Cooper Hendricks
Staff Writers
The new RTX 2080’s are both shockingly powerful and shockingly expensive.
The RTX 2080’s are quite possibly some of the most powerful graphics cards to date. Not only do they bring good graphics but the new technology of ray tracing.
Ray tracing is a technology that has been out for a while but has just burst onto the scene with real-time rendering with the RTX 2080 series. Ray tracing is the ability to generate a frame or picture by tracing the path of light. This is much like how we can look into a glass pane and see our reflection when the light hits it. Previously, it would take hours beforehand to render the image onto an object, but now the RTX series is capable of doing so in real time at 4K resolution. Granted it will only run at 30 frames per second and fluctuate depending on the scene, but it is still quite impressive.
With all of this insane power and ability, you would think that it would be an immediate purchase to upgrade your personal computer. However, it falls short in two areas. The first problem is that the cards cost $700 to $1,000 for a non-Founders Edition card. That is what most people are willing to spend on a PC alone.
The second problem is that almost no games are able to use the ray tracing technology right now. Some games have a short two-minute long benchmark test to show off the ability of ray tracing and its capabilities, and they are beyond impressive. However, the only game that will be able to use it in the coming months is the Electronic Arts World War II game Battlefield V. Which EA had to push back their release date to optimize the game for the new graphics card series.
Even though the 2080’s are super powerful, they currently aren't worth the price for what they offer. You're better off getting the cheaper 1080ti’s which are are currently better at processing than a 2080 minus the ray tracing ability. The final verdict would be to simply wait. Ray-tracing is currently in its infancy and needs some time to mature.
