Report: An 8GB Version of NVIDIA’s RTX 2060 in the Works?
The GeForce RTX Lineup (Reportedly) Expands Again
An interesting report has surfaced (via PCGamesN) about a new variant of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 2060, with this one listed at 8GB – and of course the RTX 2060 is a 6GB card (though the later 2060 SUPER offers 8GB of near-RTX 2070 performance). Could this be a simple misprint (seemingly unlikely from an EEC listing), or will there be yet another variant of the RTX 2060 on the market soon?
“The new versions of the RTX 2060 8GB have popped up in a new EEC listing posted to the database by Asus yesterday. It lists three different cards, all variations on the same ROG Strix RTX 2060 EVO theme. One is the standard EVO 8GB card, the next is a slightly overclocked EVO 8GB Advanced Edition, and the last one the full-fat EVO 8GB OC edition.”
Image via PCGamesN
NVIDIA’s Year of Aggressive GPU Moves
The only constant in the video card arena is change, and in the last year NVIDIA has been changing things about as much as possible. Just when the Turing lineup seemed complete after the RTX 2060’s introduction (on 1/7/19), the company introduced the GTX 16 Series (beginning with the GTX 1660 Ti on 2/22/19) and then the RTX SUPER series arrived (on 7/2/19) just in time throw a wrench (and higher performance) into the mix as AMD’s Navi launched last July.
Since then we have seen the SUPER series extend from the RTX 2060, 2070, and 2080 to the GTX 1660 as well, and watched as the RTX 2060 dropped as low as $279 to compete with AMD’s newest Navi GPU (RX 5600 XT). Competition has been much better in the last year, and GPU price/performance has been improving as a result.
While unofficial (it’s not even on VideoCardz!) the report of a new 8GB variant of the RTX 2060 is both logical and puzzling. Logical because the RTX 2060 is based on the same TU106 GPU as the original RTX 2070, which features 8GB of GDDR6 memory. This could be a simple re-branding or a slightly different configuration. But wait! Didn’t we already have this with the RTX 2060 SUPER?
If an 8GB variant of the RTX 2060 comes out, does this render the 2060 SUPER irrelevant? Would that GPU reach EOL, or would it continue to exist in an 8GB RTX 2060 future alongside the original 6GB RTX 2060 – which is still being sold along with the faster 8GB RTX 2060 SUPER at a more competitive price point?
This gets confusing pretty fast, but then again the existence of the GTX 1660 SUPER at $229 when the $279 GTX 1660 Ti is only marginally faster is confusing already. I’m confused just writing that sentence.
The 2060 SUPER cards are 8GB.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_20_series
I’m fired (but I corrected it before I was escorted out of the office).
For the 3000 series, I want NVIDIA to switch things up a bit and have lower numbers be the higher end GPUs (3080 is entry level RTX), except for the Ti variants, which will be inverted from that. When they release SUPER variants later on, it will return to the previous nomenclature. They can continue having GTX cards in a 20 series, but they won’t have ray tracing added like their 16 series predecessors. They can also release a 3050, but it will be a GTX 3050 and not RTX, because that wouldn’t make any sense.
I think the numbers are getting too high. Let’s just have an RTX5 and RTX7 or something.
Only a matter of time till we get the R-ONE
I wish they can make RTX 3050 as a remake of RTX 2060
Better yet, a GTX series GPU with RTX 2060 power next gen. But what would that be called? GTX 1760 Ti? 17 series names don’t look great. I still think they should go back to adding the performance level to the end of the product name, like GeForce 6800 GT vs. Ultra