NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Review: Reasonably Priced Ray Tracing

We also spent a little time overclocking the EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 XC, to see what kind of additional performance it had under the hood. Before we get to our results, though, we would like to quickly cover how Turing's GPU Boost algorithm works and explain some new overclocking related features.

Turing-based GeForce RTX cards, like the EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 XC, feature GPU Boost 4.0. Like previous-gen GeForce cards, GPU Boost scales frequencies and voltages upwards, power and temperature permitting, based on the GPU's workload at the time. Should a temperature or power limit be reached, however, GPU Boost 4.0 will only drop down to the previous boost frequency/voltage stepping -- and not the base frequency -- in an attempt to bring power and temperatures down gradually. Where GPU Boost 3.0 could result in a steep drop-off down to the base frequency when constrained, GPU Boost 4.0 is more granular and should allow for higher average frequencies over time.

As we mentioned in our previous coverage of the Turing architecture, there are beefier VRMs on GeForce RTX cards versus their predecessors, which should help with extreme overclocking, though most of the cards are still being power limited -- including the RTX 2060 -- to prevent damage and ensure their longevity. In addition to being able to handle higher loads than previous-gen cards though, the power circuitry on RTX cards has also been optimized to smooth-out and clean-up delivery across the entire voltage and frequency curve. That cleaner power should improve maximum overclocks too, but NVIDIA is also trying to make the overclocking process itself much easier with a new Scanner tool and API.

The NVIDIA Scanner is a one-click overclocking tool with an intelligent testing algorithm and specialized workload designed to help users find the maximum, stable overclock on their particular cards without having to resort to manual trial and error. The NVIDIA Scanner will try higher and higher frequencies at a given voltage step and then test for stability with a specialized workload along the way. The entire process should take around 20 minutes if it works, but when it’s done, the Scanner will have found the maximum stable overclock throughout the entire frequency and voltage curve for a given card.


We have yet to see the scanner tool complete a run successfully, so we couldn't properly test the auto-scan feature with our benchmarks. This is after multiple BIOS updates and clean Windows installations, multiple NVIDIA driver revisions, and many updates to Precision X1 -- there's just something about our test setup that the software just doesn't like. In lieu of using the NVIDIA Scanner, we kept things simple, and used the frequency offset and power / temperature target sliders to manually overclock the GeForce RTX 2060. First we cranked up the power target to 119% (the maximum available) and kicked up the temperature target as well. Then we bumped up the max voltage by .1v and increased the GPU and memory clocks until the test system was no longer stable.


Ultimately, we broke the 2GHz mark on the GPU and hit an effective memory speed just shy of 7.1GHz. While we had the card overclocked, we re-ran some tests and saw some nice performance gains. In fact, the EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 XC was able to overtake the GeForce GTX 1080 in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider while overclocked and inches closer to the RTX 2070 overall, though the 2070 still finishes well out in front.

Total System Power Consumption Tested at the Outlet