The only consumer grade Graphics card that has a price of a grand (1000 dollars) should mean something in the market. The new flagship and the king of Graphics processors for this generation of Graphics card are now in the market, and it is called Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti. Which means the reign of the mighty (still) Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080Ti is over.
Nvidia announced the new generation of the GeForce lineup during their ‘GeForce Event’ at Gamescom. To our surprise instead of announcing two Graphics cards (as it usually happens during the reveal of a new generation by Nvidia) Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang announced three Graphics cards under the RTX 20-series lineup. The Graphics card they revealed include the usual suspects RTX 2080 and RTX 2070 along with the flagship RTX 2080Ti. Nvidia usually releases the xx80Ti variant 2,3 months after the official series release, but this tie they went all out during the launch event. There is no competition for Nvidia on the flagship level from AMD which can explain the ridiculously high prices of these Graphics cards and the early release too.
However, we have the luxuriated powerhouse Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti in our house. Let’s review it and see if it justifies the 1000 dollar price tag.
Design
The design aspect of the Graphics card does not matter much because of the fact that most of the third party producers use their own designs. However, Nvidia has just revamped the design of the new Founder’s Edition Graphics cards. If you place both the RTX 2080 and the RTX 2080Ti side by side, you will notice that the RTX 2080Ti is noticeably larger in length, but the width is same throughout even the Founder’s Edition RTX 2070 has the same width. They have a new design now instead of good old blower design fan Nvidia went for the dual axial fan design that exerts heat outwards instead of inwards. The only problem, in this case, is the use case in mini ITX builds other than this there is no downside of the axial approach.
The thermals, however, remain much lower and the because of more cores a single blower fan would have had made the thermals at least much higher. If you are a fan of the blower style builds ASUS is releasing a blower style version very soon. Lastly, the steel, aluminum and Titanium build of the Graphics cards adds to the aesthetic feel of the PC.
Architecture
The RTX 2080Ti is based on the new Turing architecture that was revealed during SIGGRAPH when Nvidia announced the Quadro RTX Graphics cards. The GPU we are looking at is called TM 102; its size is much larger than the TM 104 the GPU used in the RTX 2080. Its size is 754mm2 which is the largest on any consumer grade silicon-based device. The GPU is made with TSMC’s 12nm FinFET process which is not extremely better than the 16nm process used in the last generation. However, they were able to fit a total of 18.6 billion transistors on the die, and the number suggest that the Graphics card is comparable to the much expensive Titan XP.
On a micro level, there are six Graphics processing clusters made up of Raster engines and six texture processing clusters. Each Texture processing unit consists of a Polymorph engine and two Stream multiprocessors (SMs). At the SM level, there are 64 CUDA cores, one RT core, eight Tensor cores, four texture rendering units, 16 load/store units and 256kB of L0 cache to store data. These resources are connected with 12 32-bit memory controllers, eight ROPs and 512kb of L2 cache yielding an aggregate cache of 6MB, 96 ROPs and 352-bit memory bus.
Specifications
In terms of the specifications, you will be getting the best Nvidia can offer in a consumer grade Graphics card. The huge die size accounts for the increased number of cores in the GPU. The actual specifications are actually 72 times the information present above since there are 72 SMs in total. The number of CUDA cores then become whopping 4,352 clocked at 1350MHz while the boost clock speed is 1500MHz, and the Factory overclocked Founder’s Edition clock speed is 1635MHz. There are 544 Tensor cores which will give a huge boost during AI related tasks and VR gaming. Lastly, there are 72 RT cores, and their purpose is to simulate the physical properties of light, and these cores can manage 10 Gigarays/sec.
The framebuffer is the same GDDR6 module made by Samsung. The size of the VRAM is 11GB same as the last year’s flagship GTX 1080Ti, but the clock speed of the VRAM is much faster at 14Gbps while the interface is the same at 352-bit. It makes the total memory bandwidth to be 616GB/s. Lastly, the single precision score of 14.2 TFLOPS compared to 11.3 TFLOPS of single precision scored by the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080TI.
Raytracing & DLSS
I have already explained the meaning of both these terms many times if you have following the new Turing series you probably know what these terms imply. In simple terms, Raytracing allows the illumination (light rays) in the scene to behave as it would behave in the real world.
While DLSS is a new anti-aliasing technique developed by Nvidia that will use the AI to work its way around the pixels. The purpose of DLSS is to increase the resolution of the image at hand. Nvidia will use the neural networks through its supercomputer Saturn V, and then these neural networks will help in increasing the resolution while it will not use as much horsepower as other aliasing techniques require.
I/O
You will be surprised by the I/O on the back and top of the Graphics card. Firstly, the high bandwidth connector that Nvidia was using for years is now replaced in favor of the NV link which is 50 times better than the previous technologies. Through the NV Link, both Graphics cards can share their memory bandwidth. Especially for the RTX 2080Ti two 2080Tis combined can hit 100GB of total bandwidth which can be used to power 8K monitors.
