Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Review

Verdict

The ultimate GPU for 4K bet on, while ray tracing support gives gamers an exciting glance into the future

Pros

Capable of 60fps in 4K with the majority of games
Future-proofed with exciting features such as ray tracing
Super-overclockable
Keeps cool and quiet all of the time

Cons

Incredibly expensive
Ray tracing and DLSS support unavailable at launch

Key Specifications

Review Price: £1099
New Turing architecture
11 GB GDDR6
4352 CUDA cores
1350MHz base clock speed
10 Giga Rays

Reading: Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti Review

Editor’s Note: The 20-series cards have since been superseded by Nvidia’s new Ampere GPUs. Jump over to our

What is the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti?

The 20-series cards have since been superseded by Nvidia ’ s new Ampere GPUs. Jump over to our Nvidia RTX 3080 and Nvidia RTX 3070 reviews to find out about the tauten ’ s latest generation cards. New generations of graphics cards normally alone offer improved clock speeds, allowing gamers to crank up the resolution and see a smoother performance with higher frame rates. The Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti and the rest of the newly Turing graphics cards, however, have greater ambitions. They feature all-new engineering that could revolutionise video game visuals .
Ray hound and Deep Learning Super-Sampling ( DLSS ) take the headlines here, with the erstwhile offer more realistic light effects and the latter using artificial intelligence to render high-quality images more efficiently. While all four of Nvidia ’ s newfangled 20 series graphics cards are able of delivering both of theses – and older cards will support irradiate tracing to varying degrees former in the year – the RTX 2080 Ti boasts the best specification of them all .
If you want the ultimate performance for ray decipher and DLSS, the RTX 2080 Ti is undoubtedly the best consumer card to buy .
Related: What is DLSS?
Unsurprisingly, the RTX 2080 Ti is besides the best consumer graphics cards for all-around performance. While the Pascal cards – the former Nvidia genesis – were capable of running games at 4K, the new Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti is able of playing some of the most notoriously demanding games at 60fps in Ultra HD. This will mean that not only will you be able to play the likes of Shadow of the Tomb Raider with jaw-dropping detail, but it will besides ensure it runs smoothly with adjacent to no judder or bumble .
Since initially publishing my revue final October, subsequent Nvidia Game Ready driver updates have been rolled out, to the luff where first person shooters Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus now support ray trace and DLSS. More titles will support these features in the future, but right now, it ’ s these two games that are flying the ray tracing flag .
But even when you don ’ thyroxine see that, there ’ s no question that the RTX 2080 Ti is the most mighty consumer graphics card that you can buy right now. If you ’ re using an honest-to-god outfit and looking to make the jump to 4K and above AAA gaming the RTX 2080 Ti is the best option available. But, until more games that take advantage of its next generation features start hitting the market, it ’ s a moment of a sturdy sell for people already on Nvidia ’ s 10-series cards .
Related: Best Graphics Card

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Specs and technology

With 18.9 billion transistors crammed inside, the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti is the second largest GeForce GPU ever created .
Embracing the new Turing architecture, Nvidia ’ s new cards are not merely built to be more efficient, but are besides sporting fresh features that have never featured in previous iterations of Nvidia ’ s graphics cards. All of the new Turing cards have a Turing SM, Tensor Core and RT Core, with each part ’ south specification differing between the three Turing GPUs .
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti The RTX 2080 Ti boasts the best spectacles of these cards, with the Tensor Core locomotive flaunting a 114 TFLOPS AI engine and the RT Core capable of producing 10 Giga Rays/sec of ray tracing acceleration. That ’ s a fortune of migraine-inducing numbers, but all you truly need to know is that these specs mean that the RTX 2080 Ti circuit board is the best option for the new ray hound and DLSS graphics technologies .
The Turing cards have besides had a couple of architectural tweaks that have resulted in improved bandwidth compared to the pascal predecessors. While the GTX 1080 Ti has a memory bandwidth of 484GB/s, the RTX 2080 Ti has made a huge leap to 616GB/s. You besides get 11GB of 14Gbps GDDR6 RAM here, which is a big rationality why the 2080 Ti is capable of reaching the compulsory speeds for 4K bet on .
There ’ south besides been a noticeable increase of CUDA Cores, which are your independent allies for improving performance. While the GTX 1080 Ti has 3584 CUDA Cores, the RTX 2080 Ti has a stagger tally of 4352. predictably, there ’ sulfur besides been an increase for Boost Clock speeds from 1582MHz to 1635MHz .
All of these beefier specification of course mean a greater power draw, although there ’ s alone a 10W addition from the GTX 1080 Ti, with the RTX 2080 Ti ’ s world power draw coming in at 260W .
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti meanwhile, SLI is once again supported by Nvidia ’ mho latest range of graphics card if you have the Nvidia NVLink, but game support is limited at the fourth dimension of writing .
In terms of ports, the RTX 2080 Ti has everything you need to be fully future-proofed, including HDMI, a DisplayPort and USB Type C. These are particularly crucial for virtual reality, with the DisplayPort required for the HTC Vive Pro and USB Type-C touted as the future go-to connectivity option for upcoming VR headsets .
Related: Best Gaming PC 2018

