The Nvidia RTX 2060 and older GTX 1070 are both decent gaming graphics cards, but which
should you pick, and is it worth upgrading? In this video we’ll check out a bunch of
games at 4K, 1440p, and 1080p to help you see the performance difference between them.
Let’s quickly take a look at how the RTX 2060 and GTX 1070 actually differ in terms
of specs, note that things like clock speed and power will vary between specific cards,
these are just the reference specs for each model. Both have the same amount of CUDA cores
and around the same boost clocks, although the base clock of the 1070 is higher. The
1070 has more memory, but it’s slower.
For the testing I’m using the Gigabyte RTX 2060 Windforce OC and the Galax GTX 1070 EX,
so both have a small factory overclock, expect slightly different results with different
models.
The system that I’m testing with has an Intel i7-8700K CPU in an MSI Z390 Gaming Pro
Carbon motherboard running at stock speeds, along with 16GB of T-Force Night Hawk CL16
memory from Team Group running at DDR4-3200 in dual channel. Check the links in the description
for details on all of the components as well as for up to date pricing. The same Windows
version and Nvidia drivers were used for the testing, so let’s get into the results.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark using high settings.
In all of the upcoming graphs I’ve got the GTX 1070 results shown by the green bars,
and the RTX 2060 shown by the blue bars, with the 4K, 1440p and 1080p resolutions listed
on the left. At 1080p the 2060 is scoring 12% higher average FPS compared to the 1070
in this game, but as the resolution increases so does the percentage. At 1440p the 2060
is now getting 19% higher average FPS, and then at 4K it’s performing 26% better, with
the 1% low only just behind the 1070’s average.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run, and it seems to be more graphically intensive.
With the resolution set to 1080p at high settings the RTX 2060 was getting 16% higher average
FPS when compared against the GTX 1070. At 1440p this rises to just above a 19% improvement,
and then finally at 4K there was a slightly higher 22% improvement, with even the 1% low
above the average frame rate of the 1070.
Far Cry 5 was tested using the built in benchmark with high settings. There was a fairly large
improvement to the 1% lows with the 2060, higher compared to the average FPS differences
anyway. At 1080p the 2060 was getting 14% higher average FPS, but a much higher 42%
improvement to the 1% low, so fewer dips to performance. With the resolution set to 1440p
the 2060 was now getting 15% higher average FPS, but again a much larger improvement to
the 1% low, around 41% higher on the 2060. Finally at 4K there was a similar improvement
to averages, 16% with the 2060 and then a lower, but still respectable 24% improvement
to 1% the low.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested using the built in benchmark, and there were
some fairly big gains in this test with the RTX 2060. At 1080p the 2060 was getting 20%
higher average FPS, 24% higher average FPS at 1440p, and then 26% higher at 4K, however
the frame rates we’re seeing at 4K don’t seem that great from either card at high settings,
I wouldn’t classify either of these as 4K cards.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested using the built in benchmark at high settings. I’ve found
this game to favour Nvidia’s RTX graphics cards in all of my previous testing, and at
all three resolutions I’ve tested this game saw the biggest improvement with the RTX 2060.
At 1080p there was a 23% improvement to average FPS, a 28% improvement at 1440p, and then
a 30% improvement at 4K with nice improvements to the 1% lows too, a 35% boost at 1080p,
42% at 1440p, and 27% at 4K.
Fortnite was tested with the replay feature using the exact same replay with high settings.
There wasn’t too much of an improvement to 1% low here, just slightly better with
the 2060. At both 1080p and 1440p there was a 9% increase to average FPS with the 2060,
and this lowered to a 5% improvement at 4K.
CS:GO was tested with the Ulletical FPS benchmark, and the average frame rates were basically
the same regardless of the graphics card in use. There was a slight improvement to 1%
lows at lower resolutions, but realistically there’s no major difference here.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range as I can easily perform the same test run
compared to playing with bots or other players. At 1080p there was only a 5% improvement to
the average frame rate, however interestingly the 1070 was 26% ahead when it came to 1%
low, and it was also 6% ahead in 1% low at 1440p, while the 2060 was only 6% ahead in
terms of average FPS, and then again a 6% difference at 4K too but the 2060 was ahead
for 1% low now.
PUBG was tested using the replay feature with the exact same replay at high settings. At
1080p the RTX 2060 was getting 14% higher average FPS and a larger 17% improvement to
1% low. Stepping up to 1440p sees a larger improvement with the 2060, now getting 17%
higher average FPS and a 19% higher 1% low. Similar results at 4K, with the 2060 getting
18% higher both in average FPS and 1% low.
Watch Dogs 2 is a resource intensive game, and I can play it alright with a solid 30
FPS, and I didn’t find it too bad even at 4K with very high settings on the 2060, though
I would of course use lower settings to improve the frame rate. Anyway at 1080p the 2060 was
12% higher in terms of average FPS, and then 11% better at both 1440p and 4K.
In terms of overall improvement, over all 10 of the games tested with a 1080p resolution
on average the RTX 2060 is performing 12.7% better than the GTX 1070 in terms of average
FPS. Out of all of these games only CS:GO didn’t really see any changes, while the
rest mostly saw fair improvements.
At 1440p on average over the same games the RTX 2060 was now scoring 15% higher average
frame rates when compared with the GTX 1070, but we can see the results really vary between
games. Again CS:GO was the only title that saw no improvement with the 2060, while for
the most part the other games are further ahead than at 1080p.
At 4K the RTX 2060 was now on average 16% better than the GTX 1070 in these games. The
average frame rate difference improves further as we step up in resolution as we start becoming
less CPU bound and really start to see what these graphics cards are capable of.
The 20 series does of course also have the option of playing games with ray tracing on,
and here’s how the only game that currently implements RTX, Battlefield 5, performs with
and without it enabled on the RTX 2060. Not very great with high settings in use, even
at 1080p, and I’d argue that it both looks and performs better with RTX off on ultra.
With RTX on the 2060 you’d need to run at medium or low settings which to me seems a
bit pointless.
I haven’t tested overclocking here, as results aren’t guaranteed and will vary between
hardware based on what overclocks you can get, realistically it generally only makes
a couple of FPS difference, but I’ll cover overclocking in the full review of the 2060,
so get subscribed for that.
Now for the final difference, the price. I suggest checking updated prices using the
links in the description, as prices will change over time. The Gigabyte RTX 2060 I’ve used
here goes for around $370 USD, and there are 1070s for around the same price, but in general
they seem to cost a bit more as supply starts to run out, so you might have to turn to the
second hand market like I did and find a deal there.
Based on the performance difference there’s no real reason to upgrade from the 1070 to
the 2060, it would make more sense to look at something in a tier above both of them
like the GTX 1080 or RTX 2070 for example, unless you’re happy with the 15% improvement
the 2060 offers.
So which graphics card would you pick? The older but definitely still capable GTX 1070,
or newer RTX 2060? When it comes down to it both are very capable of providing a good
gaming experience at 1080p and 1440p with high settings. It really comes down to what
sort of games you want to play, what resolutions you want to play at, and what frame rates
you want to target. If I was buying new today I’d probably go for the RTX 2060 as it seems
to be about the same price as many new GTX 1070s, but has the advantage of improved performance
in games. Buying the 2060 with RTX in mind at this time probably isn’t a good idea,
it seems a bit weak to really give a good experience, at least going by the single RTX
game we have at the moment.
Let me know which card you’d pick down in the comments, the 2060 or 1070, and don’t
forget to subscribe for more comparisons and tech videos like this one.