Is RTX 2060 Good for Gaming? (In-depth Guide)

Updated on January 5, 2023 Chris Martin Blog

We all want more performance from our graphics cards. When you see your friends and favorite gamers enjoying high-resolution gaming with the latest RTX technology, you wouldn’t want to play with just High Quality, would you?

Look no further, as the RTX 2060 is an extremely powerful and popular GPU to consider right now. It adds a lot of new features, like the long-awaited real-time RTX feature and high-resolution 1440p and 4K gaming.

But is the RTX 2060 good for gaming?

Without a doubt! The  RTX 2060 is an excellent choice for gaming. With its new features and flashy RTX technology, it’s one of the best choices for gamers.

But is it for everyone? Read on to learn more about RTX 2060 graphics cards, including how well they perform under various conditions and whether they’re right for you.

Let’s get started.

What is an RTX 2060?

evga geforce rtx 2060 xc ultra

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 is another lineup that supports ray tracing. It’s one of the most popular GPUs available at a reasonable price.

Every time Nvidia comes out with a new generation of GPUs, the new ones are much more powerful than the last ones. The specs and abilities are also getting better and better.

Prior to the release of the RTX 2060 on July 9th, 2019, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 was the best and most hyped card on the market.

When the RTX 2060 was released, it quickly and easily changed that with its insane specs and power boost at a reasonable price increase. Let’s get a bit more in-depth.

Technical Specifications

The RTX 2060 is a very high-end video card. When compared to other “budget” graphics cards, it can do a lot more.

We made a list just for you with all the technical details of RTX 2060, such as its specs, price, build, etc. Take a look—

CategoryNVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
Price$ 349.0
Year2021
Maximum Recorded Temperature72C
Max Fan Noise45.6dB
Recommended Power Supply500W
Benchmark CPUIntel Core i7-8700K @ 3.70GHz
Average 1080p Performance107.8 FPS
Average 1440p Performance76.4 FPS
(Ultrawide) Average 1440p Performance65.1 FPS
Average 4K Performance45.3 FPS
1080p Cost Per Frame$ 3.3
1440p Cost Per Frame$ 4.6
(Ultrawide) 1440p Cost Per Frame$ 5.4
4K Cost Per Frame$ 7.7

Specifications

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 specifications are as follows:

Core Clock1830 MHz (Reference card: 1680 MHz)
RTX-OPS39
CUDA® Cores1920
Memory Clock14000 MHz
Memory Size6 GB
Memory TypeGDDR6
Memory Bus192 bit
Digital max resolution7680×4320@60Hz
Card size  Length = 280.35 Width = 116.45 Height = 40.24 mm
Recommended PSU500W

What’s RTX?

nvidia deep learning super sampling

RTX stands for Ray Tracing Texel eXtreme. In a nutshell, RTX is used to trace light beams on a scene and make it appear more realistic.

This is a very hard thing to do because you have to figure out the exact light beams and do other math. It’s also necessary for the light beams to be reflected off of other objects. It is obvious that RTX cards are high-end.

But the RTX 2060 still fully mastered HD gaming, even with ray tracing enabled.

Is the RTX 2060 a Good Gaming GPU?

Yes. As we’ve already said, the RTX 2060 is a great choice for gaming. But there are a lot of reasons for that.

The RTX 2060 is a top-of-the-line graphics card. It has gained much popularity even in 2021 because the Nvidia 30-series has a big shortage.

It’s especially useful for gaming on a tight budget. However, if you have a larger budget, especially for RTX, there are better options than RTX 2060.

It will also be able to run all the games that will be released in the next few years. But one question remains—

Can It Run All Games?

Yes, without a doubt! The RTX 2060 might be a lot better than you think; it can even run 1080p games like CyberPunk 2077.

But this isn’t always true for all games. For example, games that use ray-tracing and need a lot of resources might not run at 60 or more frames per second at 1080p or higher.

It means that it’s not a good idea to use maximum graphics everywhere because you won’t get the smoothest experience.

To put it into perspective, here’s an FPS chart from a variety of popular games—

Video GameAverage FPS
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey54.4
Forza Horizon 4111.1
Shadow of the Tomb Raider85.7
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds92.6
Battlefield V114.6
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla47.4
Microsoft Flight Simulator31.30
Valorant208.1
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War81.6
Death Stranding94.2
Marvel’s Avengers61.4
Godfall91.7
Cyberpunk 207747.4
Apex Legends120.0
Anthem69.6
Far Cry New Dawn102.0
Resident Evil 2127.8
Metro Exodus56.9
World War Z115.0
Gears of War 582.0
Borderlands 365.8
Call of Duty Modern Warfare126.5
Red Dead Redemption 248.7
Need for Speed: Heat76.5
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4128.5
Final Fantasy XV91.5
Fallout 76139.8
Hitman 2108.8
Just Cause 487.8
Monster Hunter: World94.6
Strange Brigade133.5
Dawn of War III117.2
Ghost Recon Wildlands87.8
Assassin’s Creed Origins78.7
Destiny 2150.5
Fortnite Battle Royale111.8
Need for Speed: Payback138.9
Forza Motorsport 7139.2
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided71.0
Doom171.0
Hitman108.6
Rise of the Tomb Raider132.9
Total War: Warhammer107.4
Battlefield 1135.9
Overwatch173.5
Grand Theft Auto V107.3
Rocket League540.2
Need for Speed149.7
Rainbow Six Siege215.1
Battlefield 4151.4
Counter-Strike: Global Offense370.4
League of Legends694.6

All of these are the FPS of games running at 1920×1080 resolution and Ultra Quality.

