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
Meet The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti & RTX 2080 Founders Editions Cards
Moving onto the design of the cards, we've already mentioned the biggest change: a new open air cooler design. Along with the Founders Edition specification changes, the cards might be considered 'reference' in that they remain a first-party video card sold direct by NVIDIA, but strictly-speaking they are not because they no longer carry reference specifications.
Otherwise, NVIDIA's industrial design language prevails, and the RTX cards bring a sleek flattened aesthetic over the polygonal shroud of the 10 series. The silver shroud now encapsulates an integrated backplate, and in keeping with the presentation, the NVLink SLI connectors have a removable cover.
Internally, the dual 13-blade fans accompany a full-length vapor chamber and component baseplate, connected to a dual-slot aluminum finstack. Looking at improving efficiency and granular power control, the 260W RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition features a 13-phase iMON DrMOS power subsystem with a dedicated 3-phase system for the 14 Gbps GDDR6, while the 225W RTX 2080 Founders Edition weighing in with 8-phases main and 2-phases memory.
As is typical with higher quality designs, NVIDIA is pushing overclocking, and for one that means a dual 8-pin PCIe power configuration for the 2080 Ti; on paper, this puts the maximum draw at 375W, though specifications-wise the TDP of the 2080 Ti Founders Edition against the 1080 Ti Founders Edition is only 10W higher. The RTX 2080 Founders Edition has the more drastic jump, however, with 8+6 pins and a 45W increase over the 1080's lone 8 pin and 180W TDP. Ultimately, it's a steady increase from the power-sipping GTX 980's 165W.
One of the more understated changes comes with the display outputs, which thanks to Turing's new display controller now features DisplayPort 1.4 and DSC support, the latter of which is part of the DP1.4 spec. The eye-catching addition is the VR-centric USB-C VirtualLink port, which also carries an associated 30W not included in the overall TDP.
Something to note is that this change in reference design, combined with the seemingly inherent low-volume nature of the Turing GPUs, cuts into an often overlooked but highly important aspect of GPU sales: big OEMs in the desktop and mobile space. Boutique system integrators will happily incorporate the pricier higher-end parts but from the OEM’s perspective, the GeForce RTX cards are not just priced into a new range beyond existing ones but also bringing higher TDPs and no longer equipped with blower-style coolers in its ‘reference’ implementation.
Given that OEMs often rely on the video card being fully self-exhausting because of a blower, it would certainly preclude a lot of drop-in replacements or upgrades – at least not without further testing. It would be hard to slot into the standard OEM product cycle at the necessary prices, not to mention the added difficulty in marketing. In that respect, there is definitely more to the GeForce RTX 20 series story, and it’s somewhat hard to see OEMs offering GeForce RTX cards. Or even the RT Cores themselves existing below the RTX 2070, just on basis of the raw performance needed for real time ray tracing effects at reasonable resolutions and playable framerates. So it will be very interesting to see how the rest of NVIDIA’s product stack unfolds.
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PopinFRESH007 - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
You are simply ignoring the facts. When Bluray players launched they didn't play Blurays because there were none, because there was no standard. It took 3 years before there was a standard and 7 movies were released. Before then they were just high-end DVD players.These RTX cards also work out of the box. Its crazy I know, they actually can play current games and all with the highest settings and fastest frame rates. Similar to what happened with bluray, they will also support those new fangled DXR and DLSS options in games as they come out.
imaheadcase - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
First Blu-ray movies would be released on June 20, coinciding with the release of the first Blu-ray DVD player from Samsung, and a Sony VAIO Blu-ray PC.Jun 13, 2006The first batch distributed by Sony was on June 20th, 2006:
The Fifth Element
50 First Dates
Hitch
House of Flying Daggers
The Terminator
Underworld: Evolution
xXx
What was that again about facts?
V900 - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
Working out of the box? You mean like the RTX 2080/ti/2070 cards?You’re willfully ignoring facts and pretend that it’s totally up in the air whether games will support RTX, and that they won’t be available for a long time...
Which is entirely false.
There are games that support RTX out right now. Like Tomb Raider
More are coming this year: One of the biggest titles this year: Battlefield 5 supports it.
And dozens of titles supporting RTX, many of them big AAA titles, are coming out in H1 2019.
So no: Nobody is buying a card they “can’t even test.” If you buy an RTX card, it’ll work out of the box with RTX technology enabled.
And it’s of course also the fastest card on the market for all the old titles that don’t support RTX.
sonny73n - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
@V900If you can’t compare performance per dollar of this gen and the previous, why even bother praising the new tech when currently none of the tech sites have any mean to test them?
After reading your first comment, I couldn’t help but think that you’re a paid shill for Nvidia.
imaheadcase - Thursday, September 20, 2018 - link
You just ignored the facts and even proved yourself wrong in own statement. lolLet me sell you a car with the fastest engine, but i'm not going to let you use all the Horsepower..but i promise i'll enable it when i get the right parts for it. Don't worry about the $100k price tag on the car, its going to be awesome i swear..
Do you get paid for every post by nvidia, or just a lump sum?
mscsniperx - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
You are comparing apples to oranges. There isn't even a raytracing game to compare to.. And when the truth comes out that even with RTX, there is a massive FPS hit.. well, it's game over.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
First you complain that there aren't any raytracing games to get benchmarks from, then you state there will be a massive performance hit. If there are no games available to test with, you can't have any idea what their performance will be like.tamalero - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
The slides/demos of Nvidia and the Beta of Battlefield brother..They show performance that could be potentially be "above" what users would expect.
imaheadcase - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
Hello Hairworks would like a word with you..CoachAub - Wednesday, September 19, 2018 - link
Laser discs were a big hit! ;)