RTX 2060 SUPER vs. RTX 2070: Which one is better?

Must read: Best Selling Nvidia Graphics Cards in 2020

According to NVIDIA, the RTX 2060 SUPER delivers up to 6 times more performance compared to the previous 10 Series NVIDIA Pascal GPUs. The same can be said about RTX 2070. Both cards are able to deliver impressive performance levels by rendering up to 120 FPS on average in AAA titles at 1080P resolution, and up to 80 FPS on average at 1440P resolution. Being so powerful, these two cards are also very solid performers at 4K resolution, however, lowering most settings to medium or low to obtain favorable results is a must, as 4K resolution contains almost four times more pixels than the Full HD resolution. The most notable competitors of these two cards are AMD’s Radeon RX 5700, and Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics processors, as well as older NVIDIA’s GPUs, such as GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and GeForce Titan XP.

If you take a look at our specs sheet above, you can clearly see that both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 share almost the same specifications. Both cards have the same amount of transistors packed into their 445 mm² GPU dies, however, the RTX 2060 SUPER comes with a bit less cores and texture mapping units. The RTX 2070, on the other hand, features about 4% slower base clocks, but has slightly bigger compute power of 7,46 TFLOps. Both cards feature eight gigabytes of GDDR6 VRAM, as well as the same memory bus, and memory bandwidth of 448 GB/s.

Just like the RTX 2070, the RTX 2060 SUPER comes with a TDP of 175 W, and requires a one 8-pin power supply connector. Just to put things into perspective, both cards are extremely energy efficient, as AMD’s well-known Radeon RX 580 graphics card consumes 185 W of power under full load, and is almost twice slower than the RTX 2060 SUPER or RTX 2070. One important fact to point out about these two cards is the difference in numbers of ray-tracing cores that they feature. Despite being almost identical to RTX 2070, the RTX 2060 SUPER comes 34 RT cores, and 272 Tensor cores, compared to RTX 2070’s 36 RT cores and 288 ray-tracing cores. Having that in mind, the price difference between two of them starts to make more sense, as RTX 2060 SUPER seems to be less powerful tasks requiring ray-tracing capabilities.

With all things said, now is the time to inspect the performance of RTX 2060 SUPER vs its older sibling RTX 2070. Based upon 8 different sources and more than 400 data entries, we have conducted a meta-analysis of various RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 benchmarks available online, and calculated total averages in order to compare performance of these two graphics cards. All benchmark data was based on PC systems with Intel Core i7-8700K or i9-9900K processors, which featured at least 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, and a Windows 10 operating system running on an SSD drive. Results are shown below.

Performance at Full HD (1920×1080) Resolution

From the chart above, we can see that both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 are overkill graphics cards for gaming at 1080P resolution. Both cards easily render more than 120 FPS on average in most AAA titles with all graphical settings set to the maximum. Even in most demanding titles, such as Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Control, Metro Exodus and Red Dead Redemption 2, both cards are easily able to provide stable 60 FPS with highest image quality. Performance in titles based on Vulkan API is also outstanding. Both cards are able to hit 200 FPS mark in 2016’s DOOM, as well as 150 FPS in Strange Brigade.

Overall, the performance of RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 is nearly identical. Despite being slightly weaker on paper, the RTX 2060 SUPER seems to perform better in games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Fortnite, however, when taking into account the given results, the RTX 2070 proves to be a more powerful card overall. The RTX 2070 outperforms the RTX 2060 SUPER in most games by a handful of extra FPS, which isn’t much, but is a noticeable difference. Most significant example is Apex Legends, but other than that title, the performance advantage is pretty marginal.

All in all, both cards perform absolutely amazing at 1080P resolution, and are perfect for achieving true 144 Hz gaming experience, provided you have G-Sync of FreeSync compatible monitor. Both cards do cost quite a lot, however, if you are not up for buying a brand-new RTX 2060 SUPER graphics card, second-hand RTX 2070 cards can be obtained for a reasonable amount of money. Also, if you aren’t striving for a perfectly smooth gaming experience, and don’t need any of ray-tracing features, you might consider buying NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER or GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER graphics cards.

Performance at Quad HD (2560×1440) Resolution

Both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 were clearly designed to be a performance-segment 1440P graphics cards. At Quad HD resolution, the benchmark results of these two cards are quite impressive. In most games, both cards are able to deliver 100 FPS on average with ultra settings, and even in the most demanding titles, hitting 60 FPS mark isn’t too difficult. Games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Gears 5 and Final Fantasy XV run perfectly at frame rates higher than 60 FPS, while only the most demanding titles, like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metro Exodus, run at very enjoyable 50 FPS.

