New GPU Series Announced by Nvidia – The RTX 2000 Series has ‘Ray Tracing’ and ‘6 Times More Performance’

Nvidia has recently announced their new line of high-end graphics cards named the RTX 2000 series. In total there will be three separate cards, including the RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and the RTX 2080 Ti.

These cards will, of course, be replacing their current high-end GPUs (GTX 1070, GTX 1080 and the GTX 1080 Ti). This new release is in line with their current release schedule, however, instead of releasing the slightly more powerful Ti version of the RTX 2080 at a later date—as they did with the GTX 1080 Ti—the RTX 2080 Ti will this time instead be launching at the same time as the other cards – we think this makes a lot more sense, because if you want the best you shouldn’t have to wait a few months before it’s released, especially if it’s already capable of launch and is simply only staggered for monetary reasons.

Pricing for the cards has also already been released (brace yourself); the RTX 2070 will start at $599, the RTX 2080 will start at $799 and the RTC 2080 Ti will set you back a whopping, staggering, unbelievable $1,199. The pricing during the keynote presentation was slightly lower, however that didn’t account for third party manufacturers costs.

The specifications for each card can be found in the table below:

As mentioned these cards will be sporting ‘Ray Tracing’, now trying to explain exactly what Ray Tracing is and how it works is difficult but if you want to know how it works check out this Wikipedia article and the blog on the Nvidia website that goes into detail about the differences between Ray Tracing and Rasterization (this is how current graphics cards work). But a quick overview of what it means for us gamers is that you’re going to get a much more accurate picture compared to how rasterization currently generates an image (which is basically an approximation) – this is especially true for lighting e.g. shadows, ambient occlusion, global lighting and almost all other forms of lighting. Essentially, game developers will now be able to have much more accurate lighting and shadows which is one area where current gen games fall a bit.

On paper, these cards look great, and with the rise of VR and 4k gaming there’s a need for them – we’ll wait on some third party benchmarks before we make up our mind on whether it’s worth upgrading from your current card or not, especially if you already have a GTX 1080/Ti.

The cards are now available for pre-order on the Nvidia website.