Power, Temperatures, Noise, and Conclusion

Total power draw at the wall with our test platform (Core i7-8700K system with 16GB of 3000MHz DDR4) places the card between a GTX 1070 and RTX 2070 at load, which is in line with its performance level. Once we have a chance to try out overclocking we will revisit power consumption with the RTX 2060.

Temperatures with this Founders Edition cooler was excellent, with temps in the low 60s under load a sign of  how efficient this dual-fan cooler design is, though board partners will of course have their own solutions.

What about noise levels in reaching these low load temps? I measured the RTX 2060 at 32.5 dBA at idle, and just 35 dBA under full load. This is a cool and quiet card.

Conclusion

As previously mentioned the full story of the RTX 2060 has not been told here, but these initial findings should at least provide a good idea of the RTX 2060's capabilities. A followup is planned covering such omissions as 2560×1440 game testing, ray tracing performance, and overclocking results, so look for that in the coming weeks.

As things stand the GeForce RTX 2060 is an impressive product as it brings performance that often compares to a GTX 1070 and even GTX 1080, above what might be expected from a "mid-range" offering, and while $349 represents a sizable investment for the mainstream 1080p gaming segment, this card is more of a QHD solution with very high FHD performance as well. What the various versions from board partners will retail for when the card goes on sale remains to be seen, so it would be premature to make a price/performance argument either way.

Based on our first round of testing the RTX 2060 provides impressive performance beyond 1080p, proving itself more than capable in games at higher resolutions and detail settings, and adds (of course) the ray tracing capabilities of the Turing architecture. The RTX 2060 is more than just a standard midrange GPU to be sure, and as we revisit the card post-CES and conclude our testing we will make a more definite conclusion.

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