Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition Verdict
4K gaming gets real
Now we come to the monster in the room. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. It’s the gaming card we all want to own, but the question is, at $1,899, can mortals afford it – and is it worth jumping in and getting one now, or waiting for more game support and a price drop?
The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is built around the TU102 GPU, this is the ‘ big Turing’ chip and its release is something of a surprise given Nvidia’s recent strategy to delay the big chip until later in the market cycle. Spec wise, it’s a big jump over the outgoing 1080 Ti, with 4,352 Cuda Cores tied up with 68 RT Cores and 544 Tensor Cores. It’s clocked slightly lower than the 2080 with a 1,635MHz boost clock but more than makes up for it with sheer grunt.
There’s 11GB of 14Gbps GDDR6 memory, which with its 352-bit bus, gives an amazing 616GB/s of memory bandwidth. There’s no doubting that the RTX 2080 Ti is a seriously beefy card that’s likely to remain very capable for years to come as the drivers mature and features such as ray tracing. HDR and DLSS see more widespread adoption.
The FE 1080 Ti PCB was regarded as being adequate, but nothing more. The 2080 is a big step forward thanks to the inclusion of a good quality 13+3-phase DrMOS VRM which brings it into line with some decent custom card solutions. As expected, the RTX 2080 Ti features the same display connectivity as the 2080, with three DP 1.4 ports, HDMI 2.0b and the VirtualLink USB-C port. It carries all the outstanding video capabilities we mentioned in the intro. Essentially it’s got the best of everything that’s possible in 2018.
The cooler is the same as the one found paired with the 2080, and we’re pleased to see that it’s easily capable of handling the more demanding characteristics of the 2080 Ti. It remains quiet even under load and temperatures are kept well in check which allows the GPU to push the boost clocks higher, for longer.
The RTX 2080 Ti is a performance monster, no doubt about it. 60Hz+ 4K gaming is easily doable. If you’re one of the fortunate folks to be gaming on a 1440p 100Hz+ monitor, you’re in for a real treat with 100fps+ being an absolute walk in the park. The power consumption levels are a small step up from the 1080 Ti, and we did notice slightly high idle power consumption, though it was nothing to be alarmed about.
We love the RTX 2080 Ti. It’s a technological marvel, not just because of its gaming prowess, but the forward looking features it brings to the table. If the 2080 Ti is a monster, then so is its price. $1,899 is a big step up. That’s money that buys you a decent gaming PC, but hey look at what Apple did with the recent iPhone launch. It’s a pay to play market. If you want the best gaming graphics card on the market, here it is. You’ll no doubt get to enjoy several years of top notch high fidelity gaming. The most expensive gaming card for a very long time, but also one that brings new technology and incredible speed.