to 11% higher frame rates in comparison to the GeForce RTX 2060. Would the GeForce RTX 2060 be able to close this gap with 2GB of additional GDDR6 memory? Probably not.

Nonetheless, having 8GB of memory would make the GeForce RTX 2060 look good beside the Radeon RX 5600 XT, which only has 6GB of GDDR6 memory. The Radeon RX 5600 XT has a slight edge on the GeForce RTX 2060 in regards to performance. The extra memory could result very useful in high resolution gaming and might help push the GeForce RTX 2060 ahead, even if it's just by a hair.

Zhiye Liu is a Freelance News Writer at Tom’s Hardware US. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

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11 Comments Comment from the forums

hannibal

If this would be true... Nvidia ampera would not be even close to be released... but if ampera comes near christmast, then this could be quite sensible to beat amd 5600 in the meanwhile.
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mr.walcott

Well think I shot myself in the foot buying the 2060 around launch last year.After upgrading to 1440p having issues with vram. So far I am hearing wait for next gen but seriously I do not like this card and want to upgrade.What is the best upgrade from the 2060 that will provide at least 50% more performance at 1440p?
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joeblowsmynose

Ahhh ... the long awaited and rumoured RTX2060 "Kind-of-Super". I hope we get the "Kind-of-Super" models with the rest of the lineup as well. Nvidia doesn't have near enough SKUs to be able to compete with AMD, so this is definitely a welcome move.
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KevinS1010

mr.walcott said:
Well think I shot myself in the foot buying the 2060 around launch last year.After upgrading to 1440p having issues with vram. So far I am hearing wait for next gen but seriously I do not like this card and want to upgrade.What is the best upgrade from the 2060 that will provide at least 50% more performance at 1440p?
I find that hard to believe you have issues with VRAM. I have a 2060 too, playing at 1440p and I have not encountered any performance issues that could be tied to VRAM (played many AAA games including a couple with Raytracing)

Also remember that this is a midrange card, if you expect it to run all modern titles at WQHD and Ultra settings at way over 60 FPS, you of course will be disappointed. That's for cards like the 2070 Super.

How is the rest of your system? Are you running dual channel RAM, modern CPU, running games on SSD? That could be the culprit for your performance issues if not.
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jpe1701

mr.walcott said:
Well think I shot myself in the foot buying the 2060 around launch last year.After upgrading to 1440p having issues with vram. So far I am hearing wait for next gen but seriously I do not like this card and want to upgrade.What is the best upgrade from the 2060 that will provide at least 50% more performance at 1440p?
I almost went with the 2060 when I upgraded to 1440p but I went with the 5700xt at the same price point and I was lucky enough that it was recent so I didn't have the driver issues that have been plaugeing them. Not to sound like a broken record but I would wait honestly. You probably wanted at least a little ray tracing if you went with the 2060 and if the rumors are even close to being right then the performance is supposed to be much better.
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hannibal

50% more speed than 2060... you talk about 2080ti or next gen amd or Nvidia... not worth the cost considering 2080ti IMHO
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King_V

joeblowsmynose said:
Ahhh ... the long awaited and rumoured RTX2060 "Kind-of-Super". I hope we get the "Kind-of-Super" models with the rest of the lineup as well. Nvidia doesn't have near enough SKUs to be able to compete with AMD, so this is definitely a welcome move.
ROFL!!

I would've gone for "Super-ish(?)" yes, with the parenthetical question mark as part of the name, but hey, that's me.

Oh, wait, unless they have "Kind-of-Super" and "Super-ish(?)" as two separate levels. You know, because they need even more finely-graded performance niches than exist currently.

And extra synergy!
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joeblowsmynose

King_V said:
ROFL!!

I would've gone for "Super-ish(?)" yes, with the parenthetical question mark as part of the name, but hey, that's me.

Oh, wait, unless they have "Kind-of-Super" and "Super-ish(?)" as two separate levels. You know, because they need even more finely-graded performance niches than exist currently.

And extra synergy!

Haha! I think I started with Super-ish, but changed my mind halfway through the post. ;)

It should looke like this:

2060 Original Edition
2060 Kind-of-Super
2060 Super-ish(?)
2060 Super
2060 Super Duper

Or maybe name them by the response to AMD that triggered their existence?

2060 original edition
2060 5500xt response edition (KO)
2060 5600xt response edition (Kind-of-Super)
2060 (placeholder for some yet unnamed response edition) (Super-ish(?))
2060 Navi launch response edition (Super)

Any way you look at it, we'll need more skus ... else there's no way to fight off AMDs grand total of 4 cards.
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King_V

joeblowsmynose said:
2060 Original Edition
2060 Kind-of-Super
2060 Super-ish(?)
2060 Super
2060 Super Duper
🤣🤣🤣🤣

Super Duper might be my new favorite!
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mr.walcott

@jpe1701 Nah I was looking to upgrade my 1050ti.2060 was my best option at that time.I do own one RT game but that I hardly play it.What I'll do is patiently wait for the next gen of cards which I don't know when on earth those will be out.
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