Nvidia Announces GeForce RTX GPUs, 2070 Starts at $499

(Image credit: Nvidia)

Update 8/20, 4:00 p.m. ET: Nvidia confirmed to Tom's Hardware that the GeForce RTX 2070 will launch in October, after the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti, 2080 and 2070, ending a roughly two-year drought of new GPUs from the company. The GPUs were revealed at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The cards are based on the company’s brand-new Turing architecture, initially announced last week. The GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition sell for $799 and the 2080 Ti Founders Edition will cost $1,199. Both are available for pre-order now and will ship Sept. 20. The GeForce RTX 2070 will cost $599.99, but you can only sign up to be notified on Nvidia's website. Representatives for Nvidia say that card will ship in October. Huang said that the RTX 2070 will outperform the Titan Xp.

The RTX moniker signals the card’s ray tracing capabilities and also shows off artificial intelligence and programmable shading. Huang began the GeForce announcement by describing ray tracing and how light, shadow and reflection are the "holy grail" of graphics. Nvidia's RTX technology combines rasterization and ray tracing to render images. The cards feature dual-fans, which is new for Nvidia's Founders Edition line.

Huang stated that the 2070 will start at $499, the 2080 starting at $699 and the 2080Ti starting at $999, so it's possible third-party GPUs will be cheaper than Nvidia's own.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Row 0 - Cell 0 GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders EditionGeForce RTX 2080 Ti Reference SpecsGeForce RTX 2080 Founders EditionGeForce RTX 2080 Reference SpecGeForce RTX 2070 Founders EditionGeForce RTX 2070 Reference Spec
Price$1,199-$799-$599-
CUDA Cores435243522944294423042304
Boost Clock1635MHz (OC)1545MHz1800MHz (OC)1710MHz1710MHz(OC)1620MHz
Base Clock1350MHz1350MHz1515MHz1515MHz1410MHz1410MHz
Memory11GB GDDR611GB GDDR68GB GDDR68GB GDDR68GB GDDR68GB GDDR6
USB Type-C and VirtualLinkYesYesYesYesYesYes
Maximum Resolution7680x43207680x43207680x43207680x43207680x43207680x4320
ConnectorsDisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-C-DisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-CDisplayPort, HDMIDisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-C-
Graphics Card Power260W250W225W215W175W185W

Huang showcased a real-time demo using a Star Wars scene that Nvidia has showcased several times since it was first shown at GDC in March. He revealed, echoing the recent Siggraph announcement, that it was running on the Turing architecture. You can read more about that architecture, including the Turing die and its RT and tensor cores, here. The company claims performance of roughly four Volta chips, Huang said on stage. In other words, that's the power of Nvidia's $49,900 DGX box in just one chip. However, these new chips are designed for one specific task: graphics while gaming. Huang referred to Turing as a "monster."

The cards will be compatible with NVLink Bridge, which connects two SLI-compatible cards with 50 times the bandwidth of Nvidia's older SLI technologies. It comes in 3 or 4-slot options and is available for pre-order now. Both are scheduled to ship on or around Sept. 20.

The company showed the soon-to-be released Shadow of the Tomb Raider, showing off ray-traced shadows and lighting in an early stage of the game. Lights from candles and sparklers produced light that made shadows softer. Spotlights also looked amazing and realistic. It also showed Metro Exodus to show indirect lighting, with illumination coming in through a window to light a dining room. And in a racing game, the sky was reflected off the track and cards in a clean fashion. A huge deal was made over reflections of fire in Battlefield V, especially in cars and fire, even when the actual flames weren't on screen. Upcoming games with ray-tracing include We Happy Few, Hitman 2, Final Fantasy XV, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Remanant from the Ashes and Dauntless

Following the announcement, several desktop manufacturers announced new systems that will have the cards, including Alienware, Acer and Digital Storm. For builders, cards were announced from several partners, including MSI, Asus, PNY, Zotac, Gigabyte and EVGA.

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.

  • John Nemesh
    $1200? What are they smoking? Sure, a lot of people will still buy them, but the VAST majority of those looking to upgrade their 1080ti cards will NOT. This pricing is going to bite them in the a$$.
    Reply
  • bmockeg
    Thats what happens when there is no competition
    Reply
  • TCA_ChinChin
    God on Earth what is that $1200 price tag?
    Reply
  • AgentLozen
    I'm really excited to read the review from Tomshardware in September.
    Reply
  • TechyInAZ
    Honestly I can easily see a $1200 price tag. Real Time ray tracing for the first time ever? That takes a LOT of resources.
    Reply
  • Stephen_144
    HDMI 2.1?
    Reply
  • blaynelangille
    Glad I gave up on pc, pricing is just getting worse
    Reply
  • rwinches
    They are trying to recoup their loss on the 1M overstock die returns.
    Reply
  • rix340
    Thank you but no thanks, i will pass, this pricing is ridiculous.
    Reply
  • jimmysmitty
    21248731 said:
    $1200? What are they smoking? Sure, a lot of people will still buy them, but the VAST majority of those looking to upgrade their 1080ti cards will NOT. This pricing is going to bite them in the a$$.

    Unless AMD has a GPU that can perform equally to it (expectations are around 15-25% better than the predecessors) and has the same features to perform this new tech nVidia wont be stopped price wise.
    Reply