Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition Review: A Titan V Killer

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon (DX11)

The only reason we use Ghost Recon’s Very High detail setting is to avoid the Ultra preset’s Turf Effects option, which creates an unfair comparison between GeForce and Radeon cards.

Clearly, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti has performance to spare if you’d like to crank graphics quality up even higher, though. A 14% lead over Titan V and a 20% advantage over the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti are significant.

The 2080 Ti’s advantage over GeForce GTX 1080 Ti grows to 26% at 3840x2160. More significant than that percentage is where both average frame rates land on our chart. GeForce RTX 2080 Ti spends more than 99% of its time above 50 FPS. GeForce GTX 1080 Ti spends about 99% of its time above 40 FPS.

The Witcher 3 (DX11)

You don’t need a GeForce RTX 2080 or 2080 Ti to enjoy The Witcher 3 at 2560x1440 using the game’s Ultra quality preset. We’d be perfectly happy with a GeForce GTX 1070 Ti for $400 in an older DirectX 11 title like this one.

Never mind the fact that The Witcher 3 is more than three years old; it remains one of the most picturesque games in our suite. Up until now, we considered the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti’s 66 FPS smooth enough for an enjoyable experience. But the RTX 2080 Ti’s 43% performance advantage yields an average frame rate in excess of 90. Ninety-nine percent of its time is spent above 60 FPS.

Bonus: World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth (DX12)

WoW is another game that’d likely benefit more from a CPU upgrade than a $1200 graphics card. However, since Battle for Azeroth added DirectX 12 support to its custom engine, we decided it’d be fun to test the game using its most taxing detail settings with 4x MSAA enabled.

If you’re already using a high-end Pascal-based graphics card, Blizzard’s latest expansion doesn’t get much faster from Turing at this resolution.

Switching to 4K and disabling MSAA has little effect on the top five finishers. GeForce RTX 2080 Ti does offer about a 9% speed-up compared to GeForce GTX 1080 Ti.

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Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
  • A Stoner
    Conclusion, let them hold onto these card until they can lower the price to about $700
    Reply
  • JimmiG
    Waste of time to write a review. "Just buy it".
    Reply
  • pontiac1979
    "Waste of time to write a review. "Just buy it"."

    Oh yeah, god forbid Tom's does an in-depth review of the latest and greatest. Keyword greatest. If you desire 4K gaming and have the funds available, why wouldn't you?
    Reply
  • max0x7ba
    Quit benchmarking Battlefield with DX12, it is unplayable.
    Reply
  • ubercake
    I'm probably going to buy one... Though it's not my fault... I feel like the Russians are compelling me to do this by way of Facebook. I'm a victim in this whole Nvidia marketing scam. Don't judge.

    That being said, I like high-quality, high-speed graphics performance. This may also be influencing my decision.

    Great review!
    Reply
  • AnimeMania
    How much of the performance increase is due to using GDDR6 memory? I know this makes the cards perform better the higher the resolution is, how does it effect other aspects of the video cards.
    Reply
  • teknobug
    "Just buy it" they said...

    If you're in Canada, you might not want to pay the price of these.
    Reply
  • chaosmassive
    While I appreciate this very detailed and nicely written review, its kinda redundant
    because I think Avram has already reviewed this card with his opinion on late august
    with the conclusion was "just buy it"
    Reply
  • uglyduckling81
    JUST BUY IT!!!
    Reply
  • wiyosaya
    SMH I don't understand the reasoning for comparing a $3k known non-gaming card with a $1.2k gaming card. Are there really gamers our there ignorant enough, other than those with deep pockets who want bragging rights, to purchase the $3K card for gaming when they know it is not meant for gaming? Or is this to differentiate Tom's from the other tech sites in order to inspire confidence in Tom's readers?

    Personally, I would have rather seen the 2080 Ti compared against 1080 Ti even if it Tom's comes to the same conclusions as the other tech web sites.

    The comparison in this article does not make me want to rush out and buy it because it is $1.8k cheaper than a non-gaming card. I really hate to say it, but with the premise of this review being somewhat along the lines of "lookie hereee kiddies. Heree's a gaming card for $1.2k that beets a $3k non-gaming card" turned this review into a TL;DR review for me.
    Reply