Nvidia Slashes RTX 2060 to $299 in Wake of AMD's RX 5600 XT, Third-Party Cards Follow Suit

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Nvidia's lowered the cost on RTX 2060 FE models, sending a wave of AIB price reductions.

Last week at CES (opens in new tab), we saw EVGA's RTX 2060 KO (opens in new tab) graphics card, which was built to deliver Turing ray tracing (opens in new tab) goodness for under $300. It didn't take Nvidia long to send out a message to press saying that the RTX 2060 (opens in new tab) is now available for $299, citing their own Founder's Edition (opens in new tab) and EVGA RTX 2060 KO (opens in new tab) as examples. Now, it appears that Nvidia's add-in board (AIB) partners are doing the same.

The first sentence of Nvidia's notice is telling, as it reads: "In case you are currently testing the Radeon 5600 XT." AMD announced its Radeon RX 5600 XT (opens in new tab) just 10 days ago, pointing to new competition for the RTX 2060, as well as the $229 GTX 1660 Super (opens in new tab), as Nvidia also pointed out. 

Nvidia's RTX 2060 Founder's Edition

Nvidia's RTX 2060 Founder's Edition (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

According to to AnandTech, the RTX 2060 price cuts "aren't wholly official." However, at the time of writing found two more RTX 2060 cards available for $299. These are the Gigabyte RTX 2060 OC (opens in new tab) after a $30 rebate and the Zotac RTX 2060 (opens in new tab) (after getting $20 off with promo code "VGAPCRW442"). 

We won't know how the RTX 2060 compares to other graphics cards (opens in new tab) on the market until we complete our own testing. However, some would argue that the GTX 1660 Ti is also an appropriate rival, since it's the same price as the RX 5600 XT at $279.

In any case, it should be an interesting match-up between the RTX 2060 and RX 5600 XT. The RX 5600 XT will have the price advantage, but the RTX 2060 comes with hardware-based ray tracing (opens in new tab) and is just $20 more.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • King_V
    Ok, so NOW we can officially say that Nvidia's got some concerns over the RX 5600 XT.

    This has me actually curious as to whether the 5600XT performs on par with the 2060. Curiouser and curiouser...
    Reply
  • mdd1963
    Waiting patiently for the 2070 Super to hit these same prices....! :) (Until then...my GTX1060 marches on!)
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    mdd1963 said:
    Waiting patiently for the 2070 Super to hit these same prices....! :) (Until then...my GTX1060 marches on!)
    When AMD decided to recycle the 5000-series numbering, I remembered paying only $170 for my HD5700 a decade ago. Now that would be pricing to get excited about :)
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    ...
    Why are they jumping the gun like that? Couldn't they have just... you know, WAIT?

    "It's because of that, that the GTX 1080Ti and RTX Super series happened."

    ...
    Carry on then.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Phaaze88 said:
    Why are they jumping the gun like that? Couldn't they have just... you know, WAIT?
    Maybe Nvidia and its partners are sitting on more stock than they'd like to and Nvidia decided to lower the target MSRP preemptively to keep inventory rolling smoothly.
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    InvalidError said:
    Maybe Nvidia and its partners are sitting on more stock than they'd like to and Nvidia decided to lower the target MSRP preemptively to keep inventory rolling smoothly.
    Ooh, just like with their surplus of 10-series gpus!
    Prioritizing profits, even when something is no longer in production...
    Reply
  • cryoburner
    Clearly the reason they are dropping the price just prior to the 5600 XT launch is to make the 5600 XT look worse in reviews. It's the same as all the other SUPER card launches timed just prior AMD's RX 5000-series launches. This way, they can can prevent their competitor's products from getting too much positive press. I doubt it's due to having surplus, and it's unlikely that a successor to the 2060 will launch before the very end of the year. Keep in mind, the 2060 is still actively in production. Unlike some of the other non-super cards, they never discontinued or even price dropped this model at the 2060 SUPER's launch, and instead put that card at a higher price point than the 2060.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    cryoburner said:
    Clearly the reason they are dropping the price just prior to the 5600 XT launch is to make the 5600 XT look worse in reviews.
    There is that too, though nearly $300 for a lower-mid tier card is legitimately horrid IMO. GPU prices in general are still grossly out of wack for what you get relative to similarly priced 2-3 years old models that are still on retail shelves today.
    Reply
  • Phaaze88
    cryoburner said:
    Clearly the reason they are dropping the price just prior to the 5600 XT launch is to make the 5600 XT look worse in reviews.
    They didn't even have to do anything when the 5500XT launched. That one bombed on it's own.
    RX 580-590 like performance, but with a premium markup... Interested buyers should just get the 3 year old RX 580.

    In the 5500XT's defense, it IS much lighter on power consumption compared to the RX 580, which means lower operating temps and less likely to get blown up on users running cheap ass power supplies - of course, I'd advise against anyone doing such a combo, but with the RX 580's rep as being one of the best value 1080p gpus available, it's often sought after. Unfortunately, it seems RX 580 + crap psu is a common pairing.
    Reply
  • InvalidError
    Phaaze88 said:
    They didn't even have to do anything when the 5500XT launched. That one bombed on it's own.
    Yup, new products failing to clearly outclass cheaper 2-3 years old equivalents is insulting.
    Reply