The RTX 2060 is known to be the gateway to Nvidia’s ray-tracing and DLSS-equipped next-generation CPUs. When this GPU first entered the market, Nvidia struggled to compete with AMD cards because they were more potent and less expensive at the time. Based on the Pascal architecture, the GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 graphics cards from Nvidia were also dominating the market at the time.
The manner that games were intended to play altered as soon as the RTX 2060 was released on the market. This card’s cheap Founder Edition displayed incredible performance in AAA games at the time. But since then, choices have been more potent than the RTX 2060. So, is buying an RTX 2060 still worthwhile this year? Find out now! Is RTX 2060 good for gaming?
An Overview
A graphics card in the RTX 2000 Series’ entry-level lineup, the RTX 2060 is constructed using Turing 12nm technology. The RTX 2060 shares many similarities with the top graphics cards in the RTX 2000 family in terms of architecture. The RTX 2060 often comes with two Graphics Processing Cluster.
Additionally, there are only 1920 CUDA cores, 240 Tensor Cores, and 30 RT cores on the card. The RTX 2060 has an essential clock speed of 1365 MHz right out of the box. The RTX 2060 Founder Edition also features a boost clock speed of up to 1680 MHz. Turing-based graphics cards with lower price tags but the higher base and boost clock speeds than the RTX 2060 include the GTX 1660 and 1660 Super.
The RTX 2060 from Nvidia has drawn criticism for being more expensive than its replaced graphics cards. Nvidia only promoted it based on ray-tracing and DLSS, even at the lowest clock speeds. Also, you must need to well aware of RTX 2060 power consumption.
Moving on, the 6GB GDDR6 visual memory with a 192-bit interface greets us. Even though this amount of video memory would be sufficient to play most games at 1080p high settings, it might not be adequate for 1440p or 4K gameplay.
The 336 GB/s memory capacity is one feature that will, nevertheless, undoubtedly be appreciated by you. This graphics card is a dependable photo and video editing option due to its higher memory bandwidth. Compared to graphics cards from other generations, the RTX 2060 offers a lot of bandwidth at once.
Further, this graphics card requires an x1 8-pin power connector and has a maximum TDP of 160W. Therefore, a power supply with a wattage of 550W or greater is required to drive this card. It may appear to some people to be a graphics card that consumes a lot of power, but it is one of the RTX family’s least power-hungry models.
The RX 5700 XT, AMD’s replacement for the RTX 2060, uses up to 225W of power from your PSU. When you compare these figures, you’ll see that the RTX 2060 is among the most energy-efficient graphics cards available.
Testing the Performance of Nvidia RTX 2060
A TDP of 160W with a power connector of x1 8-pin is required for this card. As a result, to drive this card, a power supply with a wattage of 550W or higher is required. Although it can seem like a power-hungry graphics card to some people, it is one of the RTX family’s least power-hungry variants.
AMD’s alternative for the RTX 2060, the RX 5700 XT, draws up to 225W from your PSU. These numbers show that the RTX 2060 is one of the most energy-efficient graphics cards currently on the market.
We chose well-known games like GTA V, Far Cry 5, Battlefield V, and The Witcher 3 for our benchmark test. Since 1080p is the resolution most PC gamers prefer, we chose it for all these titles.
| Game | Resolution | Avg Frame Rates |
| Far Cry V | 1080p | 85 fps |
| GTA V | 1080p | 90 fps |
| The Witcher 3 | 1080p | 85 fps |
| Battlefield V | 1080p | 80 fps |
Far Cry V
We began with Far Cry 5, one of our favorite video games. The RTX 2060 generated an average of 85 frames per second in Far Cry 5 at 1080p ultra-high settings. However, in Tomshardware’s tests, the GTX 1070 Ti surpassed the RTX 2060 by offering slightly higher frame rates in Far Cry 5’s 1080p preset.
There are several reasons why this happens, but the 2GB, more VRAM on the GTX 1070 Ti, is the more logical. The minimum memory requirement for running the top 10 games in the world at 1080p settings is still 8GB. However, the RTX 2060’s 6GB of video RAM can at least support most games at 1080p 60 frames per second.
GTA V
The RTX 2060 consistently delivered more than 90 frames per second in GTA V at 1920 x 1080 resolution. GTA V is considered to be one of those games that can still be played at acceptable frame rates with some entry-level graphics cards. However, the RTX 2060 gives you a little bit more of a frame rate improvement compared to less expensive cards.
However, we discovered that the GTX 1070 and GTX 1070 Ti had faster frame rates in GTA V at 1080p quality than the RTX 2080. However, as soon as you change the resolution settings to 1440p, the RTX 2060 defeats the GTX 1070 and 1070 Ti. Thus, playing open-world games like GTA V at 1440p on an RTX 2060 makes more sense.
The Witcher 3
In the Witcher 3 at 1080p settings, the Nvidia RTX 2060 packs a nice punch in terms of performance. It defeats the GTX 1070 Ti and RX 5700 XT graphics cards that compete with it. The average frame rate for Witcher 3 on the RTX 2060 is above 85 fps.
The RTX 2060 comfortably exceeds the 60 frames per second benchmark even at 1440p resolution. The RTX 2060 can still play most, if not all, less demanding games at 1440p settings.
Battlefield V
The performance of the Nvidia RTX 2060 in The battlefield V at 1080p settings is quite impressive. It defeats rival graphics cards like the GTX 1070 Ti and RX 5700 XT. Witcher 3 runs at a frame rate greater than 85 fps with the RTX 2060.
Even at 1440p resolution, the RTX 2060 outperforms the benchmark of 60 frames per second. The RTX 2060 can still play most less demanding games at 1440p settings, albeit not all of them.
Changing from DirectX 11 to Direct 12 improves gaming performance slightly at 1440p settings. In Battlefield V at 1440p backgrounds, the RTX 2060 surpasses 65 frames per second, although it is still behind the Radeon RX Vega 64.
Conclusion
The Nvidia RTX 2060 is a competitive 1080p performance. Right now, a graphics card in the RTX 20-Series can still be purchased reasonably. Try to acquire an RTX 2060 if you can, as GPU prices are starting to return to MSRP levels. Even though it is about three years old, it still holds its own in 1080p gaming.
If you want the RTX 2060 to run well with ray tracing, don’t buy it. Since it has fewer RT cores than competing models like the RTX 3080 and RTX 3090, you cannot expect this video card to be a game-changer. However, the RTX 2060 would be the least expensive entry point if you only want to feel what ray-tracing is like.
These days, there is fierce rivalry because there are more potent and reasonably priced graphics cards on the market. Currently, Nvidia is getting ready to release its RTX 4000 Series GPUs, which will unquestionably drive down the cost of RTX 3000 Series processors. Entry-level RTX 3000 Series cards use Ampere architecture, have more RT Cores, and outperform RTX 2060 GPU in terms of performance.