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Ray tracing

possibly the most exciting feature the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti has to offer, ray decipher is a rendering engineering that realistically simulates the alight of a scene and its objects .
Ray tracing international relations and security network ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate actually a new technology – it ’ s been used for years in film. Nvidia is, however, the first company that has managed to use beam trace in substantial time, and it ’ sulfur that ‘ real time ’ part which is obviously a necessity for television games .
not only does this game-changing ignite effect make environments look more realistic, but it besides creates more authentic shadows and reflections. This was shown off in Nvidia ’ s Star Wars show, as glazed Stormtrooper armor was made to look more convincing with dazzle reflections and glossy finishes .
meanwhile, DLSS enables gamers to enjoy beam tracing without having to suffer a big frame of reference rate pickpocket. With the late patches allowing hold for both Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus, I ’ ve been able to test out both features and see what impact they have on performance. here ’ s how I ’ ve got on :
With DirectX Raytracing ( DXR ) activated on Battlefield 5, I noticed subtle yet remarkable improvements to the visuals, particularly in the snow-drenched landscapes in the narrative deputation Nordlys. Reflections of mountains, buildings and trees can be seen on the surface of a frozen lake for example, making the view feel more immersive, active and realistic .
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti even indoors, away from the reflective internal-combustion engine and glistening campfires, ray trace helps to improve the environment. A cabinet ’ mho field glass door now displays a contemplation then authorize that it could come in handy for spotting furtive enemies. Photo frames hanging up on the wall besides benefited from the technology, as sunlight bounced off the glass and gave it a significantly more realistic appearance .
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti All of these ocular effects are subtle, sure, but they authentically do help to add even more polish to an already beautiful worldly concern. The only publish ? Activating DXR means that you ’ ll take a significant hit to your frame rate, as the technology is so intensive that the GPU has to work extra hard to render it .
Activating DXR while playing Battlefield 5 in Full HD saw a huge drop from 130fps to 80fps. That ’ s a significant decrease, although it could be argued that this is still a batch enough frames for a super-smooth operation. It ’ s a bigger offspring if you wish to play in 4K though, as the Alien Aurora – despite its enormous might – could only manage 45fps when playing Battlefield 5 with DXR sic to Ultra .
DXR OFF
DXR set to Ultra
Battlefield V ( Full HD )
130fps
80fps
Battlefield V ( 4K )
60fps
45fps
But while this fall in frame of reference rates was a actual business initially, the release of DLSS might good have resolved that exit already. The Nvidia GeForce Game Ready 418.91 drivers update has finally released, improving frame rate performance by helping the GPU run more efficiently. For the claim figures on how DLSS improved operation, check out the DLSS section below .
Related: All you need to know about ray tracing

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Confirmed games to feature ray tracing

equally well as Battlefield V, Nvidia has wrangled a decent list of games to support the RTX 2080 Ti ’ s ray trace capabilities. These games include Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro Exodus. With such high-profile developers already on board, it ’ s probable we ’ ll see enough more arrive in the future. The broad number of compatible titles can be seen below :

Assetto Corsa Competizione
Atomic Heart
Battlefield V
manipulate
Enlisted
MechWarrior 5 : Mercenaries
Metro Exodus
apparition of the Tomb Raider
justice
JX3
project DH

More games are expected to follow this list throughout 2019, with Bioware ’ s Anthem rumoured to be the adjacent to follow Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus .

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Deep learning super-sampling (DLSS)

possibly not vitamin a sexy as ray tracing , DLSS is still a significant feature for the Turing graphics cards and a noticeable upgrade on super-sampling and multisample anti-aliasing ( MSAA ) .
By using DLSS, the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti can use artificial news to help create an image that ’ s like in quality to that which you ’ five hundred grow with traditional rendering methods. so what ’ s the compass point then ? Well, this method acting actually saves on the GPU ’ s performance might, helping the GPU run more efficiently, resulting in politic television .
DLSS becomes even more significant given the shoot to performance that beam tracing brings. I benchmarked Metro Exodus with and without DLSS while beam trace was enabled to discover what extent Nvidia ’ s new engineering had on performance. The results were very impressive .
With re tracing set to ‘ High ’ and the resolution set to 4K, I saw frame rates average to a deplorable 35fps. For a first-person shooter, this international relations and security network ’ t an ideal performance. however, once I activated DLSS, human body rates abruptly jumped up to a very goodly 55fps. That ’ s an astonishing improvement of 20fps, which very does make a massive deviation .
DLSS off
DLSS on

Metro Exodus ( 4K + beam tracing )
35fps
55fps
I ’ ve only been able to do one benchmark test for DLSS thus far, so I wouldn ’ t take these results as concluding. That said, these initial results truly are promising and could wholly wipe out any concerns of radiate tracing being a performance mooch .

