IntroductionNVIDIA earlier this month launched its most important GeForce RTX 20-series graphics card, the RTX 2060, along the sidelines of CES 2019. With a list price of $349, this card is designed for affordable 1440p gaming with all details cranked up, including real-time raytracing RTX features. The de facto reference-design RTX 2060 rendition, dubbed Founders Edition, was reviewed around a week ago. The RTX 2060 is a primarily partner-driven launch, which means there could be dozens of custom-design graphics card models from NVIDIA's various add-in card partners (AICs).The RTX 2060 was rumored to come in half a dozen sub-variants based on memory size and type, although in the end, NVIDIA only launched the top-spec variant with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. Perhaps, NVIDIA is saving the other SKUs up for when its GTX 1060 inventories are sufficiently off the shelves and spring-summer sets in.
NVIDIA carved the RTX 2060 out from the same silicon as the RTX 2070, the 12 nm Turing 'TU106.' This means you very much do get RT cores and Tensor cores, and NVIDIA wants you to enjoy real-time ray-traced gaming with this card, particularly with RTX enabled, and NVIDIA's ambitious new image-quality innovation, DLSS (deep-learning super-sampling).The RTX 2060 is equipped with 1,920 CUDA cores, which is a huge step up from the GTX 1060 6 GB (1,280), spread across 30 out of 36 streaming multiprocessors on the 'TU106.' You hence get 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores. NVIDIA narrowed the memory bus width of this chip down to 192-bit and equipped it with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory clocked at 14 Gbps, resulting in 336 GB/s of memory bandwidth (roughly on par with that of a GTX 980 Ti).MSI's GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z ticks all the feature checkboxes. It comes with the idle-fan-stop feature that's missing on the Founders Edition and provides some extra bling through its adjustable RGB lighting. The thermal solution has been beefed up as well—it's now triple slot with two fans. Out of the box, the card comes overclocked to a boost frequency of 1830 MHz, which is the highest of all the RTX 2060 cards announced so far.According to MSI, their GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z will retail between $379 and $389, so we used $385 throughout this review for our calculations.
Feb 1, 2019 - MSI's new GeForce RTX 2060 GAMING Z features the highest out of the box GPU boost clocks of any RTX 2060 on the market.
. ProsExcellent performance for 1080p and 1440p gaming. Quiet cooling. Can be overclocked to match pricier GeForce RTX 2060 models, in our testing. ConsNo VirtualLink port. Backplate is plastic, not metal.
Bottom LineMSI's GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition graphics card delivers fluid 1080p and 1440p gaming performance, but the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition is cheaper and has a VirtualLink port.The market for GeForce RTX 2060-based is saturated, and that's putting it mildly. (See our.) This review puts the spotlight on board partner MSI and its GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition, an overclocked version of its entry-level GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus.
At $359.99, the $10 premium it commands over the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition nets you a higher boost clock and a custom cooler. However, it lacks a VirtualLink USB Type-C port, which can be a deal-breaker if you're waiting for one of the next-generation virtual-reality (VR) headsets that will use the standard.
The GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition remains the value leader in our eyes, but the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition is an otherwise good choice if gaming performance is your focus. For better overclocking gusto, consider spending a little extra for the $369. MSI's flagship GeForce RTX 2060 model is the, which is offered only in an overclocked guise. Its MSRP of $389 makes it one of the priciest GeForce RTX 2060 models you can buy, too.
Its factory boost clock of 1,830MHz is one of the highest on the market. Compare that to the 1,680MHz of the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, and the 1,710MHz of the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition under scrutiny here. The GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z has other advantages over the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition, in the form of a flashier, RGB-infused design and more advanced fans. For the full background on the GeForce RTX 2060, our review of the is worth a read, as is our review for the details on the 'Turing' architecture that's behind the GeForce RTX 20-series. To keep it short but sweet, the GeForce RTX 2060 is a premium mid-level graphics card, well-suited for high-fps gaming at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. It's capable of, but not ideal for, 4K gaming, as you'll have to dial back the visual quality settings in most of today's AAA titles to get playable performance.For no-compromise 4K gaming, be prepared to ante up for a GeForce RTX 2080 or an. (See our showdown ) Likewise, if 1080p gaming is your ambition, a less-expensive card based on the Radeon RX 580 or 590, such as the, can do the job nicely.MSI's Points for ModestyIn the realm of aftermarket graphics cards, the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition has a relatively subdued look.
