RTX 2060 vs RTX 2070 Comparison: Which one is for you?

RTX 2060 might be the cheapest Ray Tracing card but it is a powerful graphics card with a performance that can match cards one or two segments higher than it, not necessarily in the same GPU family. The card is positioned below RTX 2070 and is much cheaper than it, but offers performance that is close to it. Both these graphics cards belong to the same RTX 20 series lineup and support Real-Time Ray Tracing, AI / Deep Learning, and DLSS. In fact, both of them share the same GPU core which accounts for a lot of similarities between these two cards.

The launch of RTX 2060 created some confusion among the gamers that whether they should go for the cheaper RTX 2060 or spend a little more to get RTX 2070 for some extra performance in gaming. So, clear all your doubts regarding this, here I am going to put a straightforward comparison between them so that you can choose the one that is well suited for your gaming and professional needs as well.

Check out: Best RTX 2060 Cards for 1440p Gaming, Ray Tracing & DLSS

RTX 2060 vs RTX 2070 Comparison

Here is a comparison between RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 graphics cards based on their specifications, gaming performance, features, power consumption, and pricing.

GPU Architecture

Both these graphics cards are built on the Turing architecture with 12nm FinFET manufacturing process, and they also use the same GPU Core, which is TU106. The RTX 2060 is basically a cut-down of the TU106 GPU with some cores unlocked. RTX 2070 comes with 2304 CUDA Cores, 288 Tensor Cores, and 36 RT Cores while RTX 2060 has got 1920 CUDA Cores, 240 Tensor Cores, and 30 RT Cores. Both these cards support Ray Tracing and AI/Deep Learning because of these RT Cores and Tensor Cores.

Memory [VRAM]

These cards use the latest GDDR6 memory having the same clock speed (14Gbps), but the amount of memory and memory bus width is different between these two cards which also affects the total memory bandwidth between the two. RTX 2060 has got 6GB GDDR6 memory with a 192-bit interface, offering a bandwidth of 336 Gb/s while RTX 2070 comes with 8GB GDDR6 memory having a 256-bit interface and generates 448 GB/s of total memory bandwidth. The extra 2GB memory and higher bandwidth make RTX 2070 a better choice for 4K gaming and other video memory-intensive tasks, possibly 4K / 8K video editing.

Features

Both these RTX cards come with the same set of features that include support for DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, Vulkan, Nvidia Ansel, GPU Boost, Nvidia G-Sync and are VR Ready graphics cards. They do lack SLI multi-GPU support, which is only present in the higher-end RTX cards that include RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti (using NVIDIA RTX NVLink Bridge). RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 do fully support Real-Time Ray Tracing and Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS) in supported games. Also, both of them include a USB Type-C connector that supports VirtualLink for hooking up next-generation Virtual Reality Headsets for an immersive Virtual Reality Gaming experience.

Gaming Performance

Here are some benchmarks of RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 in some popular AAA games at 1440p Ultra graphics settings.

Ray Tracing Benchmarks

RTX 2060 is only 12% – 13% is slower than RTX 2070 which is a small margin, and upon overclocking it can meet the level of performance of RTX 2070 to some extent. When compared to Pascal series cards then RTX 2060 is as fast or even better than GTX 1070 Ti, while RTX 2070 is certainly better than GTX 1080.

Power Consumption

When it comes to power consumption then the difference between them is not huge as RTX 2060 has a power consumption figure of 160W and requires a 500W PSU. On the other hand, RTX 2070 has 185W of power consumption and needs a 550W PSU for its working.

Check out: Best Budget Power Supply (PSU) for Graphics Cards

Price & Availability

There is a large difference in price between these two cards. The Founders Edition of RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 sell at $349 and $599 respectively. This means RTX 2070 costs almost double of RTX 2060. The pricing for these graphics cards from add-in board partners or third-party graphics card manufacturers may vary and you can check out the current prices of RTX 2060 and RTX 2070 from the links given below. Also, both these cards are readily available for purchase.

Check RTX 2060 Price on Amazon

Check RTX 2070 Price on Amazon

RTX 2060 vs RTX 2070 Specifications

Specifications	RTX 2060	RTX 2070
GPU Codename	TU106	TU106
GPU Architecture	Turing	Turing
CUDA Cores	1920	2304
Tensor Cores	240	288
RT Cores	30	36
Memory Size & Type	6GB GDDR6	8GB GDDR6
Memory Interface	192-bit	256-bit
Memory Bandwidth	336 GB/s	448 GB/s
Bus Interface	PCI Express 3.0	PCI Express 3.0
DirectX	12	12
OpenGL	4.5	4.5
Vulkan API	Yes	Yes
SLI	No	No
VR Ready	Yes	Yes
G-Sync	Yes	Yes
Power Consumption	160W	185W
Recommended PSU	500W	550W

See also:

• RTX 2070 vs GTX 1080 vs GTX 1070 Ti vs GTX 1070 Comparison
• RTX 2060 12GB vs RTX 2060 SUPER vs RTX 2060 Comparison
• RTX 2060 vs GTX 1070 Ti vs GTX 1070 vs GTX 1060 Comparison
• RTX 2070 SUPER vs RX 5700XT vs RTX 2080 vs RTX 2070 Comparison
• RTX 2070 SUPER vs RX 5700XT vs RTX 2080 vs RTX 2070 Comparison

Final Thoughts

Well, in the end, I would like to say that both of these cards are very powerful and pack some really advanced tech that includes RT cores and Tensor Cores. This makes them very good for workstation tasks too. In terms of pricing, RTX 2070 is kind of okay but RTX 2060 is an amazing value-for-money product, and can even match the performance of RTX 2070 when highly overclocked. However, the only department where RTX 2060 lacks is the amount of VRAM, because 6GB of VRAM in the current scenario can suffice 1440p gaming but for 4K gaming, it is not sufficient at all for the upcoming titles. So, if you want a powerful budget RTX graphics card for 1440p gaming then you cannot go wrong with RTX 2060, and if you want something a little better to future-proof your gaming PC by spending some extra bucks then RTX 2070 is the card for you.