Faster Than The Rest: Why Nvidia’s RTX 2060 Fumbled Ray Tracing-Speed Breakthroughs
Ray Tracing on the Humble GeForce RTX 2060: How Well Has It Aged?
As we delve into the world of ray tracing, it’s essential to explore how well Nvidia’s initial promise of mid-range ray tracing has aged. Our investigation takes us back to the GeForce RTX 2060, a GPU that was meant to bring ray tracing to gamers at an affordable price. Launched in early 2019, this mid-range card was marketed as a viable option for those looking to experience ray tracing at 1440p resolution. But has it lived up to its promises, and how well has it aged in the context of modern gaming?
A Look Back at the Launch
When the RTX 2060 first debuted, it was a departure from the high-end RTX 2070 and RTX 2080, which were geared towards 4K gaming and ray tracing enthusiasts. The RTX 2060, priced at $350, was positioned as a mid-range GPU, with the key feature being its ability to support ray tracing and DLSS (deep learning super sampling). Initially, we found that the card struggled to deliver high-quality ray tracing at 1440p, but the real question is: has the situation improved with time?
The Present-Day Performance
Fast forward to today, and we find that the RTX 2060 has indeed struggled to keep up with modern games, even at 1080p resolution. In our testing, we encountered VRAM-related issues and performance drops due to the card’s limited 6GB of VRAM. The result is that many modern titles, including some that rely heavily on ray tracing, simply don’t run smoothly on the RTX 2060.
Gaming Benchmarks
We put the RTX 2060 through its paces in a variety of games, testing its performance with ray tracing enabled and disabled. Some titles, like Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, are a real struggle for the GPU, even without ray tracing enabled. In fact, enabling ray tracing results in a significant performance hit, dropping the frame rate from an already modest 80 FPS to just 48 FPS.
Ray Traced Only Games
When we tested games that rely heavily on ray tracing, such as Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, we found that the RTX 2060 falls short of delivering a playable experience at 1080p resolution. Even on lower settings, the card fails to consistently hit 60 FPS, and texture loading issues become a significant concern.
Performance Summary: Can It Do 60 FPS?
Across the 29 game configurations we tested, only three managed to hit 60 FPS on average with ray tracing enabled. In fact, a staggering 13 configurations fell below 30 FPS, and 18 had 1% lows that dropped below 30 FPS. This is a far cry from the mid-range gaming experience Nvidia promised with the RTX 2060.
Wrap-Up: Never Fast Enough
It’s clear that the RTX 2060 was never powerful enough to handle ray tracing properly. As mid-range GPUs age, they quickly become entry-level in the modern gaming landscape, struggling to run games at decent resolutions and quality settings. Ray tracing should never have been a reason to buy this GPU, and it’s clear that Nvidia exaggerated its capabilities at launch.
Looking to the Future
For next-gen GPUs to truly enable ray tracing at 1440p and above, the baseline needs to rise substantially. Entry-level and mid-range GPUs need to deliver significantly better performance than the RTX 2060 to make high-quality ray tracing a reality. It’s time for Nvidia to step up its game and deliver GPUs that can truly handle ray tracing, especially in the mid-range and entry-level segments.
Shopping Shortcuts
Check out the latest and greatest GPUs on the market, including the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT.