It's devoid of flashy colors and design flair, and it has no LED bling at all. For all of those, you can step up to MSI's GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z, and numerous other aftermarket models (for extra money, of course).The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition is 8.9 inches long, which is standard fare for a graphics card in this performance tier. It's significantly wider than the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, though, at 5 inches as opposed to 4.4 inches. That can be problematic if you use a small-form-factor (SFF) case, but f itment should be a non-issue in a mid-ATX tower or larger.
This card has a two-slot height. The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus XS models are shorter at 8.5 inches, but are, oddly, 0.1 inch wider according to MSI's specifications. It doesn't offer anything in the way of passive-cooling potential like a metal backplate would, nor the quality feel, but its main purpose is to add strength. It's never a good thing when circuit boards bend.The connections plate of the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition is, in modern graphics-card fashion, devoid of legacy portsLeft to right are DisplayPort video-out, HDMI video-out, and two more DisplayPort video-out connectors, all covered with plastic stoppers in the photos.
There's no VirtualLink USB Type-C port, one of which is present on the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition. It's a moot point as I type this, as no virtual-reality headsets supporting the new port have come to market. The ventilation holes back here are mostly aesthetic, as the cooling fans on this card send most of their exhaust air into the case. That cooling design makes it less than ideal for smaller cases with restricted airflow.Performance Tests. PC Labs ran through a series of DirectX 11- and 12-based synthetic and real-world benchmarks on the MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition.
Our test rig is equipped with an processor, 16GB of G.Skill DDR4 memory, a solid-state boot drive, and an motherboard.The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition will face competition both old and new in the charts below. It goes up against its nemesis, the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, and less-expensive cards, like the, and the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. To see what you get if you spend more, I also included the ($499) and the GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition ($799).Feel free to hop to the conclusion for the summary. Otherwise, here's the blow-by-blow. Synthetic Benchmarks 3DMark Fire Strike UltraSynthetic benchmarks can be good predictors of real-world gaming performance. Futuremark's circa-2013 Fire Strike Ultra is still a go-to for 4K-based gaming.
We're looking only at the graphics subscore, not the overall score. The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition does just fine out of the gate, finishing barely ahead of the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition.
It's important that both GeForce RTX 2060 models perform similarly against the older GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition, which was more expensive ($399) at its debut. The GeForce RTX 2060 is the first GeForce RTX 20-series card we've reviewed that offers better performance-per-dollar than the outgoing GeForce GTX 10-series cards. 3DMark Time Spy and Time Spy ExtremeThis is Futuremark's DirectX 12-enabled benchmark for predicting the performance of DirectX 12-enabled games. It uses major features of the API, including asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter, and multi-threading.The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition remains neck-and-neck with the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, as it will for the rest of our tests.
Both jump substantially ahead of the GeForce GTX 1070 Founders Edition, with the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition leading it by an impressive 35 percent at the Extreme preset. Note how the GeForce RTX 2070 Armor is only about 13 percent ahead of the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition at the Extreme preset, despite being priced 39 percent higher ($499 versus $359). Unigine SuperpositionOur last synthetic benchmark is Unigine's 2017 release, Superposition. This benchmark does incorporate ray tracing, but it's done in software, not hardware, and thus doesn't utilize the RT cores of the RTX 20 series in these charts. The strong results continue for the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition.
It does well at both the 1080p and 1440p presets. This benchmark is unusually demanding; in the AAA games to follow, you'll get far better frame rates at either resolution, even with the detail settings maxed out.
Real-World GamingThe following benchmarks are games that you can play. The charts themselves will list the settings we used (typically the highest in-game presets and, if available, DirectX 12).
Shadow of the Tomb RaiderSquare Enix's recent title is our first real-world test. This game is well-optimized for the PC platform, but very demanding at its higher visual quality settings. (Note that this test failed to run on the GeForce RTX 2070 Armor when we reviewed it.). The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition delivers superior gaming performance at 1440p than the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition and the XFX Radeon RX 590 do at 1080p. Its 4K numbers aren't fluidly playable, though; for that, as I pointed out earlier, the GeForce RTX 2080 Founders Edition is the card to buy, as much as your wallet might protest. Rise of the Tomb RaiderThe 2015 predecessor to Shadow of the Tomb Raider is still a great benchmark.Observe again how the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition isn't substantially behind the GeForce RTX 2070 Armor.
