Conclusion
Going down the Super route is smarter in many ways because it enables partners to reinvigorate their RTX stack nearly a year on from initial launch.The arrival of a trio of GeForce RTX Super cards is a calculated move to energise the premium end of the discrete graphics card market and to potentially scupper AMD's plans for its rival Navi-based Radeons launching later this week.
All three new Super cards get a boost in some way or other. GeForce RTX 2060 Super harnesses more cores and and an RTX 2070-like backend to propel performance by 10-20 per cent across a swathe of titles. The uptick is enough for the Founders Edition to gain parity with a stock-clocked 2070 model, in fact.
Nvidia's 2070 Super takes the 2080 as a base and makes a few snips to shaders. The result is performance that, again, is 10-20 per cent faster than the base 2070, which is based on a lesser die.
Nvidia could simply have cut the price of existing cards and achieved the same aim of increasing the bang-for-buck. Going down the Super route is smarter in many ways because it enables partners to reinvigorate their RTX stack nearly a year on from initial launch. And no-one, other than consumers, welcomes a straight price cut.
Priced at £379 and £475 for the RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 Super Founders Edition, respectively, Nvidia succeeds in enhancing the high-end RTX offerings. It's good to see no price premium for these FE cards, as well, though partners will find it difficult to match the mix of build quality and performance with their entry-level models.
You're now getting RTX 2070-like performance for under £400 and close to RTX 2080 perf for under £500. That's still expensive in the grand scheme of things, but what it really does is put huge pressure on upcoming Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT cards because they'll inevitably be compared to Super models that up the performance ante a notch or two more than AMD was expecting.
Bottom line: The GeForce RTX Super cards bring a dollop more performance for the same money. Hard to argue with that.
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070
Super Founders Edition
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060
Super Founders Edition
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