Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070: rasterisation performance analysis

Ghost Recon Wildlands, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3, Wolfenstein 2

Review by Richard Leadbetter Technology Editor, Digital Foundry

Updated on 3 Nov 2018

Our performance analysis of the RTX 2070 in standard rasterisation continues with five more titles, from the heavy challenge of Ghost Recon Wildlands' ultra setting to the scalability of The Witcher 3 and the flat-out superb performance of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus. On top of that, both of Lara Croft's most recent adventures are put under the microscope in this next round of GPU testing.

All of our tests here are based on a single Intel-based PC test bed using a Z390-based motherboard and a Core i7 8700K, running with a 4.7GHz all-core turbo. The system also features 16GB of 3400MHz DDR4 and all titles are running from Crucial BX300 SSDs.

For mobile users of our site, our benchmarks will display as a simple table with frame-rate averages and the lowest one per cent (calculated by taking the highest frame-times and averaging them before converting into fps for easy readability). For desktop users, you get a deluxe benchmarking experience, where playing the YouTube video runs frame-time and frame-rate telemetry. The bar charts beneath are dynamically generated from the raw frame-times. Mouse over a particular card to see the performance differentials with the other and click on the bar chart itself to swap between frame-rate numbers and the arguably more useful percentage differences.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

In a similar situation to most of our prior tests, the RTX 2070 inches ahead of the GTX 1080 at 1440p resolution, but once Founders Edition overclocks are taken into account, essentially we are looking at much the same level of performance. Ghost Recon is actually a relatively easy game to run on its high setting, but very high and especially ultra are hugely demanding and tend to skew the percentage differentials - and it's particularly impactful on the higher-end cards where the improvements are understated compared to the standard set by the RTX 2070.

Ghost Recon Wildlands: Ultra, TAA

Rise of the Tomb Raider

This benchmark isn't a particularly effective way to judge in-game performance (which is considerably slower) but as an out-and-out graphics test, it's fascinating to see that last-gen Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti hardware performs marginally better than Turing's RTX 2080 - though the new RTX 2070 makes a better fist of matching its own predecessor at the same price-point, the GTX 1080. In common with most of our other benchmarks, RTX 2070 continues to show a small but consistent lead over Vega 64.

Rise of the Tomb Raider: Very High, SMAA

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

A masterful DX12 implementation paired with state-of-the-art visuals, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a superb port by Square-Enix's brilliant Nixxes studio in the Netherlands. Similar to the other RTX cards up against the last-gen price-counterparts, RTX 2070 inches ahead of GTX 1080, with a similar performance differential against Vega 64. Shadow of the Tomb Raider will be an interesting title to return to in time: both ray-traced shadow support and DLSS is coming to the game, which should produce fascinating results.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Highest, TAA

The Witcher 3

A good turn-out for the RTX 2070 here. It beats off the challenge of Vega 64 convincingly, and pulls ahead of GTX 1080 with a bigger boost than RTX 2080 can manage over the GTX 1080 Ti. Even without the small boost offered by the Founders Edition overclock, the 2070 still delivers a 13 per cent uptick in frame-rate, rising to 17 per cent with the FE's extra 90MHz. And in turn, the GTX 1080 Ti is only seven per cent faster. It's an interesting example of how the FE overclock and the advantages of the Turing architecture can combine to blur the lines between performance equivalent to GTX 1080 and GTX 1080 Ti.

Witcher 3: Ultra, Post-AA, No Hairworks

Wolfenstein: The New Colossus

Another forward-looking game engine that absolutely screams on Turing technology. However, performance isn't quite as stunning on RTX 2070 as it is on the other Turing offerings. Our numbers here are limited owing to the way that Wolfenstein 2's rendering interferes with the monitoring technology used in measuring performance, but these 4K numbers are solid. Using a section of repeatable New Orleans gameplay, the 2070 at FE clocks offers a 10 per cent lead over GTX 1080, but it's really the RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti that benefit most in this game with some of the biggest leaps over the RTX 2070 we've seen in our benchmarks.