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
The 2018 GPU Benchmark Suite & the Test
Another year marks another update to our GPU benchmark suite. This time, however, is more in line with a maintenance update than it is a complete overhaul. Although we've done some extended compute and deep learning benchmarking in the past year, and even some HDR gaming impressions, our compute and synthetic lineup remains largely the same. But before getting into the details, let's start with the bulk of benchmarking, and the biggest reason for these cards anyhow: games.
Joining the 2018 game list is Far Cry 5, Wolfenstein II, Final Fantasy XV and Middle-earth: Shadow of War. We are also bringing in F1 2018 and Total War: Warhammer II. Returning from last year is Battlefield 1, Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation, and Grand Theft Auto V. All-in-all, these games span multiple genres, differing graphics workloads, and contemporary APIs, with a nod towards modern and relatively intensive games.
AnandTech GPU Bench 2018 Game List | ||||
Game | Genre | Release Date | API(s) | |
Battlefield 1 | FPS | Oct. 2016 | DX11 (DX12) |
|
Far Cry 5 | FPS | Mar. 2018 | DX11 | |
Ashes of the Singularity: Escalation | RTS | Mar. 2016 | DX12 (DX11, Vulkan) |
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Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus | FPS | Oct. 2017 | Vulkan | |
Final Fantasy XV: Windows Edition | JRPG | Mar. 2018 | DX11 | |
Grand Theft Auto V | Action/Open world | Apr. 2015 | DX11 | |
Middle-earth: Shadow of War | Action/RPG | Sep. 2017 | DX11 | |
F1 2018 | Racing | Aug. 2018 | DX11 | |
Total War: Warhammer II | RTS | Sep. 2017 | DX11 (DX12) |
That said, Ashes as a DX12 trailblazer may not be as hot and fresh as it once was, especially considering that the pace of DX12 and Vulkan adoption in new games has waned. The circumstances are worth an investigation on their own, but the learning curve required in modern low-level API and the subsequent return may not be convincing right now. As a more general remark, most developers and publishers tend not to advertise or document DX12 support as much as they used to, nor is it clearly labelled in game specifications as many times DX11 is the unmentioned default.
Particularly for NVIDIA and GeForce RTX, pushing DXR and raytracing means pushing DX12, of which DXR is a component. The API has a backstop in the form of Xbox consoles and Windows 10, and if multi-GPU is to make a comeback, whether that's via compatible workloads (VR), flexible usage (ray tracing workload topologies), or just the plain old inevitability of Moore's Law. So this is less likely to be the slow end of DX12.
In terms of data collection, measurements were gathered either using built-in benchmark tools or with AMD's open-source Open Capture and Analytics Tool (OCAT), which is itself powered by Intel's PresentMon. 99th percentiles were obtained or calculated in a similar fashion, as OCAT natively obtains 99th percentiles. In general, we prefer 99th percentiles over minimums, as they more accurately represent the gaming experience and filter out any artificial outliers.
We've also swapped out Blenchmark, which seems to have been abandoned in terms of updates, in favor of a BMW render from the Blender Institute Cycles Benchmark, and a more recent one from a Cycles benchmark developer on Blenderartists.org. There were concerns with Blenchmark's small tile size, which is not very applicable to GPUs, and in terms of usability we also ran into some GPU detection errors which were linked to inaccurate Blenchmark Python code.
Otherwise, we are also keeping an eye on a few trends and upcoming developments:
- MLPerf machine learning benchmark suite
- Blender Benchmark
- Futuremark's 3DMark DirectX Raytracing benchmark
- DXR and Vulkan raytracing extension support in games
Another point is that we do not have a permanent HDR monitor for our testbed, which would be necessary to incorporate HDR game testing in the near future; 5 games in our list actually support HDR. And as we look at technologies that enhance or alter image quality (e.g. HDR, Turing's DLSS), we will want to find a better way of comparing differences. This is particularly tricky with HDR as screenshots are inapplicable and even taking accurate photographs will most likely be viewed on an SDR screen. With DLSS, there is a built-in reference quality based on 64x supersampling, which in deep learning terms is the 'ground truth'; an intuitive solution would be to use a neural network based method of analyzing quality differences, but that is likely beyond our scope.
The following tech demos and test applications were provided via NVIDIA:
- Star Wars 'Reflections' Demo (includes real time ray tracing and DLSS support)
- Final Fantasy XV Official Benchmark (includes DLSS support)
- Asteroids Demo (features mesh shading and variable LOD)
- Epic Infiltrator Demo (features DLSS)
The Testbed
Because NVIDIA is not productizing any other reference-quality GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and 2080 card besides the Founders Editions, which are non-reference by specifications, we've gone ahead and emulated the true reference specifications with a 90MHz downclock and lowering the TDP by roughly 10W. This is to keep comparisons standardized and apples-to-apples, as we always look at reference-to-reference results.
In a classic case of Murphy's Law, our usual PSU started malfunctioning around the time of the review, but given the time constraints we couldn't do a 1:1 replacement in time. As it is a digital PSU, we were beginning to use it for PCIe power readings to augment system measurements, but for now we will have to stick power draw at the wall. For the time being, we've swapped it out with another high-quality and high-wattage PSU.
CPU: | Intel Core i7-7820X @ 4.3GHz |
Motherboard: | Gigabyte X299 AORUS Gaming 7 (F9g) |
Power Supply: | EVGA 1000 G3 |
Hard Disk: | OCZ Toshiba RD400 (1TB) |
Memory: | G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 4 x 8GB (16-18-18-38) |
Case: | NZXT Phantom 630 Windowed Edition |
Monitor: | LG 27UD68P-B |
Video Cards: | AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 (Air Cooled) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 |
Video Drivers: | NVIDIA Release 411.51 Press AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition 18.9.1 |
OS: | Windows 10 Pro (April 2018 Update) |
Spectre/Meltdown Mitigations | Yes, both |
337 Comments
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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! ;)