GTX vs RTX | What’s the Difference? Which One Should You Buy?

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GTX vs RTX | What’s the Difference? Which One Should You Buy?

When it comes to gaming, new graphics means a new way to see the world.

The NVIDIA Turing GPU architecture powers both the GeForce RTX 20-Series and GTX 16-Series cards. As the world’s most advanced architecture, Turing brings exceptional performance and efficiency as well as next-generation shading technology to the latest games.

Additionally, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX platform offers real-time ray tracing and AI for an entirely new gaming experience. RTX offers stunningly accurate lighting like shadows, reflections, refractions and global illumination. With more realistic scenes, gaming is more intense and exhilarating than ever before.

A Brief Note on GTX

Geforce GTX is a series of dedicated GPUs that were designed for desktop and laptop gaming. The lineup first launched in 2008 with the GTX 260. The first card had a base clock rate of 576 MHz, 896 MB of memory, and was built on a 65 nm architecture. Though the GTX name continued, ten years of development lead to very powerful cards with more differences than similarities like the GTX 1080 Max-Q built on a 16nm architecture with a 1.29 GHz base clock performance, 1.47 GHz turbo boost, 2MB cache, and 8 GB of memory.

When comparing between GTX and RTX, any card before the 10- series or 16- series GTX doesn’t stand a chance. Even 1080 has trouble keeping up with tasks RTX cards can handle with no issue. NVidia has since moved on to focusing more on the improved RTX cards.

Here are a few of the cards you may see on the market still:

1650
1660
1660 Ti
1070 Ti
1070 Max-Q
1080 Max-Q
1080 Ti
1070
1080
1060

Keep in mind that the 16- series GTX cards are not the same performance as the GTX 1070 or GTX 1080 models. It is capable of gaming, but most 1650 cards have less memory than gaming-specific cards.

A Brief Note on RTX

RTX stands for Ray Tracing Texel Extreme. Here, the important term is “Ray Tracing”. We previously talked about Shaders. Ray Tracing is an advanced technique for modeling optical effects such as shadows, reflections, refractions, light scattering, and many more.

The concept of ray tracing is very old but the “hardware” to implement this in real-time started with Nvidia’s RTX Series of GPUs.

In late 2018, Nvidia released RTX 2080, the first graphics card to support ray tracing. It blew the world away. With a 75% performance to the previous GTX 1080 GPU and dedicated Ray Tracing cores in the GPU, the RTX 2080 was a revolution in the graphics world.

It took some time for the developers (games, rendering, and other productivity) to fully utilize the Ray Tracing capabilities of the RTX graphics cards. But everyone was delighted at the direction where the modern “graphics” technology was going.

After the success of the original RTX 20 Series of GPUs, Nvidia upped their game a couple of later with the RTX 30 Series.

Here’s a list of the RTX cards available so far:

2060
2070
2070 SUPER
2080
2080 Ti
2080 SUPER
Quadro A4000
3050
3060
3070
3080
3090
3080 Ti
Quadro A6000
Quadro A5000
3070 Ti
RTX Titan

Differences Between: GTX vs RTX

Introduction: When it comes to choosing a graphics card, NVIDIA's GTX and RTX series often dominate the conversation. While they share a common manufacturer, these two product lines have distinct characteristics that set them apart. In this blog post, we will explore the exact differences between GTX and RTX graphics cards to help you make an informed decision based on your specific needs.

Architecture: The GTX series is built on the Pascal architecture, while the RTX series introduces NVIDIA's Turing architecture. Turing architecture incorporates real-time ray tracing and artificial intelligence (AI) features, providing a significant leap in visual realism and computational capabilities.

Ray Tracing Capabilities: Real-time ray tracing, a groundbreaking technology, is exclusive to the RTX series. With dedicated RT Cores, RTX cards simulate the behavior of light, resulting in lifelike reflections, refractions, and global illumination. GTX cards lack this dedicated hardware and cannot achieve the same level of visual fidelity.

Tensor Cores and DLSS: RTX cards come equipped with Tensor Cores, specialized hardware designed for AI-related tasks. One of the key benefits of Tensor Cores is their ability to enable deep learning super sampling (DLSS). DLSS leverages AI algorithms to upscale lower-resolution images in real-time, delivering improved visual quality while maintaining performance.

Performance: In terms of raw performance, RTX cards generally outshine GTX cards due to their advanced architecture and dedicated hardware. The inclusion of RT Cores and Tensor Cores in RTX cards allows for smoother ray-traced graphics and accelerated AI-related computations. However, the performance difference may vary depending on the specific model and generation within each series.

Price: It's important to note that RTX cards typically come at a higher price point compared to GTX cards. This disparity in price can be attributed to the inclusion of advanced features such as real-time ray tracing and AI capabilities. If budget is a concern, GTX cards can still provide a solid gaming experience without breaking the bank.

Conclusion: In conclusion, GTX and RTX graphics cards differ significantly in architecture, ray tracing capabilities, performance, and price. While GTX cards offer reliable performance for standard gaming needs, RTX cards excel in delivering cutting-edge technologies like real-time ray tracing and AI-enhanced visuals. Your choice between the two ultimately depends on your specific requirements, budget, and the level of visual realism and performance you seek.