NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 8GB Founders Edition

NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080 is one of the first graphics cards based on the Turing GPU architecture. This generation represents an incremental improvement in general graphics performance, as usual, along with the addition of two major features: dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and Tensor cores for machine learning inference. The RT cores are brand-new, while the Tensor cores have existed on previous Titan and Quadro cards - but this is the first time they've come to the mainstream GeForce series. This specialized hardware will allow for new functionality in games and GPU-accelerated applications, but will require such programs to be written specifically to utilize them in order to see much benefit. General performance should be about 20-30% faster than the previous GTX 1080, in situations where the video card is the limiting factor.

This is also the first time a reference "Founders Edition" card from NVIDIA has featured a dual-fan cooling layout. This is great for keeping a single card running cool and quiet, but results in most of the heat the card generates being pumped back into the computer. That makes these a poor choice for use in multi-GPU systems, especially in configurations where there will be no space between each card. When installing more than one video card in a system, models with a blower-style fan and rear heat exhaust will be much better.

Finally, in regards to connectivity, the RTX 2080 has dropped DVI output entirely. There are still enough outputs for four monitors, though: one HDMI 2.0b and three DisplayPort 1.4. VirtualLink - a specialized Type C port combining DisplayPort, USB 3.1, and power - is also included, for single-cable connectivity to next-generation VR headsets.