Best RTX 2070 graphics cards 2024

How we choose the best graphics card

When we select the best components in our build guides, we like to see what they can handle first. Whether or not we’re looking at graphics cards, monitors, or CPUs, this isn’t an easy task.

Only once we have completed our product research are we confident in making a recommendation. We do this so you don’t have to, this testing and benchmarking can be quite a time-consuming process and we know many of you don’t have the time to do this.

Here at WePC, our team of tech enthusiasts takes care of all that work for you, bringing you easy-to-read, highly-researched reviews for the products you need.

How we test

In order to be as honest as possible, we try to only recommend products that we have personally tested. This lets us not only create the best build guides, but it makes sure that they are both accurate and up-to-date.

Most of the products we recommend have been through a strict testing phase. This looks at performance, notable features, and price. We make sure we push each product to its limit when testing as we want to truly know what it is capable of before making a recommendation.

This is what allows us to be so confident in the products we recommend. We hope this enables us to give accurate and authentic reviews that help you make the final decision when choosing your product.

How will these cards perform?

As mentioned above, the RTX 2070 was brought to shelves as the third wave of 20 series cards after the ever-popular 2080 range. Nvidia said the card was designed for consumers who wanted to reap the rewards of the new 2080 but without the massive price tag that came with it, and thus we have the 2070.

The new range comes equipped with next-generation Turing architecture which unlocks full access to the RTX signature technology, Real-time Ray tracing. RTX is a groundbreaking new tech that renders lifelike imagery through incredibly detailed and accurate lighting, reflections, and shadows. It also makes use of deep learning super-sampling (DLSS) and its impressive AI-enhanced graphics which are all paired with the world’s fastest 8GB GDDR6 memory. Nvidia claims that the new board actually runs faster than that of the GTX 1080 which we will touch upon later.

So what does this mean on a practical gaming level? Well, the 2070 has been developed to handle 1080p, 1440p, and 4k at high settings however after numerous tests across several gaming platforms we noticed gaming at 4k would severely reduce your FPS to anywhere between 30-50fps. We also tested the real-time ray tracing in Battlefield V under all 3 different resolutions at high settings and 4k was almost unplayable. However, reverting to a lower resolution compensated for the lack of power and allowed for fairly decent gameplay.

Overall the performance of the 2070 is fantastic and with the influx of Real-time ray tracing being the future of gaming, it’s always good to know you are equipped to tackle the change.

RTX 2070 Vs. GTX 1080

Many questions have been asked prior to the 2070’s release on whether or not it can stand up to the punching power of the GTX 1080 which has become so popular amongst gamers worldwide.

Well, we’re here to answer the question and see which one truly takes the crown in performance. We did comparison benchmarks across a number of games and tasks to see which one came up trumps and to no one’s surprise found the 2070 to be between 5-20% better on average. The only game where FPS stats were less at the lower end was CS:GO. With the clock speeds of both of these cards being very similar, depending on which aftermarket model you go for, you can chalk the performance boost down to the new intelligence and the GDDR6 memory which is used in all RTX 20 series.

Now you’re probably saying to yourself at this stage, well that’s great but the 1080 is probably much cheaper and it’s only 5% less effective, and that’s where you would be wrong. Again, depending on which card you go for, the 2070 is pretty much the same price as the 1080. It’s been developed to be competitive in pricing whilst still being equipped with the latest tech. So to cut a long story short, the 1080 which is still a fantastic card, is the lesser of the 2 on a number of different tests and you should definitely reconsider if you were thinking about buying one.

Table Key and Terms

• Clock Speed – Clock speed refers to the internal, “core” clock of the graphics processor. The higher the clock speed, the better your performance.
• VRAM – VRAM refers to the “video RAM”, or memory available to the GPU. Discrete GPUs tend to come with their own VRAM– in the 1080’s case, this is GDDR5X VRAM, which is a bit faster than the industry standard GDDR5. The more VRAM you have, the better your card be at handling high resolutions and HD textures.
• Overclock – Overclocking refers to pushing the clock speed of a component higher to get more performance. Usually, this is done by the user, but the cards we’re listing here today all boast “factory overclocks”, which is overclocking done by the manufacturer and proven stable.