MSI GeForce RTX 2060 GAMING Z Video Card Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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MSI GeForce RTX 2060 GAMING Z Video Card Review

We’ve got a fast factory overclocked MSI GeForce RTX 2060 GAMING Z video card to review today. We’ll take it through its paces in many games, and find out how it performs, including overclocking performance with the competition. Does the RTX 2060 deliver better performance at a lower price compared to the last generation?
 
Thanks Brent and Kyle for the review.

I admit that on one hand I wanted to be jaded against recommending this tier of cards after the various cons of the RTX line but I admit the numbers you got for 1080p/1440p are impressive at the price point. My head got a little dizzy in the beginning with the Vram comparisons to the 1060/1070/1070TI. A lot to think about there. It was 'neat' to see how that translated to performance #'s. I also agree with you about how with this, and I'll add that the entire RTX line, shouldn't be compared to like for like of previous gens. They basically should be compared to the previous gen's next higher tier and price points. The 2060 is a little more unique in that it even managed to cross into 1070TI territory. The power/cooling comparisons were also impressive.
 
Great review, the MSI card performed rather good overall and being relatively power efficient as well as quiet. VRam seems to be a long term killer for this card as in not a 1 year+ card. If games can be shown now exceeding the VRam capacity with some negative effects, how about next year?

I would have liked to have seen comparison what the next tier Turing or 2070 brings to the table over the 2060, being about $100 more for the lowest cost ones (in the last week going for $479). With the 2GB more ram, more of everything else - that just seems more prudent to buy for every reason other than cost. Meaning the price is too high for the 2060 and I hope Nvidia will have something in the $200-$300 range that is much faster than the 1060. Nvidia is pricing themselves out of the market in which their poor sells are showing.
 
Just a thought on the VRAM:

If the card can only push enough power for 1440p anyway (4k out of the question), and 6GB runs well on that resolution without hitches (as proven in the benchmark), why is the lack of VRAM a negative on this card? Are there any known use cases where the 6GB on 1440p will prove to be a problem?

Thanks for the review.

I was on the fence on waiting for this 2060 or the 1070Ti a month or two ago. I guess I should have waited haha :[
 
Seems like a pointless card given the glut of used Pascal cards. Why settle for a useless new feature and not quite enough VRAM when you can pay less for a used 1070Ti with equivalent performance?
 
Seems like a pointless card given the glut of used Pascal cards. Why settle for a useless new feature and not quite enough VRAM when you can pay less for a used 1070Ti with equivalent performance?
Cheapest 1070ti is $429 on Newegg which is more $$ for less performance?
 
Seems like a pointless card given the glut of used Pascal cards. Why settle for a useless new feature and not quite enough VRAM when you can pay less for a used 1070Ti with equivalent performance?
Some people don't want to buy used. They would prefer to have a new product with full warranty. Comparing prices of new products to used products doesn't make sense, unless you're the type of person who thinks playing the lottery is a good retirement strategy. Nvidia isn't making any more 10xx series chips, so supply is limited. This product generally outperforms the price equivalent Pascal card, with the RAM not being a huge limiter in games. Shall I go on?

I too, wish Nvidia had put 8GB of RAM at this price point. If they had, I think these would sell like crazy, but with the same vram and similar model number as the much lower performing 1060, I think there will be a "low end" stigma on this card and sales will be cool.
 
Just a thought on the VRAM:

If the card can only push enough power for 1440p anyway (4k out of the question), and 6GB runs well on that resolution without hitches (as proven in the benchmark), why is the lack of VRAM a negative on this card? Are there any known use cases where the 6GB on 1440p will prove to be a problem?

Thanks for the review.

I was on the fence on waiting for this 2060 or the 1070Ti a month or two ago. I guess I should have waited haha :[

Look to any point in the past and it's proved time and time again: just enough/marginal today is clearly not enough tomorrow. 6gb is skimpy today, it means medium textures tomorrow.
 
