Nvidia RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 Super Review

Conclusion

The release of the Super upgrade to both the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 – and RTX 2080 but we haven’t got one for review – are the exact thing that makes us grateful right now. Firstly, the cards promise to be upgraded models of the RTX 2060 and 2070 that have set the market alight with their excellent combination of performance and price point, and the Super most definitely is a good extra performance step. Secondly, and we don’t think we’re giving away any secrets, the launch of the latest AMD Zen 2 is very close and so we’re absolutely working flat out which means that the simplicity of our conclusion regarding the newest RTX graphics cards is quick and to the point.

The RTX 2060 was designed to absolutely smoke games at 1080P but have enough performance to run at higher resolutions with some careful settings tweaks, and it totally nailed that remit. If you ever doubt that for the majority of people gaming at 4K on a flagship £1000+ graphics card is the stuff of dreams then you only need to look at the sales figures for the RTX 2060. It’s been a rampaging success. Naturally, there are the enthusiast gamers too who have a little more spare cash, or perhaps gaming is their primary hobby and thus are willing to designate a larger part of their finances to that endeavour and they have been making the RTX 2070, with its 1440p performance target, a big seller too.

When Nvidia announced that there would be Super versions of these cards we found it slightly a curious thing. Usually the updated model has come under their Titanium banner, the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080Ti are perfect examples of this, so we expected the upgraded RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 to be Ti models, but instead they have the Super brand. So far, fair enough. But there is a Super model of the RTX 2080, which means there are three RTX 2080s available. An odd choice for Nvidia to make.

Thankfully what it all boils down to is a nice clean improvement of the current cards, free from any caveats. Whilst we might have seen one or two results where a heavily overclocked partner model might have still had the edge of these new Nvidia cards, as a general rule of thumb the RTX 2060 Super bridges the gap between a good 2060 and a base 2070, and sometimes makes itself known in the thick of the RTX 2070 cards too, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The RTX 2070 Super has similar performance levels to recommend it, regularly appearing at the top of the RTX 2070 pile and in a few, F1 2018, Deus Ex, Far Cry 5 abutting the RTX 2080. If you wondered whether the extra hardware is making a difference too in the Ray Tracing benchmark Port Royal the RTX 2070 Super scores a mere 60 points shy of the RTX 2080. Only 1% behind.

Price wise they are about £20 more than the original cards were at launch and we are hearing that those versions will get a price drop while stocks last because they are all going ‘EOL’ – End of Life. This probably has a lot to do with the dodgy memory at launch and the fact everything they make now seems to have Samsung on board meaning no/much less RMA’s.

If you’ve been waiting to see what the future held for the RTX cards as they matured and the technological advantages bled into the mainstream AAA gaming marketplace then these are a step in the right direction. The originals were great cards but these new Super iterations of them round off the few rough patches and give you the slightly better take on the formula. Both the Nvidia RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2070 Super are fantastic graphics cards and utterly deserving of our OC3D Gamers Choice award. 

 

  

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