The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Founders Edition Review: Foundations For A Ray Traced Future
by Nate Oh on September 19, 2018 5:15 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- Raytrace
- GeForce
- NVIDIA
- DirectX Raytracing
- Turing
- GeForce RTX
Power, Temperature, and Noise
With a large chip, more transistors, and more frames, questions always pivot to the efficiency of the card, and how well it sits with the overall power consumption, thermal limits of the default ‘coolers’, and the local noise of the fans when at load. Users buying these cards are going to be expected to push some pixels, which will have knock on effects inside a case. For our testing, we use a case for the best real-world results in these metrics.
Power
All of our graphics cards pivot around the 83-86W level when idle, though it is noticeable that they are in sets: the 2080 is below the 1080, the 2080 Ti sits above the 1080 Ti, and the Vega 64 consumes the most.
When we crank up a real-world title, all the RTX 20-series cards are pushing more power. The 2080 consumes 10W over the previous generation flagship, the 1080 Ti, and the new 2080 Ti flagship goes for another 50W system power beyond this. Still not as much as the Vega 64, however.
For a synthetic like Furmark, the RTX 2080 results show that it consumes less than the GTX 1080 Ti, although the GTX 1080 is some 50W less. The margin between the RTX 2080 FE and RTX 2080 Ti FE is some 40W, which is indicative of the official TDP differences. At the top end, the RTX 2080 Ti FE and RX Vega 64 are consuming equal power, however the RTX 2080 Ti FE is pushing through more work.
For power, the overall differences are quite clear: the RTX 2080 Ti is a step up above the RTX 2080, however the RTX 2080 shows that it is similar to the previous generation 1080/1080 Ti.
Temperature
Straight off the bat, moving from the blower cooler to the dual fan coolers, we see that the RTX 2080 holds its temperature a lot better than the previous generation GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti.
At each circumstance at load, the RTX 2080 is several degrees cooler than both the previous generation and the RTX 2080 Ti. The 2080 Ti fairs well in Furmark, coming in at a lower temperature than the 10-series, but trades blows in Battlefield. This is a win for the dual fan cooler, rather than the blower.
Noise
Similar to the temperature, the noise profile of the two larger fans rather than a single blower means that the new RTX cards can be quieter than the previous generation: the RTX 2080 wins here, showing that it can be 3-5 dB(A) lower than the 10-series and perform similar. The added power needed for the RTX 2080 Ti means that it is still competing against the GTX 1080, but it always beats the GTX 1080 Ti by comparison.
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Billstpor - Friday, September 21, 2018 - link
Wrong. It's already known that the tensor cores have enough juice to run ray-traced effects and DLSS at the same time:https://youtu.be/pgEI4tzh0dc?t=10m55s
Vayra - Monday, September 24, 2018 - link
Wrong, the tensor cores need DLSS to run ray tracing at somewhat bearable FPS - that is, 30 to 60.DLSS is a way to reduce the amount of rays to cast.
Vayra - Monday, September 24, 2018 - link
Hence the non-existant improvement, or even worse position in terms of quality compared to SSAA x4 or better.In other words, running at native 4K is miles sharper and will perform miles better than a DLSS+RTRT combination still.
IUU - Sunday, September 23, 2018 - link
While your argument is solid, these days are just so weird that even $1200 cards seem to make a hell of a lot sense. This is also valid for similar desktop cpus.Why? Well , go buy a high-end iphone or a high end android phone... Enough said.
PS. For those who may use arguments like geekbench and such , it is just insulting to put it very very kindly!
Gastec - Thursday, September 27, 2018 - link
So basically buying high-priced electronics make sense because the companies selling them just increase the prices every year to make profits and a certain type of consumers are supporting those companies by purchasing no matter what the price (call them fanbois). The question is: Why, why are those people acting like that? What drives them?watek - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
Consumers paying these premium prices for features that are not even fully developed or finished is mind boggling!! People are being bent over and screwed by Nvidia hard yet they still pay $1500 to be beta testers until next Gen.V900 - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
Mindboggling? I suppose it would be for a time traveller visiting from the 19th century, but for everyone else it’s perfectly normal.There is always a price premium for those early adopters who want to live on the cutting edge of technology.
When DVD players came out, they cost over a 1000$ and the selection of movies they could watch was extremely small. When Blu-ray players came out, they also cost well over 1000$ and the entire catalogue of Blu-ray titles was a dozen movies or so.
And keep in mind, that the price that Nvidia charges for joining the early adopter club is really shockingly low.
When OLED or 4K televisions first came out, people paid tens of thousands of dollars for a set, and the selection of 4K entertainment to watch on them was pretty much zero.
With the 2080, early adopters can climb aboard for 600-1000$.
Games that take advantage of DLSS and RTX will be here soon and in the meantime they have the most powerful graphics card on the market that will play pretty much anything you can throw at it, in 4K without breaking a sweat.
It’s not a bad deal at all.
imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
Again, two technology that have not even seen the real light of day, let alone to be proven worth it at all. Early adopters of the other techs you listed at least got WORKING TECH from the start as promised.V900 - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
Ok, you’re either deliberately spreading untruths and FUD, or you just haven’t paid attention.There are games NOW that support RTX and DLSS. Games like Shadow of the Tombraidet, Control and PUBG.
And there are more games coming out THIS YEAR with RTX/DLSS support: Battlefield 5 is one of them.
The next Metro is one of many games coming out in early 2019 that also support RTX.
So tell me again how this is different from when Blueray players came out?
imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
THose games you listed don't have it now, they are COMING. lol Even then the difference is not even worth it considering the games don't hardly take a hit for the 1080TI. You are the nvidia shill on here and forums as everyone knows.