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Nvidia launched its Turing GPU architecture roughly a year ago, and since then has fleshed out its lineup with non-RTX variants that lack dedicated hardware for real-time ray tracing, and more recently refreshed its GeForce RTX series with upgraded Super models. This means you have more options to wade through in search of the best graphics card for your setup and budget.

Depending on how much you are looking to spend and what level of performance you are aiming for, you might be wondering if it's better to plunk down a wad of cash on a GeForce RTX 2070 (either the standard model or the Super variant) or a previous generation GeForce GTX 1080. All three launched with a $499 MSRP, putting these cards on seemingly equal footing. But are they really?

The quick and dirty answer is no, they are not, but of course things are more complicated than a simple 'yes' or 'no' response could convey. That is why we have decided to compare these GPU heavyweights, in terms of features, performance, and actual street pricing. After all, these are the things that ultimately matter when buying a graphics card (or any hardware component, really), in order to make an informed buying decision. So, let's get started.

Difference between RTX and GTX
Model names are sometimes meaningless, though that is not the case when comparing Nvidia's RTX and GTX nomenclatures. All RTX cards feature dedicated RT cores designed to muscle through real-time ray tracing chores. More recently, Nvidia updated its driver stack to also support real-time ray tracing on GTX cards from the current Turing crop and previous generation Pascal GPUs, but the lack of dedicated hardware makes it largely academic—simply put, if you are interested in enabling ray tracing in games, you should only be eyeballing an RTX card.

GeForce RTX cards also support something called deep learning super sampling (DLSS). In games that support DLSS, it is supposed to improve performance without degrading image quality. It does this by using high quality 64x sampled images to train a deep learning network. In theory, this should allow a game to render at a lower resolution, and then upscale and anti-alias the result in real time with images that look about the same as the native resolution with temporal AA. We've seen mixed results, though.

In our opinion, DLSS support is not sufficient reason alone to pick an RTX card over a GTX model, all other things being equal. Ray tracing support is arguably a bit more interesting (some may feel the opposite is true). The caveat with ray tracing is that it's still not widely employed, though the list of games is growing.

If you are wanting to enable ray tracing in games that support it, however, the RTX 2070 series is where things get interesting, particularly with the Super variant. The only cheaper options in the RTX family are the RTX 2060 Super and RTX 2060. The RTX 2070 Super and RTX 2070 are burlier cards with more muscle to throw at ray-traced workloads.

Let's get technical
Although there are a handful of GeForce GTX cards that are based on Nvidia's current generation Turing GPU, the GTX 1080 is not one of them—it features a previous generation Pascal GPU. Jarred posted a deep dive of the Turing architecture, in case you're curious about what all it brings to the table.

Can't gtx 1060 or 1050 play games with ease at max resolution?

Buy the RTX 2070. This shouldn't even be up for debate.

I have a gtx 1660, looking to upgrade to a 2070 or 2080. Confused af.

Jake420:
Can't gtx 1060 or 1050 play games with ease at max resolution?

Gtx 1060(6 gig) can play most games on high settings. Gtx 1050 can play most games on medium to low settings.