Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080: Should You Upgrade?

Deep understanding of costs.

After months of waiting, she is finally here. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 was announced at Gamescom 2018, and it promises a huge leap in performance over the previous generation. However, the question remains: is the performance jump worth the price to upgrade to the RTX 20-series?

Well, let’s figure it out together.

The RTX 2080 offers 2,944 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR6 VRAM, a significant boost from the 2,560 CUDA GTX 1080 cores with 8GB of GDDR5 VRAM. Nvidia CEO Jen-sen Huang insisted that the 2080 offers a monumental performance boost over the 2016 model.

As such, for those currently content with the performance of the GTX 1080, the value of the upgrade may be questionable – unless you’re looking for the very best performance, and we can’t blame you. The true value of the upgrade, however, comes for those who missed the 10 Series and continue to use GTX 970 or 980 or older. If you’re looking for a way to discover 4K gaming, it’s time to dive into high-definition gaming.

| PRICE IN PERFORMANCE

The new GeForce graphics cards are, well, expensive, undeniable. Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti will cost you $ 1199 (about 78,000 r). This is a substantial amount for a graphics card, but it is not the graphics card we recommend for most users.

RTX 2070 and 2080 will be an attractive solution for most, the cost of these video cards is $ 599 (about 39,000 rubles) and $ 799 (about 52,000 rubles), respectively. These cards can theoretically run at 4K / 60 FPS without being torn apart and offer more performance while remaining cheaper than the GTX 1080 Ti.

This means that 4K games are becoming absolutely available for the first time, and when graphics cards go on sale from OEMs, which happens in the coming months, they will become even more affordable for most people.

| 4K OR NOT 4K?

For many years, 1080p has remained the de facto resolution for most gamers – with a small segment favoring 1440p screens, and Nvidia Turing could end that era. Even the RTX 2070 should be able to maximize most existing 4K games while delivering silky smooth frame rates. But, what if you keep the habit of lower resolution?

Monitors are expensive, especially high-resolution monitors, so upgrading all equipment to a higher resolution can be very costly. Thus, the new Turing graphics cards may simply not justify the investment, since the GTX 10 series can handle 1080p and even 1440p quite well, continuing to play for a while.

However, if you already have the hardware you need or are ready to purchase everything you need, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 promises to change the way you think about graphics.

| THE GAMES WE PLAY

Okay, but the 1080 and 1080 Ti can already play 4K games, right? Right now, yes, but just barely. The GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is currently capable of playing most games at maximum graphics settings at 4K, but 1080 forces users to tweak the graphics settings to arrive at 60fps.

Thus, the decision has a significant impact on which games you play. If you play esports games like Overwatch, Counter-Strike: Global Offencive, or even World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, the huge investment really won’t be worth it – modern graphics cards easily maximize these games with a margin.

Where new graphics cards are going to shine is in games that are coming in the next few years or so. At Gamescom’s launch, Nvidia showcased how RTX technology affects lighting and shadows in upcoming games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro: Exodus – breathtaking.

If you’re the type of gamer who loves to stay on the cutting edge by playing the latest games with the latest technology under the hood, then the RTX 20 Series is your choice – we know you can’t wait to see the latest games in all their graphical glory.

| SHOULD I BUY IT?

In the end, it all comes down to what you are going to do with these technologies. It is unlikely that ray tracing, the main feature of the new graphics cards, will be a huge part of the games that will be announced in the remainder of 2018 and probably most of 2019. However, the RTX 2080 and the rest of the Turing family promise a significant improvement over the current generation of graphics cards that could herald a revolution in PC gaming.

However, it is too early to tell.

Right now, our advice is to look at your current hardware, your budget, and what you want out of your computer. If you’re going to play light games at 1080p and already have a GTX 1080, then it’s probably not worth the upgrade at the moment.

On the other hand, if you’re sitting on Maxwell GPUs (or older) waiting for the best time to update, you’ve got it. Nvidia CEO Jen-sen Huang talked a lot about the RTX 2080 Ti being 10x more powerful than the GTX 1080 Ti – imagine how much more powerful it is than the GTX 980 or 970.

Take a look at the best graphics cards before the release of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080.