maximumpc.com JUN 2019 MAXIMUMPC 51
WE NEVER INTENDED for this to be a “Tech Porn” shot. When we set out
to build Dream Machine last issue, we had a pair of killer headphones
from Audio-Technica lined up for these pages, but during the Dream
Machine build process, and the stripping-down of these cards for the
waterblocks, we were taken aback by how much hardware Nvidia packs
into them. To us, there is nothing more beautiful in the tech world than
a stripped-down graphics card. Every piece with a purpose, every
capacitor with a task. There is no room for redundancy, no space for
unnecessary complications. Which is why they drew us to the camera,
more so than anything else to touch our fingertips this year.
The RTX 2080 Ti is at the pinnacle of graphical performance. A quick
glance at the Fire Strike leaderboards will swiftly inform you that it’s
not the Titans at the top, but the 2080 Tis. Yes, each GPU may cost as
much as complete gaming system, but they are ridiculously impressive,
showcasing what can be done with the Turing architecture. Whether you
submerse yourself into the artistic world of the modern videogame, or
spend your time intricately shaping 3D models and renders, this card is
almost beyond those paltry challenges. –ZAK STOREY
3
POWER
MANAGEMENT
The standard Founders
Edition card comes with
some seriously impressive
power management
hardware. In fact, each
eight-pin PCIe power is
supplied with five phases,
and then there’s a further
three phases that handle
the PCIe slot’s juice, giving
us a 13-phase design.2
11GB GDDR6
To denote how similar this card is to the Titan
RTX, there’s a single memory chip missing. Aside from
that absent 1GB, there’s little else between the two,
except a few disabled shader processors (down from
4,608 to 4,352), and slightly fewer ray-tracing cores.