The second-most-powerful graphics card in Nvidia’s upcoming Turing generation of GPUs, the RTX 2080, may not be revealed in all its green glory until September 19. Rumors suggest that due to problems with reviewers acquiring the cards and receiving adequate drivers, the non-disclosure-agreement (NDA) that they signed has been extended from September 17 to September 19. That gives them a couple of extra days for testing and two days more for the world to wait to find out what those cards can really do.
Nvidia’s RTX-series graphics cards, the 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti, have been mired in middling controversy since their original unveiling. Despite impressive ray tracing and supersampling features, their hardware appeared to be catering to everyone but gamers, their performance in hands-on testing seemed far from stellar, and the prices are several hundred dollars higher than the last generation. Real world numbers showing the cards dominating in games tested by third parties would go a long way to fixing some of those misgivings, but we’re going to have to wait a little longer to see those, it seems.
The original NDA lifting dates for the various hardware options were said to be September 14 for the Turing architecture itself, September 17 for the RTX 2080, and September 19 for the RTX 2080 Ti. However, VideoCardz’s sources now suggest that the date for the 2080 has been pushed back to the 19th, meaning we’ll only learn of its performance capabilities on the same day as the 2080 Ti.
Although some have cried foul at this news, suggesting that Nvidia is concerned about the performance of the 2080, neither it, nor the 2080 Ti will ship out to anyone until at least September 20, so for those on the fence about its capabilities, there should be plenty of time to learn what they can do before ordering. That said, stock of the new-gen cards is already quite low due to heavy pre-orders based on speculative performance numbers.
Even with availability and pricing concerns with the 2080 and 2080 Ti though, they may be more popular cards with the Turing generation than their predecessors. New rumors about the midrange options, like the expected RTX 2060, suggest that only the high-end cards from the new generation will sport the RT cores that make real-time ray tracing possible.
As graphics card prices return to some semblance of normality following more than a year of price hikes, top cards from the last generation could be attractive buys for those considering upgrading without the need for the new-gen features.