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Confirmed games to feature DLSS

just like ray trace, the entirely major concern with DLSS is the lack of games presently supporting the technology. Currently, merely Battlefield 5 and Metro Exodus have DLSS enabled. There are plenty more games confirmed to have DLSS in the future though. The arrant can be seen below :
once more games confirm support for DLSS I ’ ll be sure to update this review .

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Performance and benchmarks

Testing methodology
I benchmarked the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti on Trusted Reviews ’ test trailer truck, which has been built to match the spectacles of a standard bet on calculator. The featured components are listed below :
note that I will shortly be updating our benchmark results with the Intel Core i9-9900K, which I will besides use to test the RTX 2080 and RTX 2070. Bear in mind though, that my initial test has seen little to no dispute in frame rates when upgrading from an Intel Core i7-8700K to the i9-9900K. The above frame-up is perfectly adequate to get the most out of the RTX 2080 Ti .

Graphics cards for comparison

If you ’ re going to be investing in a Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti GPU, there ’ s a adequate find you ’ ll be upgrading from a pascal coevals graphics card. With that in mind, I decided to compare its benchmark scores to the GTX 1080 Ti and GTX 1080 to discover the extent of the promote .
In the near-future, I will besides be adding the benchmark results for Nvidia ’ s RTX 2080, so you know which of the new Turing cards is the best for you .
These are all official Founders Edition graphics cards manufactured by Nvidia, and should therefore act a service line for third-party alternatives .

Founders Edition Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080
Founders Edition Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti vs GTX 1080 Ti and GTX 1080 – Benchmarks

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest high-profile games to be released, and one of the most technically demanding titles out there. With detail environments and realistic unhorse and weather effects, even the most brawny GPUs will have a hard time running this Lara Croft submission at its optimum settings .
The GTX 2080 Ti is the inaugural consumer graphics card I ’ ve seen that ’ s able of running Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 60 frames per seconds in 4K with graphic settings maxed out. On modal, the GTX 2080 Ti ’ randomness average FPS benchmark was just shy of the much-desired 60fps, coming in at 57fps alternatively. That ’ sulfur 30 % better than what the GTX 1080 Ti achieved. Those who are obsessive with frame rates will be felicitous with the super-smooth performance here .
At Full HD, however, the dispute in skeleton rate is importantly less hearty, with only a 6 % improvement separating the 2080 Ti and 1080 Ti. Considering these benchmarks come in arsenic high as 110fps and 104fps respectively, you ’ re highly improbable to notice a remainder in ocular fidelity. so if you ’ ra yet to invest in a 4K admonisher, the RTX 2080 Ti international relations and security network ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate in truth worth the outgo here .
Ghost Recon Wildlands

Putting the most coerce on the RTX 2080 in our test was Ghost Recon Wildlands. That ’ sulfur barely a surprise given the massive unfold world it has to offer. There are few games that are as technically demanding as Wildlands, so the fact that the the RTX 2080 Ti can handle it in 4K at over 30fps suggests that this graphics menu should cope with any other 4K titles you throw its way .
disappointingly, the RTX 2080 Ti missed out on 60fps in Ultra HD, as it was only able to run Wildlands at 46fps ( on average ) with graphics cranked up to the highest put. That ’ s nothing to be ashamed of since the GTX 1080 Ti was only able of hitting 37fps and the GTX 1080 30fps, but I have to admit I was hoping for a tad more sex appeal .
again, when it comes to Full HD ( 1920×1080 ) there ’ sulfur only a marginal 3 % increase from the GTX 1080 Ti to the RTX 2080 Ti, far strengthening the case that there ’ s little sharpen in upgrading to the Turing GPUs if you ’ re still playing in HD .
Dirt Rally