Far Cry 5 and Far Cry PrimalThe fourth and fifth installments in the Far Cry series are based on DirectX 11, but still demanding. We're pairing the charts here since the two games benchmark similarly. These cards have all carved their performance niches at this point. This benchmark tends to favor Nvidia graphics cards, in our experience; see how the GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition is now ahead of the XFX Radeon RX 590 Fatboy. World of Tanks EncoreThis is another non-fps-based benchmark that's available as a free download.
It's not super-demanding, but still a reliable test.Unsurprisingly, it's still a dead heat between the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition and the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition. Tom Clancy: The DivisionA 2016 release that remains tough to handle, here's our final DirectX 12-specific game test. Overclocking MSI's OverclockingEven though it comes from MSI pre-overclocked, the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition has headroom for further overclocking. I achieved a 1,813MHz boost clock, a 103MHz or 6 percent increase over stock, using the Nvidia Scanner utility built into MSI's Afterburner software. Other than setting the board power limit to its maximum prior to the scan, overclocking in this way is painless.Here are before-and-after overclocking results in several benchmarks and games. I used a different (Core i7-7700K-based) test rig for this, so the numbers should not be compared with those from PC Labs' tests in the last section.
+2.4%A modest overclock equates to modest gains, but it's something for nothing. And bear in mind that the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition is already overclocked relative to the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition.The overclock I achieved with this card puts it close to the factory overclocks of the pricier GeForce RTX 2060 models on the market, including the MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z. If you were planning to spend extra just for a factory overclock, you can potentially save yourself some cash with a lesser-priced card like the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition, and overclock it yourself.That said, the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition does have a limit to its overclocking headroom, so don't expect to set records. After running the Nvidia Scanner utility, MSI Afterburner noted that it was primarily limited by the board power limit of the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition.
I validated this by experimenting with manual overclocks.I didn't get more than 30MHz past the 1,813MHz clock recommended by the Nvidia Scanner before I experienced instability. The performance gains from my manual efforts were negligible. Some GeForce RTX 2060 models offer a higher power limit than others, so you'll want to target one of those if overclocking is your thing.
Be prepared to spend accordingly, but temper your expectations; in my experience, getting more than a single-digit percentage increase in performance from overclocking a graphics card is unlikely. Cool and QuietThe twin-fan cooling solution on the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition did a fine job of keeping the board running cool and quiet. I had to take the door off my test rig and put my ear to within a foot of the card to hear anything, even while gaming. There's no fan or coil whine.With the overclock applied from the previous section, this is how the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition maintained its core clock and temperatures through a 10-minute loop in the 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra stability test.The core clock oscillated as expected; that's just how the boost clock behaves on most of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 20-series cards I've tested. It averaged 1,914MHz, or about 103MHz higher than I averaged when I ran this same test at the factory clocks. That's above the 1,813MHz overclock; the card will boost its clocks if possible above the rated specifications. Meanwhile, the GPU temperature held steady near 70 degrees C, almost no different than the 69 degrees C I recorded at factory settings in this same stress test.
Nvidia rates the GeForce RTX 2060 for 88 degrees C, so there's plenty of headroom. A Dependable ValueThe MSI GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition is a dependable choice for a premium mid-level graphics card. Its mild factory overclock makes it an ever-so-slightly better performer than the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, albeit at a $10 premium. Its only real drawback next to that card is its lack of a VirtualLink port, something to consider if your future includes a next-generation virtual-reality headset, none of which had come to market at this writing.Eye-catching aesthetics aren't the strongest suit for the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition, but that can also be a plus, depending on your priorities. (Or a nonissue, if your case has no visibility inside.) Its twin-fan cooling solution proved both quiet and efficient in our testing, even while overclocked.
On that note, if you were planning to spend extra just for factory overclocking, note that Nvidia's Scanner utility, built into apps like MSI Afterburner, makes overclocking a GeForce RTX 20-series card almost painless. We were able to overclock the GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition close to factory overclocks of MSI's much pricier GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Z model, and many other aftermarket GeForce RTX 2060 models.The GeForce RTX 2060 Ventus OC Edition is far from the best overclocker, but it's priced accordingly. If it were our money, though, the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition still has the edge for its almost identical performance and inclusion of a VirtualLink port. And for a bit more, the Zotac GeForce RTX 2060 Amp offers both a metal backplate and higher overclocking potential.