Meet the GeForce RTX 2070 Super & RTX 2060 Super

Taking a closer look at the RTX 2070 Super & RTX 2060 Super Founders Edition cards, there aren’t too many surprises to be found. Since we’re dealing with a mid-generation kicker here, NVIDIA has opted to stick with their original RTX 20 series reference designs for the new cards, rather than design wholly new boards. This has allowed them to get the new cards out relatively quickly, and to be honest there’s not a whole lot NVIDIA could do here that wouldn’t be superficial. As a result, the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2060 Super are more or less identical to the RTX 2080 and RTX 2060 respectively.

GeForce RTX 20 Series Card Compariaon
  RTX 2070
Super
Founders Edition
RTX 2070 Super
(Reference Specs)
RTX 2060
Super
Founders Edition
RTX 2060 Super
(Reference Specs)
Base Clock 1605MHz 1605MHz 1470MHz 1470MHz
Boost Clock 1770MHz 1770MHz 1650MHz 1650MHz
Memory Clock 14Gbps GDDR6 14Gbps GDDR6 14Gbps GDDR6 14Gbps GDDR6
VRAM 8GB 8GB 8GB 8GB
TDP 215W 215W 175W 175W
Length 10.5-inches N/A 9.0-inches N/A
Width Dual Slot N/A Dual Slot N/A
Cooler Type Open Air
(2x Axial Fans)
N/A Open Air
(2x Axial Fans)
N/A
Price $499 $499 $399 $399

As I noted earlier, the Founders Edition cards themselves are now purely reference cards. NVIDIA isn’t doing factory overclocks this time around – the high reference clock speeds making that process a bit harder – so these cards are very straightforward examples of what the RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2060 Super can deliver in terms of performance. It also means that these cards no longer carry a price premium, with NVIDIA selling them at the $499 and $399 MSRPs respectively.

Starting with the RTX 2070 Super then, possibly the only material change is quite literally in the materials. NVIDIA has taken the 2080 reference design and given the center segment of shroud a reflective coating. This, along with the Super branding, are the only two visually distinctive changes from the RTX 2080 reference design. For better or worse, the reflective section is every bit the fingerprint magnet that you probably expect, so thankfully most people aren’t handling their video cards as much as hardware reviewers are.

In terms of cooling then, this means the RTX 2070 Super gets the RTX 2080’s cooler as well. At a high level this is a dual axial open air cooler, with NVIDIA sticking to this design after first introducing it last year. The open air cooler helps NVIDIA keep their load noise levels down, though idle noise levels on all of the RTX 20 series reference cards has been mediocre, and the new Super cards are no different. The fact that this reference design isn’t a blower means that the RTX 2070 Super isn’t fully self-exhausting, relying on the computer chassis itself to help move hot air away from the card. For most builders this isn’t an issue, but if you’re building a compact system or a system with limited airflow, you’ll want to make sure your system can handle the heat from a 215W video card.

Under the hood, the RTX 2070 Super inherits the RTX 2080’s heatsink design, with a large aluminum heatsink running the full length of the card. Deeper still, the heatsink is connected to the TU104 GPU with a vapor chamber, to help move heat away from the GPU more efficiently. Overall the RTX 2070 Super has the same 215W TDP as the RTX 2080, so it behaves virtually identically to the latter card. Which is to say that it has no problem keeping its cool.

Since this card is needed for further testing I haven’t shucked the card down to its PCB, but according to NVIDIA the power delivery system is also identical to the RTX 2080. In this respective NVIDIA’s reference designs are solid, and while they won’t be enough for hardcore overclockers, it’s more than sufficient for the kind of overclocking that can be done with the reference cooler. Of particular note, the maximum power target for the card is +20%, which means it can have its TDP increased to 258W. Accordingly, the card is fed by the same 6pin + 8pin power system as on the RTX 2080, more than guaranteeing the card can be fed up to its power target limit.

Finally, for display I/O, the card gets the continuing NVIDIA high-end standard of 3x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b, and 1x VirtualLink port (DP video + USB data + 30W USB power).

GeForce RTX 2060 Super

Shifting gears, for building the RTX 2060 Super NVIDIA has gone the opposite direction, using the RTX 2060 reference design as the base. The 2060 itself wasn’t all that different from the 2080 – and the same holds for its Super variant – but there are a few notable distinctions from the newly minted RTX 2070 Super.

In terms of overall design, the RTX 2060 Super Founders Edition card retains the same design aesthetic – reflective bits and all – but it comes in a smaller package. Overall the card is just 9 inches long, which is 1.5 inches shorter than the RTX 2070 Super. The cooling system has also been simplified a bit – mostly forgoing the vapor chamber – though it still retains the card’s full-body heatsink and dual fan open air cooler.

With a 175W TDP, the card relies on a single 8pin PCIe power connection at the rear of the card for the extra power it needs. Overclockers meanwhile will be able to pump up the power target by 22%, allowing the card’s TDP to be raised to a maximum of 213W.

Outside of its smaller stature, the other big departure for the RTX 2060 Super from its more powerful sibling is in the display I/O configuration. As with the regular RTX 2060, the Super card drops the 3rd DisplayPort for a DL-DVI-D port, giving the card a final tally of 2x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x DL-DVI-D, and a sole VirtualLink port.

The GeForce RTX 2070 Super & RTX 2060 Super Review The 2019 GPU Benchmark Suite & The Test
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  • Pino - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    Worst naming ever by their marketing department!
  • maroon1 - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    Who cares about names ?

    They can even call it Trash. If it delivers good performance then I will buy it
  • Hifihedgehog - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    Yes. I could not care less as long as they offer killer performance. At long last, they finally offer appreciably more performance per dollar than Pascal. That is a win in my book.
  • zmatt - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    You still have to pay $700 to beat the raw flops of a 1080ti. No deal.
  • Opencg - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link

    Yeah the 10 series is still the king of value. I think people will find that some of these super cards are not as good as they seem. The 2070 super for example runs less cores at a higher clock to get close to the same performance of a 1080. But the clocks used are basically what every 1080 can do in its sleep when overclocked. Overclocking results on the 2070 super put it only up to the 1080 stock due to the lower headroom available. And many 1080s are clocked 90mhz higher or more by default. The 1080 super will fair even worse having basically the same amount of cores as the 1080.
  • pandemonium - Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - link

    While true, I think you guys are overlooking the value that the 2080 and 2080 Ti cards bring: NVLink. It's not the same as SLI. Going forward, this will allow these cards to retain much longer longevity on the market.
  • eek2121 - Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - link

    "value" he says. I paid $799 for my 1080ti and quite a few people said THAT was a high price. NVIDIA sure fooled them. I could care less about NVLink. I have very little reason to have more than 1 GPU in my system. The 1080ti more than keeps up at 4K at max details (or close to max details, sometimes I might have to turn AA down depending on the implementation used), and by the time it doesn't, there will be faster cards that do.
  • Opencg - Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - link

    the 1080ti will go down in history as one of the longest lived cards ever. since the 2080 ti is not a significant step up especially when you consider price. the 1080ti basically spans two generations of dominance
  • kaesden - Wednesday, July 3, 2019 - link

    the 1080ti is the 2500k of video cards.
  • ludicrousByte - Thursday, July 11, 2019 - link

    ^ This :)

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