I have a Gigabyte RTX 2060 OC. I bought it for its performance with RTX as an afterthought. That being said, I don't recommend it for above 1080p. I also think this card will have the shortest time in my PC, probably 1.5 years, instead of over 2 years before I upgrade to a new GPU.
 
Keep in mind that the RTX2060 performance is in GTX1080 territory and even comes really close to the RTX2070. Unfortunately although 6gb rams seems enough for 1440p, it just doesn't cut for 4K.

If I didn't already have a GTX1070Ti, I might get one.
 
I was thinking just like you when I saw the price compared to the release price for a GTX 1060, but even after seeing how well it compares to a 1070Ti, I still feel that it is too expensive for a mid range card. Every new generation of GPU generally increases in performance compared to the previous generation, but none have increased in price by such an extent.
 
It's pretty obvious that 7nm GPU's are just around the corner.
Used Pascal is where the smart money is at until 7nm Amd/Nvidia release (Vega VII does not count as a gaming GPU).
Turing will be the shortest lived GPU generation of all time.
It was released late to milk the Pascal inventory leftover from mining crash, and also happens to be just before 7nm available.
 
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Just a thought on the VRAM:

If the card can only push enough power for 1440p anyway (4k out of the question), and 6GB runs well on that resolution without hitches (as proven in the benchmark), why is the lack of VRAM a negative on this card? Are there any known use cases where the 6GB on 1440p will prove to be a problem?

Because games will use more and more as the year roles on, its going to be an issue and soon, meaning the card is not "Future Proof" for even this years upcoming games.. which is a downside. I would love to update my 1060, but im looking at either the 2080 TI or the Radeon VII (when the reviews hit), because i honestly believe Nvidia has not put enough RAM on there cards for the current crop of games.. Im normally a year or two behind release with the games i play, so my 1060 is fine currently, but it would be nice to have a decent option when the time comes.
 
I have a GTX 1060 6GB overclocked to 2100mhz GPU and 4201 Mhz memory and with lower in game settings I can easily achieve over 120fps in BF5 at 1080P.
is the RTX 2060 worth the upgrade?
This MSI sure looks good in this review, the only thing that concerns me is the micron memory.
 
A 336Gb/s 6GB card outperforming a 256Gb/s 8GB card would seem to suggest that at the tested resolution, memory bandwidth appears to be more important than the size
of the frame buffer. The approx 25% improvement in memory compression patterns going from Pascal to Turing probably helps too. Extra vram is always nice ofcourse, I
just feel that it is not quite as big of an issue as is sometimes reported.To my mind, unless you absolutely MUST have all settings maxed out, (sometimes affording almost
impercetible improvements in visual fidelity during normal game play), 8GB is at the very least, adequate for 4K gaming, more so for more sensible resolutions :) By the
time it becomes a significant limiting factor, many enthusiasts will have bought a new card anyway.
 
"However, you cannot do that. At $349.99-$389.99 the RTX 2060 is price comparable with GeForce GTX 1070 video cards"

This is a pile of crap. The GTX 1070 is 31 months old. The newer cards have a pattern of equaling/outperforming the previous gen model a tier higher while costing a tier lower than the comparable card.
 
Not bad. shame about that 8gb though. leaves the door wide open for amd to come in and have a field day this summer.
 
Nice. Good to have some numbers on this card. I was really hoping that the comparison would be with a 1080. I remember the 1060 being compared with the 980. That, and the selfish reason that I have a 1080.
 
Not bad. shame about that 8gb though. leaves the door wide open for amd to come in and have a field day this summer.

Maybe, Nvidia didn't have any issues selling GTX 1060 despite being 6 gigs and price higher than 580 8 gigs. Who knows, maybe this time might be different for AMD.
 
Excellent review, thank you!

At only 6GB and totally useless DXR, I will continue to categorize the 2060 as the successor to the 1060, which makes the $350+ price tag an abomination in my eyes.
 
Awesome review. I love MSI products. I have never had a single issue with them and love the design.
 
