Before we dig into this one I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not a full review of the EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra. I did not have this card in my possession long enough to pull off a full review so I took it as a time to explore something a little different from a personal standpoint. Is it time to finally let my GTX 980ti go that I use every day? I had already started work on gathering results in preparation for handling a RTX 2070 review like we did with the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080ti, but that didn't quite pan out due to the odd sampling of the review cards.
So long and short of it I had proposed the question on Twitter "How does a balls out GTX 980ti hold up to a new RTX 2070" and a friend of mine wondered the same as he was ordering his RTX 2070 and asked if I wanted to find out? Of course I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity to see if it was time for me to drop some change on my personal work and play PC. That leads us here today, I've already sent off the card to it's happy new owner and the results are in the full video that I made and for those who don't want to hear me ramble on I've included the test bench setup, cards tested, and the results so you can just flip through them here while maybe perhaps listening to the video in the background.
Test System
| Components | Z370 |
|---|---|
| CPU | i5 8600k @ 5GHz |
| Memory | 16GB Geil EVO X DDR4 3200 |
| Motherboard | EVGA Z370 Classified K |
| Storage | Adata SU800 128GB 2TB Seagate SSHD |
| PSU | Cooler Master V1200 Platinum |
Graphics Cards Tested
| GPU | Architecture | Core Count | Clock Speed | Memory Capacity | Memory Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA RTX 2080 FE | Turing | 2944 | 1515/1800 | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra | Turing | 2304 | 1725 boost | 8GB GDDR6 | 14Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1080 FE | Pascal | 2560 | 1607/1733 | 8GB GDDR5X | 10Gbps |
| NVIDIA GTX 1070 FE | Pascal | 1920 | 1506/1683 | 8GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps |
| AMD RX Vega 64 | Vega 10 | 4096 | 1247/1546 | 8GB HBM2 | 945Mbps |
| XFX RX Vega 56 | Vega 10 | 3584 | 1156/1471 | 8GB HBM2 | 800Mbs |
| EVGA GTX 980ti SC | Maxwell | 2816 | 1450 (OC) | 6GB GDDR5 | 8Gbps OC |
Drivers Used
| Drivers | |
|---|---|
| Radeon Settings | 18.10.1 |
| GeForce | 416.34 |
Power and Thermals
1440p Results
Conclusion
So, the RTX 2070 trounces the GTX 980ti. It should in all honesty being two generations newer and on 12nm instead of 28nm. There are a lot of improvements to be had over the GTX 980ti from more than just frame rates and features. Power draw as well as thermals have improved to quite a degree. The most unfortunate part of the new cards listing is the pricing since if you bought the GTX 980ti at launch the closest you can get, in pricing anyways, today would be an upper tier version of the RTX 2070. This is why I proposed the question in such a manner. I could see how some would be ready to jump on the RTX 2070 and they'd find themselves with a nice boost overall. But, for me personally, I'm not seeing quite enough just yet to pull the mighty Maxwell card.
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