While the above two titles are two of the most graphically demanding games available, I decided to test the GTX 2080 with a slightly older game that won ’ t abuse the GPU like a slap-happy cheat. Dirt Rally seems the perfect option since it was released in 2015 and is a good standard for current television games .
Fitting the blueprint nicely, it was the 4K screen that saw the greatest performance deviation between the RTX 2080 Ti and the stay of the graphics cards. The RTX 2080 Ti saw an average frame rate of 117fps, which was a 24 % increase from the GTX 1080 Ti ’ s grade and a whack 52 % jump from the GTX 1080 .
I bet you know what ’ s coming up for our Full HD test. Yup, there wasn ’ metric ton very a noticeable deviation between the graphic cards ’ benchmarks. Plus, since these figures were all higher than 130fps, the human eye credibly couldn ’ triiodothyronine even detect any far skeleton rate improvements .
Ashes of the Singularity (DirectX 12 mode)
The final crippled I tested was Ashes of the Singularity. Given it ’ s a scheme game with lots of onscreen action, I thought it would be a dear style to challenge the RTX 2080 Ti .
Hitting the frame rate sweet smudge with a benchmark score of 65fps in Ultra HD, the RTX 2080 Ti saw a performance boost of 23 % when compared to the GTX 1080 Ti and a 41 % improvement over the GTX 1080 Ti .
With so much military action happening at once, those ultra-smooth frame rates could be identical useful for massive real-time strategy games in 4K .
3DMark
Fire Strike Ultra
2080 Ti
8047
1080 Ti
6646
1080
5080
Topping off the tests, I ran 3DMark ’ s Fire Strike Ultra benchmark program. This software is truly useful for spitting out benchmark scores that can then be compared against unlike hardware setups due to its far-flung popularity and use .
The RTX 2080 Ti churned out a very impressive 8047, which is significantly higher than both the 1080 Ti and 1080 benchmark scores of 6646 and 5080 respectively. The RTX 2080 Ti is easily the most mighty graphics card that I ’ ve ever tested .
Virtual Reality
I haven ’ metric ton had the chance to test the RTX 2080 Ti with the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or HTC Vive Pro just however. once I ’ ve had the opportunity to do so, I ’ ll be surely to update this review .

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Performance conclusions

The RTX 2080 Ti is the most potent graphics card I ’ ve always tested – the benchmark scores prove that. The extra £430 that you need to spend on the RTX 2080 Ti over the GTX 1080 Ti gives you a 25 % ensnare boost on average .
This means that, while Nvidia ’ s previous Pascal generation of GPUs frequently struggled to run 4K games with maxed out graphic settings at 60fps, the RTX 2080 Ti hits that mark in all the games I tested banish Ghost Recon : Wildlands. If you want the smoothest possible experience while playing games in Ultra HD, then then RTX 2080 Ti is the card to go for .
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti however, if you intend on sticking to HD gaming then buying a RTX 2080 Ti is overkill. The remainder between the RTX 2080 Ti and GTX 1080 Ti ’ s performance when the resolution is set to 1920 adam 1080 is barely detectable. The older, cheaper, inactive on sale, GTX 1060 and GTX 1050 Ti besides play most games at this solution .
Related: Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti Review

Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti – Overclocking, heat and power consumption

The Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti is a mighty firearm of technical school, and so you ’ ll want to make certain you have a PSU that can handle its power. While running the Fire Strike Ultra benchmark software without overclocks, the GPU had a bill office consumption of 392W .
That ’ s a noticeable startle from the GTX 1080 Ti figure of 361W, so make sure you ’ ve got the right hardware if you ’ re looking to upgrade. Although if you ’ re got a beefy processor installed, you might want to double-check your carriage ’ sulfur might pulmonary tuberculosis to see it doesn ’ metric ton surpass that name .
Want to squeeze every drop of exponent out of the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti ? then you ’ ll credibly want to overclock the matter .
With the Unigine Heaven benchmark program running on a loop topology in Ultra HD, I managed to achieve a 220MHz GPU overclock in under an hour. Unigine started to crash once I attempted to push the GPU overclock far. queerly, I encountered no issues cranking up the memory overclock thus high gear, and could have potentially pushed it evening more, but I was restricted by clock time constraints .
After overclocking the RTX 2080 Ti, I was able to achieve clock rush of up to 2000MHz, and eke out a frame pace boost of 9fps. That was badly impressive. tied more noteworthy, the temperature rarely surpassed 75°C thanks to the dual-fan system so I didn ’ t need to worry about the test swindle going up in flames. In fact, the graphics card was identical quietly throughout both the benchmarking and overclocking test .
Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti

Should I buy the Nvidia RTX 2080 Ti?

If money is of little concern and you fancy the most brawny graphics calling card available, then the 2080 Ti is the card to go for. For the most intensive games available, the RTX 2080 Ti sees enough of a operation increase to justify the upgrade .
Nvidia ’ s flagship GPU should be able to run the majority of video games at 60fps in 4K with all the graphics setting cranked to the soap, which is a feat previous graphics wag have struggled to match. It ’ mho besides future-proofed thanks to the addition of ray trace and DLSS technologies .
HD gambling is a different history. If you precisely want to play basic games at 1080p there are cheaper cards available that can do the speculate. But let ’ s be real, unless DXR is activated, what maniac is going to spend over a thousand on a graphics card when they ’ re hush using a HD monitor ?