The Nvidia RTX 2070 and older GTX 1080 are both powerful gaming graphics cards, but which
should you pick, and is it worth upgrading? In this video we’ll check out a heap of
game benchmarks at 4K, 1440p, and 1080p to help you see the performance difference between
them.
As we saw in a previous video, the 2070 dominates the 1070, but how does the 1080 hold up?
Let’s quickly take a look at how the 2070 and 1080 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. The RTX 2070 is based on Nvidia’s newer turing
architecture, however the Pascal based GTX 1080 does have more Cuda cores and higher
base and boost clock speeds. Both cards also have 8GB of memory, however the 1080 uses
GDDR5X while the 2070 uses GDDR6.
For the testing I’m using the MSI RTX 2070 Gaming Z and the EVGA GTX 1080 FTW2, both
of which come overclocked out of the box, so expect slightly different results with
different models.
The system that I’m testing with has an AMD Ryzen 2700X CPU in an MSI X470 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, and with all games I’ve only tested
at max settings, as for most titles these should be more GPU bound and help us see the
differences, so with that in mind let’s get into the results.
Fortnite was tested with the same replay file at epic settings, and there wasn’t that
big of a practical difference between the 2070 and 1080 here, for instance they both
played perfectly fine at 1440p with epic settings no problems. With a 1080p resolution the RTX
2070 was getting average frame rates 11% higher than the 1080, and very similar results at
1440p and 4K.
Overwatch was tested in the practice range as this lets me easily reproduce the same
test run, and I was seeing massive differences with this game. Out of all the games tested
it was by far getting the biggest performance boost with the RTX 2070 graphics, with the
1% lows from the 2070 beating the averages from the 1080 at all resolutions. At 1080p
the 2070 was getting 42% better average FPS than the 1080, 46% better at 1440p, and 42%
better at 4K.
Battlefield 5 was tested in campaign mode rather than multiplayer, as it’s easier
to consistently reproduce the test run. The 1% low results were very close together in
this game, and the average frame rates from the 2070 weren’t too far ahead either, 12%
better at 1080p and 1440p and then 14% better at 4K when compared with the GTX 1080, and
we’ll check out raytracing a bit later.
CS:GO was tested with the ulletical benchmark, and there was less of a difference between
the 1080 and 2070 in this game. Interestingly, the 1080 was actually performing better in
terms of 1% low performance at 1440p and 1080p with better frame times. With a 1080p resolution
the 2070 was just 3% ahead of the 1080 in terms of average frame rate, then 6% better
at 1440p, and 9% better at 4K.
Rainbow Six Siege was tested with the built in benchmark, and even at ultra settings both
graphics options are still giving us pretty good frame rates. This game saw the second
highest improvement behind Overwatch out of all games tested with the 2070, and at 1080p
the 2070 was getting 19% better average frame rates, 24% better at 1440p, and 28% better
at 4K.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also tested with the built in benchmark, and both cards
were able to get above 60 FPS at 1440p even with ultra settings. At 1080p there was a
10% improvement to average frames per second with the 2070, a 12% improvement at 1440p,
and a 15% improvement at 4K.
Far Cry 5 was tested with the built in benchmark, and even at ultra settings we’re seeing
decent frame rates at 1440p from either card. At 1080p the 2070 was just 4% better than
the 1080 in terms of average FPS, 10% better at 1440p, and 11% better at 4K.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was tested with the built in benchmark, and the 1% lows at
1440p and 1080p didn’t really see much difference between the two. The average frame rates saw
the 2070 give us an 8% improvement over the 1080 at 1080p, just a 2% improvement at 1440p,
and then a 16% boost at 4K.
PUBG was tested using the same replay, and both were again able to average above 60 FPS
at 1440p even with ultra settings. The 2070 was giving me an average frame rate 8% above
the 1080 at 1080p, and then around a 10% improvement at 1440p and 4K.
Watch Dogs 2 is a fairly resource intensive game, but I can play it perfectly fine with
a solid 30 FPS average, so 4K was actually playable for me with either card even with
ultra settings. There wasn’t that much of a difference between the 1% low results, and
in terms of average FPS the 2070 was 7% ahead of the GTX 1080 at 1080p, and a 5% improvement
at both 1440p and 4K.
The Witcher 3 was tested with Hairworks disabled, but ultra settings are still pretty intensive
compared to the other settings in this game. There wasn’t much difference between 1%
low, and then when comparing average frame rates at 1080p there was a 15% improvement
with the RTX 2070, 14% at 1440p, and 12% at 4K.
Shadow of War was tested with the built in benchmark at ultra settings, and there were
some fair improvements here compared to other games tested, a 13% improvement with the RTX
2070 at 1080p, 20% better at 1440p and 24% better at 4K.
In terms of overall improvement, over all of the games tested at max settings with a
1080p resolution on average the RTX 2070 is performing 13% better than the GTX 1080, although
we can see there is quite a big difference between the various games.
At 1440p on average over the same games the 2070 was now performing just under 15% better
than the GTX 1080 in these same titles, but again it really varies depending on the specific
game. On average we expect the performance gap to widen at higher resolutions because
higher resolutions are more GPU bound.
At 4K the 2070 was now on average just under 17% better than the 1080 in these games, but
again this really varies based on the specific game, and we’re seeing the biggest difference
here as 4K gaming is much less CPU dependent.
The 20 series does of course also have the option of playing games with ray tracing on,
and here are the frame rates we’re looking at with the 2070 with and without it enabled,
so there’s quite a performance hit by having it enabled, you’ll only really be able to
play at 1080p or 1440p and lower settings.
I haven’t tested overclocking here, as results aren’t guaranteed and will vary between
hardware based on what overclocks you can get, although as both are pre overclocked
cards we’ll likely only see a small difference of a few FPS.
Now for the final difference, the price. I suggest checking updated prices using the
links in the description, as prices will change over time. At the time of recording, the 2070
Gaming Z tested here goes for around $600 USD, but there are of course cheaper 2070s
available that will only realistically perform a few FPS lower. This model of GTX 1080 on
the other hand doesn’t appear to be for sale anymore here, but most 1080s seem to
be around $500 to $550 new, though of course you’ve also got cheaper second hand options
too, and pricing will vary between region.
Based on the performance difference there’s no real reason to upgrade from the 1080 to
the 2070, it would make more sense to go to the 2080 or 1080Ti. If you’re picking between
them, both seem pretty good for 1080p and 1440p gaming, I wouldn’t go for either for
4K, and of course the 2070 has the option of raytracing, which in theory will be supported
in more games going forward, but that’s yet to be seen.
So which graphics card would you pick? The older but definitely still capable GTX 1080,
or newer RTX 2070? When it comes down to it both are very capable of providing a good
gaming experience. 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. Personally
I’d probably go the 2070 for 1440p gaming and also have the extra features like ray
tracing and DLSS on the off chance that they actually get good, but if I found a nice second
hand deal on a 1080 then that could make more sense for 1080p or 1440p gaming.
Let me know which card you’d pick down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe
for more comparisons and tech videos like this one.