Playing competitive shooter games with these two graphics cards at 1440P resolution feels amazing, as Battlefield V, PUBG, and latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, run at 90-100 FPS on average with ultra settings on. With these cards it is also possible to achieve ultimate 1440P gaming at 144 Hz in titles like Rainbow Six Siege and 2016’s DOOM, as both cards are able to hit 150 FPS marks in those games.

At 1440P resolution difference between RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 is almost non-existent. Both cards seem to be performing almost the same, with RTX 2060 SUPER having slight performance advantage in titles like Grand Theft Auto V and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and RTX 2070 performing 1-2% better on average compare to the RTX 2060 SUPER. However, given the fact that this advantage is lesser than five percent, these findings seem to be statistically insignificant due to possible measurement error.

Performance at 4K (3840×2160) Resolution

Performance at 4K resolution represents a true test of power for both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070. From the chart above, it is clearly evident that performance differs a lot from title to title, and that both cards struggle a lot in certain situations. In very demanding titles like Control and Red Dead Redemption 2, the performance of both cards is pretty miserable, and average FPS results in other titles, such as Borderlands 3 and Monster Hunter: World are also quite disappointing. The latter is probably due to bad engine optimization of these two games, while the former just shows ineffectiveness of these two GPUs at a such high display resolution.

Even though both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 don’t impress very much with their performance at 4K, it is necessary to stress out that these results represent in-game performance with enabled maximum settings. Lowering image quality to high or medium will certainly increase average performance, which means achieving 60 frames per second in games like Battlefield V, Fortnite and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) isn’t impossible. Performance in racing games like F1 2018 and Forza Horizon 4 is quite satisfactory, as well as performance in eSports titles such as the Rainbow Six Siege.

All-in-all, the RTX 2070 seems to be more powerful than the RTX 2060 SUPER at 4K resolution, however performance advantage isn’t big enough to consider RTX 2070 as a true 4K gaming graphics card. Gaming at 4K resolution with these two GPUs isn’t impossible, however, this resolution still represents a quite big challenge for these two cards. If you really aim for achieving enjoyable 4K gaming, then investing into RTX 2070 SUPER, or RTX 2080 is a much better option.

Conclusion

Both RTX 2060 SUPEr and RTX 2070 are great performers at 1080P and 1440P resolutions. However, their performance is almost identical, so choosing between one of them mostly depends on your budget and cards’ local availability.

As it can be seen from the chart above, the RTX 2070 is about 2,5% faster on average than RTX 2060 SUPER across all display resolutions. At 1080P, the RTX 2060 SUPER is about 3 percent slower than the RTX 2070, while the latter is 4 percent faster at 4K resolution. At Quad HD resolution both cards seem to be performing almost the same.

Given the fact that both cards achieve more than 120 FPS on average across 31 benchmarked games at 1080P resolution and with all graphical settings set to ultra, it is safe to say that choosing between one of them makes no difference it you plan to achieve ultimate 1080P gaming experience. Since both cards can push frame rates to unimaginable heights, they also represent a good choice for building a 144 Hz gaming PC.

At 1440P resolution both cards also shine. Most games are able to run at 100 FPS on average, while the most demanding titles struggle to maintain stable 60 FPS on average. Performance in eSports titles at 1440P is also amazing, so these two cards are a way to go if you are aiming for such experiences.

At 4K resolution things are quite different, performance-wise. Both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 struggle to achieve favorable frame rates, and only in handful of titles are able to achieve enjoyable experience. Despite packing millions of transistors and high amount of graphics processing cores, 4K gaming is still reserved for the most expensive cards available on the market.

Choosing between RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 is like choosing between two brands of detergent from the same producer. They feel and perform the same, except they have slightly different names. Both cards supports latest computer graphics technologies such as DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs, OpenGL 4.6, OpenCL 1.2, Nvidia GeForce Experience, Nvidia Ansel and Nvidia G-Sync. Pairing each card with a FreeSync or G-Sync capable monitor will further put their capabilities to good use, so don’t hesitate to get one.

If you are in a search for a perfect 1440P graphics card, then both RTX 2060 SUPER and RTX 2070 are great choices. If you are on a tight budget, but still want a decent performance-segment card, then getting a non-super GeForce RTX 2060 might be a feasible choice. Enjoyable ultra 1080P gaming experience can also be achieved with a GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER, however, if you aim to play at 144 Hz, then RTX 2060 SUPER or RTX 2070 are perfect choices. Despite being a bit too pricey, both cards offer great price-to-performance ratios, and will keep you from upgrading your graphics card for a few years. Unfortunately, they are still not very capable for true 4K gaming, so you’ll want something much more powerful in order to achieve that. Be sure to check out our GPU tier list in order to decide which card might best suit your needs.

Read more

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