So far the only 2060 model that interests me. The price and 6gb ram the main thing holding me back. Thanks for the review.
 
The entire RTX line of cards are quite pointless right now, specially at the price premium nVidia wants.

And normally the 3rd tier card of the new gen equals the top tier performance of the previous gen. nVidia couldn't pull that off so they released a pointless 1070Ti just to have a point of comparison to run their PR against. nVidia dropped the ball on pure performance this time around, and RTX isn't really useful in the first iteration. Let's wait for the RTX30x0 series and see if they can improve performance enough and see if RTX is actually picked up by the game developers.
 
Just a thought on the VRAM:

If the card can only push enough power for 1440p anyway (4k out of the question), and 6GB runs well on that resolution without hitches (as proven in the benchmark), why is the lack of VRAM a negative on this card? Are there any known use cases where the 6GB on 1440p will prove to be a problem?

Thanks for the review.

I was on the fence on waiting for this 2060 or the 1070Ti a month or two ago. I guess I should have waited haha :[

They need to figure out a way to prove how much vram is ACTUALLY NEEDED,.NOT HOW MUCH A GAME ALLOCATES!

An 8gb card will allocate about 7 to 8 gb, a 6gb card will allocate 5 to 6 gb.

I'm willing to bet a 1080ti would have allocated 9gb of memory, does that mean 8gb is not enough?

Next review, 16gb VEGA 7 uses 14gb of video ram at 4k, 12gb 2080ti is junk.

Its a mystery why SOME reviewers don't tell you this.
 
Kyle, Brent, [H] team - wonderful article!

Just a thought on the VRAM:

If the card can only push enough power for 1440p anyway (4k out of the question), and 6GB runs well on that resolution without hitches (as proven in the benchmark), why is the lack of VRAM a negative on this card? Are there any known use cases where the 6GB on 1440p will prove to be a problem?

It was said that 6 GB was a limiting factor for most if these titles, but each of these games does a good job using dynamic memory from the system ram.

You would probably see issues if you had only 8 GB of system memory, as the 3gb GTX 1060 suffers in most games compared to the 6GB version in this config, but that would be a pretty silly setup.

It is also possible that we will see issues with newer Vulkan games such as Doom eternity. Wolfenstein 2 doesn't allocate any more than any other games, but it seems to NEED what it asks for. The cards with 4 GB of vram really suffer in that game. It is just a weak guess that Vulkan doesn't utilize dynamic memory as well.[/QUOTE]
 
I have a Gigabyte RTX 2060 OC. I bought it for its performance with RTX as an afterthought. That being said, I don't recommend it for above 1080p. I also think this card will have the shortest time in my PC, probably 1.5 years, instead of over 2 years before I upgrade to a new GPU.

Most likely texture quality will be the issue, not resolution. If 60 fps is your goal on a game released 2 years from now, and that can be achieved using 1080p ultra, 1440p very high, or 4k high, then the 1080p setup will use the most vram every time.
 
I just picked up this card for my brother's birthday. He has a RX580 and this seemed like the best upgrade path that kept a reasonable price and I really like MSI products. Thanks for the review.
 
I downgraded from a 1080ti to a 2060 as I have been gaming less. Good a chance to play with something new and put some cash towards another build.

I have to say I am impressed. I only play BFV currently and oddly enough I have seen much of a drop off in performance. I'm not sure if it's updated driver's or what. But at medium I am getting 90-120 fps @ 1440p. I ran the game at low with the 1080ti to get as close to 144 as I could. But it still struggled to stay there consistently.

I'm whatever with the vram thing. I know this card won't have the resale value as some of the bigger cards but oh well.
 
im waiting for more of a jump for less money...maybe a pipe dream
You can wait forever for that sort of thing. If you need to upgrade now, then do it based on what's current. If you can wait long enough, then you're pretty much guaranteed to get more for your money. But there comes a point when you either have to shit or get off the pot ;)
 
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