RTX 2000 series has a mixed reception from reviewers

The new RTX 2080Ti features a new cooling solution, more CUDA cores than ever, and RTX technology. (Source: Gamers Nexus)

While claiming the title of fastest gaming GPU in the world (again), Nvidia has seen equal parts praise and criticism from reviewers. The price and lack of RTX usability at launch has been a major reason why.

Matthew Connatser, Published 09/19/2018

The reviews are finally in for the RTX 2000 series, and it's official: the 2080Ti is the fastest GPU for gaming today. However, the 2080Ti and the 2080 have received as much praise as they have criticism. Across 6 reviews from notable PC hardware reviewers, there is mostly agreement on what Nvidia's newest GPUs do well, and what they don't.

The 2080Ti was universally praised for its gaming performance. Hardware Canucks said the GPU was "One of the best graphics cards ever created." Bitwit Kyle also had similar praise, saying:

[The 2080Ti] is the only card capable of making a dent at [4K 120 Hz].

Across most reviews, average performance of the 2080Ti over the 1080Ti was about 30-40% at 4K resolution; while not in line with Nvidia's historical generation over generation improvements, it is still significant. However, the 2080Ti and the 2080 in particular received criticism for the pricing. At $1000 and $800 respectively (add $200 if you buy from Nvidia directly), the RTX GPUs are the most expensive mainstream GPUs Nvidia has ever launched. When comparing the 2080 to the 1080Ti, Bryan from Tech Yes City said:

Basically what we have here is a card that costs a little bit more, is a little bit more efficient, has less VRAM.

For the 2000 series as a whole, the reviewer went on to say "in terms of raw value for money and raw performance increases, we haven't quite got what we've got in the past." Hardware Unboxed was particularly critical of the 2080's price to performance ratio:

The 2080 comes in at a cost of $11.50 per frame making it worse value than Vega 64 and 20% more costly than the 1080Ti for the same performance.

Gamers Nexus simply said "The RTX 2080 is poor value today." While both cards have been criticized for the pricing, the 2080 has clearly received the worst of it, as it offers little more than the 1080Ti at a higher price. The harshest criticism, however, was directed towards Nvidia's RTX technology, which, as Linus Sebastian from LinusTechTips puts it, "is basically MIA today." LinusTechTips was extremely critical of the lack of RTX compatible titles available at launch. Hardware Unboxed described the predicament as such:

The RTX 2080Ti packs 10 gigarays of ray tracing performance, and right now, you can utilize a total of 0 gigarays per second.

Without RTX titles to use RTX technology on, reviewers have been everywhere from cautiously optimistic to completely negative on the state of RTX technology. Based on current information, developers are targeting 1080p at 60 FPS for the 2080Ti, a serious downgrade for a card that can deliver 4K and 60 FPS.

Overall, the RTX 2000 series has received a very mixed reception. There has been as much praise for gaming performance as there has been criticism for the prices and lack of RTX titles. However, it is undeniable that the RTX 2080Ti is the fastest GPU for gaming, and it can also deliver real time ray tracing and DLSS, features that could change games significantly in the future.