Nvidia, the world's leading manufacturer of consumer graphics cards, announced its new 2000 series graphics cards today. In addition to increased performance, they've integrated Ray Tracing technology with their new cards and quicker DDR6 memory.
Ray Tracing computes the interaction of light with surfaces and promises to be a leap forward for gamers. It's clear Nvidia believes in this technology because they've deviated from their successful GTX branding used in the past in favor of RTX on the new 2070, 2080, and 2080TI.
What's yet to be seen is how widespread this technology becomes in the future, but we do know that AAA titles releasing this year were made with Ray Tracing in mind.
Initial prices are higher than expected https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/20-series/
Confirmed pricing:
RTX 2070 $599 (Available in Septemer)
RTX 2080 $799
RTX 2080 TI $1199
Much remains to be seen for how the performance of these cards will compare the 10 Series Pascal cards that have been so popular, especially when considering performance per dollar. The efficiency of these cards as cryptocurrency miners will also play a very large factor in demand, meaning we may see prices fall or increase depending on new demand.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on if you'll be buying into this next generation! I was hoping to get the 2080 TI, but due to higher than expected launch prices I've opted for 2080 instead which is expected to ship in mid-September. At almost $900 after taxes I'll be keeping a close eye on how this card compares to the 1080 TI in benchmarks and mining which has fallen to near $500 in the last few weeks. If performance is not consistently better I may be cancelling my pr-eorder and going for a 1080 TI, either of which will be welcome upgrade over my much older card.