BUILDING A BETTER RTX 2070
:KHQ1YLGLD¿UVWDQQRXQFHGLWV*H)RUFH57;OLQHRI
cards, the reveal was met with “ooh” and “ahh,”
followed quickly by a resounding “oof” when the prices
were announced: $499 for the RTX 2070, $699 for the
RTX 2080, and a hefty $999 for the RTX 2080 Ti.
(Those prices were the starting prices for its stock—or
reference—boards, not to be confused with Nvidia’s
slightly upticked Founders Edition cards.)
Good graphics cards have never been the cheapest
upgrade component for your gaming PC, but the new
pricing paradigm that Nvidia set with the RTX cards
put the RTX 2070 and higher cards on a high shelf for
most folks, with the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti
essentially establishing a new “elite” price tier.
$QGWKDWD̆HFWHGWKHLUDGRSWLRQDFFRUGLQJWRWKH
Steam Hardware Survey, GeForce RTX cards make up
less than 3 percent of the total pool of GPUs that
gamers are using on Steam’s platform, while cheaper/
older options in the “Pascal” GeForce GTX 10 line
account for more than 40 percent of the systems that
reported to the survey.
Nvidia GeForce
RTX 2070 Super
PROS Superb price
for performance.
Stable overclocking
results help it rival
original RTX 2080.
Runs quiet. RT and
Tensor cores ensure
future-proofing.
CONS That it didn’t
come sooner.
BOTTOM LINE
Packing near-RTX
2080 performance
and similar specs,
Nvidia’s GeForce RTX
2070 Super rules for
solid 4K play at 60Hz
and high-refresh
gameplay at 1440p.
It’s a killer card for the
money.