Nvidia confirms the specifications of its upcoming RTX 2060 12GB

Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics card — (Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia has updated its RTX 2060 product page with the full specifications of the upcoming RTX 2060 12GB Founders Edition. Apart from its memory configuration, the card appears to be unchanged from the RTX 2060 Super that was released in July 2019.

A new RTX 20 series card shouldn’t exist at all, but with RTX 30 series cards carrying such high prices, Nvidia feels that the RTX 2060 12GB is a good interim solution. It offers reasonable gaming performance relative to newer cards, and hopefully it won’t see its price shoot to the moon as miners are unlikely to show much interest in it.

Moving onto the specs, the RTX 2060 12GB is based on the Turing TU106 GPU. It packs in 2176 shader cores with a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz, though as is often the case with Nvidia cards, the card should be capable of boosting a lot higher than that when power and thermal conditions allow. The 12GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 14 Gbps over a 192-bit bus resulting in a total bandwidth of 336 GB/s. This compares to the 8GB over a 256-bit bus and 448 GB/s for the RTX 2060 Super.

The card has a 185W TDP, an increase of 10W from the 2060 Super, and not unexpected due to the inclusion of the extra RAM. This means it can make do with a single 8-pin PCIe connector. The GPU is built with Samsung’s 12nm process and the hope is that by using a less advanced node, Nvidia’s costs are cheaper. Let’s hope this translates into cheaper prices and more stock on shelves!

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The Nvidia RTX 3070 and AMD RX 6700 XT side by side on a colourful background — (Image credit: Future)

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Performance wise, the RTX 2060 Super trades blows with the AMD RX 6600. Though it’s important to remember that the 2060 Super features much more memory bandwidth. Using my own benchmark results for Metro: Exodus at the Ultra preset as an example, the RX 6600 scores 64.1 FPS at 1080p vs. 64.5 FPS for the 2060 Super. That’s a demanding game which points towards the RTX 2060 12GB being a solid 1080p card that will be capable of 120 FPS and higher in less demanding and esport titles. If Nvidia can keep stock coming, with a price that’s well under the RX 6600, the 2060 12GB could be a sleeper hit with many gamers who are crying out for an affordable GPU.

Of course, given the RTX 2060 12GB is a Turing generation GPU, its tech isn’t as advanced as that of Ampere generation cards. There are less RT and Tensor cores and it lacks PCIe 4.0 support. Not that any of that really matters. Good old raster performance is what matters at the budget end of the market. According to Videocardz, the RTX 2060 Super is due to launch on December 7th, just in time for the holiday season.

Chris' gaming experiences go back to the mid-nineties when he conned his parents into buying an 'educational PC' that was conveniently overpowered to play Doom and Tie Fighter. He developed a love of extreme overclocking that destroyed his savings despite the cheaper hardware on offer via his job at a PC store. To afford more LN2 he began moonlighting as a reviewer for VR-Zone before jumping the fence to work for MSI Australia. Since then, he's gone back to journalism, enthusiastically reviewing the latest and greatest components for PC & Tech Authority, PC Powerplay and currently Australian Personal Computer magazine and PC Gamer. Chris still puts far too many hours into Borderlands 3, always striving to become a more efficient killer.