You can already see that even at the highest quality, it can run most games at more than 60 frames per second. Some games that can’t run at 60 FPS or higher on ultra-quality should be played with tweaked settings or with lower graphics settings.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 is a big improvement over Nvidia’s previous card. Nvidia’s last card wasn’t nearly as good as the RTX 2060.

Also, you couldn’t play 1440p games at 60 FPS smoothly on the GTX 1080, which was made a year before the RTX 2060.

It’s clear that the RTX 2060 is superior, especially since it supports ray tracing.

All of these numbers come from RTX 2060 benchmarks at 1080p, 1440p, Ultrawide, and 4K with an i7-8700K at Ultra Quality – GPUCheck United States / USA.

RTX 2060 performance

RTX 2060 gives you excellent results gaming at 1440p. If you really push it, you can play 4k at around 30 FPS and 1440p at well over 60 FPS.

It is primarily caused because the RTX 2060 is based on a modified version of the Turing TU106 GPU used in the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070.

It means you’re getting a slightly less powerful version of a higher-end graphics card, but it’s still a compelling graphics card. This is why the RTX 2060 is also the most capable graphics card for a mid-range budget.

Price and Stock

As you can see, the RTX 2060 is quite high-end, and high-end products are more expensive. As expected, the RTX 2060 was initially priced at $349.

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 starts at just $179, though. That’s a $200 price increase, though many people might still say that’s not a big price increase for a high-end GPU.

Now that more time has passed, you could find a lot of people selling it for even less money if you tried. The stock is available; however, you may have to wait a while to find it.

Is RTX 2060 Worth It?

With all of the specs, features, and performance shown above, it’s easy to say that the RTX 2060 is worth the price. There’s no doubt that the RTX 2060 is one of the best graphics cards in its price range.

Some people choose the cheaper GTX 1660, but there are many reasons why you shouldn’t.
GTX 1660 is made for gaming at 1080p, while RTX 2060 is made for gaming at 1440p and 4k. For higher budgets, the RTX 2080 is recommended, but the GTX 1660 Ti is fine for lower budgets.

Keep in mind that RTX 2060 is better than GTX 1660 in terms of memory bandwidth, specs, and capabilities. RTX 2060 doesn’t have a higher boost clocking speed, but this is easy to fix by overclocking.

The RTX 2060 is our recommendation. However, it is not optimal for everyone, given the higher cost.

Alternatives to RTX 2060

Even though the RTX 2060 is the best GPU you can get for its price, the only other option is the RX 5600 XT from AMD. Due to some similar specs, the RX 5600 XT was almost as good as the RTX 2060.

Both of them are also priced at around $300. If you’re on a tight budget, you should get either one. There is currently no direct competition, but if you have a larger budget, you should consider the RTX 2060 Super.

Unless you have a very large budget and can afford an RTX 3080, there aren’t many other options.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Does Ti in GPU Mean?

Titanium is what Ti stands for. It is a short name for “Titanium” used by Nvidia. The Ti label is part of Nvidia’s naming scheme for GPUs when it appears in a GPU name.

It also shows that the given graphics card is an updated or better version of the one that doesn’t have Ti.

What does GTX stand for?

GTX stands for Giga Texel Shader eXtreme. Similar to RTX, GTX is another Nvidia variant. Most of the time, these graphics cards are used to make changes and keep settings up to date. RTX, on the other hand, is used for ray tracing.

Can RTX 2060 run at 4k?

DLSS has to be turned on for the GeForce RTX 2060 to be able to play 4k games at 60 fps or more on medium settings. Since the RTX 2060 is not a 4k card, it’s best to stick with 1440p instead of always running at 4k.

How Do I Turn on DLSS On RTX 2060?

Enable NVIDIA RTX in the video options menu, select ray tracing detail level, and turn on DLSS. It’s as simple as that, but you might need to restart the game.

Keep in mind that the DLSS box will turn off automatically if it’s not available for your GPU. However, it is available for RTX 2060, so there’s no need to worry.

Does DLSS Decrease FPS on RTX GPUs?

No, DLSS 2.0 has four times the resolution of DLSS 1.0. This means that you can render games at 1080p and output them at 4k. The DLSS engine, which improves image quality, especially at mid-range resolutions like 1080p, can sometimes boost your FPS by more than 50%.

Conclusion

Hopefully, your question about whether the RTX 2060 is good for gaming has been answered. The RTX 2060 is a great graphics card for gaming, especially if you have a mid-range budget.

However, you should not limit yourself to an RTX 2060. It’s also a good idea to have a good CPU. But if you’re on a tight budget, there may be other options that work just as well.

Recommended graphics card list:

Prices pulled from the Amazon Product Advertising API on:
About Chris Martin
Chris Martin is a professional tech writer. He's been covering tech tutorials, hardware reviews, and more as a professional writer for over seven years now and it doesn't look like he'll be stopping anytime soon! In addition to writing about the latest gadgets on the market, he also covers topics such as how to set up your home network or troubleshoot any computer problems you may have.

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