The NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super makes for a great console killer – the console being the Xbox One X. How? Well, let’s take a look, shall we?
When NVIDIA launched their RTX Super lineup of GPUs last year, we were admittedly confused and excited. The original RTX lineup didn’t exactly deliver on the promise of raytracing along with smoother framerates than ever before. Well, the former did kinda come true, with many game developers choosing to opt into the RTX hype. While not all games had raytracing, some of the top tier games did. There were even some games which included features like RTX and DLSS in updates. It’s clear that the RTX 20 series cards have shown some nice performance gains from the Turing (GTX 10) series, but when you strip away the raytracing features, how does it compare?
In our original RTX 2060 Super review, we said that the card can be used for a 4K gaming PC Build, so long as the gamer in question has moderate expectations. The card can manage up to 30fps at native 4K on some games, similar to the Xbox One X. We decided to pit NVIDIA’s card against Microsoft’s crown jewel, and the results were pretty much as expected.
Before we get to it, here is the system we used:
- Ryzen 7 3700X (8 Cores, 16 Threads)
- 16GB (8×2) DDR4 G.Skill Trident Z RAM
- ASUS Prime X570-P Motherboard
- NVIDIA RTX 2060 Super (Founder’s Edition)
Before you say it, I know – this whole system costs more than twice as much as the Xbox One X itself, so why bother comparing them? The idea here is to compare the performance of a GPU which costs as much as the whole console and just have fun with it. There, I said it. No sane person should build a PC specifically to beat a console at the same price range. With the upcoming AMD RDNA 2 powered chips, the next-gen consoles like Xbox Series X are going to provide even more value to consumers over similarly priced PCs.
So with those cautionary tales heard, it’s time to go to town.
[Note: we used Metro: Exodus in our test, not the original Metro. Obviously]
As with the benchmarks above, you can see how the 2060 Super is able to reach the 30fps target that we aimed for. Sure, in certain games it doesn’t quite reach that, BUT remember – the games are running at high presets. It’s quite well known that the Xbox One X runs games more close to the ‘medium’ setting rather than high, or at best a mix of both. Adjusting a few knobs here and there will get us above 30fps on the PC. However, I find it fascinating that you can buy hardware meant for 4K 30fps gaming at under Rs. 35,000 (even cheaper, at $300 if you’re in the US).
That’s some serious horsepower under Microsoft’s console and one which was launched in 2017.
| Specs | Xbox One X |
| CPU | AMD Jaguar 8 Core CPU at 2.3 GHz |
| GPU | Integrated AMD Radeon GPU with 6 teraflops of performance |
| RAM | Unified 12GB GDDR5 |
| Storage | 1 TB 5400 RPM Hard disk |
The RTX 2060 Super with 2176 shaders at 1650 base clock computes to roughly 7.2 TFLOPS of performance. That’s extremely close to the Xbox One X’s 6 Teraflops. Now when you consider the next-gen Xbox Series X’s 12TF GPU, that alone should excite you as a gamer. The fact that the upcoming console is also going to include a Ryzen Zen 2 CPU along with faster memory and an SSD is a clear indication that the consoles have finally started catching up to PCs. At least for now.
Currently, I’m using my 2060 Super for gaming at 1080p, as that’s where you’ll get most of your value. With my 144Hz monitor, the card can pump more frames that I honestly require. Not that playing the next Assassin’s Creed game above 60 fps is a mandatory experience, it just makes things easier.
Both of these products will get refreshed towards the end of the year. The Xbox One X will be succeeded by the Xbox Series X, while NVIDIA is expected to launch the RTX 3000 (Ampere) series of cards this summer.