Will this graphics chip change the gaming world?
Nvidia presented three new graphics cards at Gamescom: the RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti. The cards are based on the new Turing architecture and are designed to advance ray tracing technology. I will show you what Ray-Tracing is all about and what the new graphics cards can do.
Nvidia brings professional ray tracing to the consumer market
The biggest innovation in RTX graphics cards is support for ray tracing - a technology that calculates light distribution in real time and makes games look more like movies with more realistic shadows and cinematic effects.
The technology is often used in computer-generated image (CGI) films and series because it produces very lifelike and lifelike results.
It has been under discussion in the gaming world for a long time, but has not yet been realized due to the high hardware requirements. With the RTX 2000 graphics cards, it is now available to the general public for the first time.
Ray-Tracing is made possible by Nvidia's new Turing graphics architecture, which uses a new calculation model. Until now, graphics cards have used rasterization to simulate the behavior of light. It calculates 3D environments from back to front in layers, obscuring objects further forward. Rasterization cannot therefore track the light itself and how it is reflected by the objects.
A good example of this are mirrors and glass, which so far only reflect light very inaccurately in games. Ray-Tracing, on the other hand, can accurately calculate mirror images and track the light even when it breaks into glass.
The biggest step forward is that Nvidia has succeeded in creating a calculation model for ray tracing that can be processed in real time by the new graphics cards.
Don't forget that Ray-Tracing has only been possible with tens of thousands of Euros of expensive workstation graphics cards.
"[...]the biggest leap we've ever made in a generation."-Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang
New graphics cards with more power
Even the smallest model RTX 2070 should deliver more power for ray tracing than the top model Titan Xp of the last card generation.
The RTX 2080 Ti is the flagship of the new series with 4352 CUDA cores and 1350 megahertz (MHz) clock frequency. With 11 GB video memory, the card has 1 GB less than the Titan Xp, but it is the faster GDDR6 memory type.
The RTX 2080 and RTX 2070 also have GDDR6 memory, but only 8 GB of it. The RTX 2080 has 2944 CUDA cores and 1515 MHz clock frequency, while the RTX 2070 is equipped with 2304 CUDA cores and 1410 MHz clock frequency.
Both models consume significantly more power than their predecessors due to the larger chips, only the RTX 2080 Ti remains within the 250-watt power consumption of its predecessor GTX 1080 Ti.
How important Ray-Tracing is for Nvidia is shown by the fact that the manufacturer specifies the theoretical computing power of his new graphics cards primarily in RTX-OPS instead of traditionally in GFLOPS.
RTX-OPS are used as reference values for ray tracing performance. According to Nvidia, the RTX 2080 Ti delivers 80,000 RTX-OPS, about six times the performance of a GTX 1080 Ti.
First insights at Gamescom
At Gamescon Nvidia showed first insights into the technical possibilities of the new Turing processor. Developer demos were presented, simulating reflections and light in closed rooms, but also a few Ray Tracing optimized games were shown.
Tomb Raider impressively demonstrates the realistic interplay of light and shadow in nocturnal environments, while "Metro Exodus" is particularly good at seeing how realistic shadows are represented with ray tracing.
The most spectacular was the "Battlefield V" demo, which showed how much better ray tracing works compared to previous rendering technologies. Explosions and fires were realistically reflected onto surrounding objects such as vehicles, people, surfaces and even weapons.
Nvidia has already announced 21 games to be patched by the developers for ray tracing. That doesn't sound like much, but the technology will probably only really get going in future titles. After all, the manufacturer is working together with Microsoft to implement its new DirectX Ray-Tracing API (DXR) in Windows 10.
When will the new graphics cards be released?
Manufacturers Asus, EVGA, Gigabyte, MSI, PNY and Zotac are already offering the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti for pre-order, delivery will start on September 20.
Nvidia's own Founders Edition graphics cards are as expensive as the free trade models. On the Nvidia side, the RTX 2070 is listed for 640 Euro, the RTX 2080 for 850 Euro and the RTX 2080 Ti for 1260 Euro. The prices for free trade are not yet fixed in Germany, but should be 100-150 Euros among the Founders Edition cards.