Nvidia’s RTX GPUs get a speed boost with the new Super series

Nvidia made a somewhat unusual announcement today: It’s launching a set of updated GPUs that will come in at the same price points as the existing GeForce RTC 2060, 2070 and 2080 GPUs with “Super” variants that offer better performance at the same price and with the same power consumption specs.

Prices for the GeForce RTX 2060 Super, GeForce RTX 2070 Super and GeForce RTX 2080 Super will start at $399, $499 and $399, respectively. Nvidia will continue to sell the entry-level non-Super RTX 2060 for $349, as well as the high-end RTX 2080 Ti, which starts at $999.

GeForce Super 2080 angle

Most of the cards this new Super series replaces aren’t all that old, but the technology that makes it stand out, Nvidia’s new real-time ray tracing tech that allows game developers to render far more realistic characters and environments, is still pretty new. The performance gains, however, aren’t software-based. Instead, Nvidia improved its manufacturing process and is now able to turn on more cores on the 2060 and 2070 variant — and tweak the memory speed of the 2080 Super to 15.5Gbps. Thanks to this, the new 2060 Super is on average 15% faster than the 2060 it replaces. The 2070 boasts similar numbers.

2019 07 01 1603It’s worth noting that the 2060 Super now also comes with 8GB of memory instead of 6GB.

The new 2060 and 2070 Super GPUs will go on sale July 9, while those who want to have the high-end 2080 Super will have to wait until July 23.

“The ecosystem driving real-time ray tracing is immense — tens of millions of GPUs, industry standard APIs, leading game engines and an all-star roster of game franchises,” said Matt Wuebbling, head of GeForce Marketing for NVIDIA. “This killer lineup of SUPER GPUs delivers even more performance for demanding PC gamers and ensures that they’re prepared for the coming wave of real-time ray tracing blockbusters.”

This new lineup of GPUs will allow Nvidia to better compete with AMD’s upcoming “Navi” GPUs, which are also scheduled to launch next week. Nvidia obviously doesn’t want AMD to get all of the mindshare, so today’s announcement makes sense (and was prefigured by a number of leaks in recent weeks).

GeForce Super 2060