Other than NV Link there is an additional USB C port for the new displays. Additionally, the USB C port can deliver 27 Watts which means you would not require power cable for VR headsets.
Performance
The feeling of having a Graphics card in your rig that can destroy any game at the highest possible settings at the 4K for a gamer is indescribable. After thorough testing, we can safely say that Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti is the fastest consumer grade Graphics card in the market. It not only laps the GTX 1080Ti but also comprehensively beats the Titan V that costs considerably more. It scored at least 2000 more points in every benchmark and got at least ten more FPS in every game at 4k against the last year’s flagship.
Ashes of Singularity
We’ll start our performance gauge with the game that is unplayable on many systems and regarded as the real benchmark for gaming The Ashes of Singularity. Well, we still are unable to play the game at 4k Crazy (ultra high), but if we drop down the settings to the extreme, we can get over sixty frames. The average framerates were 85.5 while the 99th percentile framerate recorded was 52.5. It is one of the very few games that are still not tamed at 4k ultra settings. However, it scored way more than the GTX 1080Ti and also the Titan V though the difference was narrow.
Destiny 2
Next, we have the Destiny 2 game, though the game is not that demanding on the hardware, but the new forsaken update requires a little more raw horsepower at higher resolutions. Again, at highest possible settings at 4k, the RTX 2080Ti scored better than both GTX 1080Ti and Titan V. It got an average framerate of 91.6 while the 1% lower result was 77 FPS. These results are 37% better than GTX 1080Ti and 15% better than the TITAN V which costs 5000 dollars.
Doom
Then we tested Doom on Vulkan. Vulkan is a better and optimized graphics platform than the open GL if used property. The DOOM reboot made by Bethesda Studios utilizes the Vulkan API to its fullest, and as a result, we get a game that looks and feels more optimized. Since the game is optimized, we were able to get close to sixty frames per second. The story for the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti is no different, at 4k highest possible settings one can play DOOM 2016 at an average framerate of 132.2. While the Titan V can give 140 frames at the same settings, the reason being Vulkan API as it works better on the HBM2 module.
Far Cry 5
No review is completed if it does not have a game from Ubisoft, the biggest game developers in the world. For the purposes of this review, we chose the Far cry five since it has better optimizations compared to the AC origins. The first person open world game has one of the biggest and most interactive open worlds. In our benchmark, the RTX 2080Ti scored an average framerate of 71.7 while the 1% lower result was at 57 FPS mark. In comparison, the TITAN V could only reach the 66 FPS mark on average.
Witcher 3
The next game is one of the most demanding AAA titles, mainly because of its immense size and depths. Though the game was released in 2015, it is still a popular title in the gaming industry. The Witcher 3 Wild hunt one of the games that got a perfect ten review score across the board and it was the hailed as the 2015’s game of the year. Since the game is old, it was more than manageable for the RTX 2080Ti. At 4k ultra settings, it got 90 FPS which is very good considering it is a third person perspective game. Again, the RTX 2080Ti scored considerably better than the TITAN V.
Dues Ex: Mankind divided
Dues Ex: Mankind divided is a game that requires raw GPU power, as the most of the game has thick and crowded areas and the physics simulation of the game too is impeccable. Additionally, the game requires high bandwidth memory to run at its full stretch, that is why only the TITAN V was able to get very close to the 60 FPS mark. At 4k Ultra setting the RTX 2080Ti could only manage 52 table frames per second while the 1% lower percentile score was 48 FPS. The result is lower than what the TITAN V got during the benchmark.
GTA V
The last game that we tested was also an open world game developed by Rockstar games. Grand Theft Auto V can be easily played at 4k medium settings with framerate close to 60. But being a PC enthusiast requires the use of the highest possible settings that a game allows. GTA V is a game that can go beyond the specified Ultra level. These settings are 4k max + 4x MSAA + advanced overall settings. At these settings the 2080Ti could not hit the 60 FPS mark, the highest framerate recorded was 52FPS.
Conclusion
The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti is the fastest Graphics card that you can get right now. It is most definitely the most expensive device that you would install in your gaming rig if you plan on buying this beast. If you are into impeccable 4K gaming, then there is no direct substitute of the RTX 2080Ti that you can get. The addition of Raytracing and DLSS will also greatly enhance the visuals of the game and hence your experience. The price tag though is the only grain in the salt, the Founder’s Edition Graphics card will give a lasting dent of 1099 dollars on your pocket. While the least price on Amazon was recorded to be $974.
If you want true 4k gaming at the highest framerates possible, then you do not have much of a choice the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080Ti is the only way to go right now. Check it out on Amazon here!