Nvidia has published information about the upcoming GeForce RTX 2060 12GB on its official site. If you follow that link and scroll down to the specs section – or take the shortcut on the upper right of the page – you can see exactly how the new RTX 2060 12GB compares to its older 6GB brother. The comparison can be expanded with the “View Full Specs” link, but sadly we don’t get to see the RTX 2060 Super compared against these two Founders Edition GPUs. No performance comparison charts are available as yet, either.
With its complement of 2,176 CUDA cores the new RTX 2060 12GB might be a closer relation to the RTX 2060 Super (8GB). On the other hand, while it doubles the memory quota of the 6GB device, the 12GB model retains the 192-bit bus and inferior bandwidth compared to the Super edition. Give and take, eh?
Scrolling down those spec lists, the only other differences we can see are the output configuration and TGP (the cards are even identically-sized). While the older card features DisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-C and DVI-DL, the newer one drops USB Type-C support. The RTX 2060 6GB consumes up to 160W in normal operation, but the 12GB version draws up to 185W, most likely due to having to power an additional 6GB of memory.
Better in some specs, not as good in others
It will be interesting to test the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 12GB with the latest games people are playing in 2021, comparing against siblings and the newest entry-mid-level GPUs that should be available now.
On Wednesday, Nvidia released the GeForce Game Ready driver version 497.09 with support for the GeForce RTX 2060 12GB. The driver was headlined as being the Game Ready driver for Icarus, which utilises DLSS and RTX Global Illumination (RTXGI) to maximise performance and image quality. Other upcoming games with official driver support include Chorus and Halo Infinite. The driver added support for six new G-Sync Compatible gaming monitors, and five new GeForce Experience Optimal Playable Setting profiles. Driver bugs affecting NIS, introduced in the last major driver release, have also thankfully been quashed.
On page eight of the driver release notes PDF file you can see clearly highlighted by Nvidia, the fact that the driver includes “added support for the GeForce RTX 2060 12GB.” This info is repeated in a support table in the appendix (page 30), and some sites managed to see official confirmation of the RTX 2060 12GB via this file before Nvidia updated product pages.
Interestingly, Nvidia re-released the RTX 2060 (6GB) and GTX 1050 Ti (4GB) to help address shortages earlier in 2021, but we aren’t sure of the quantities/impact of that initiative.
Before signing off, and waiting patiently until next Tuesday for the release, The Verge got a quote from Nvidia with regard to pricing of the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 12GB. Keeping in mind the RTX 2060 6GB launched in 2019 for US$349, an Nvidia rep told The Verge that “it is a premium version of the RTX 2060 6GB and we expect the price to reflect that.”
