We treated the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080 graphics cards as we did in the past with most other graphics solutions, by taking typical FPS measurements with existing game titles. We did not have the chance to test ray tracing and DSS games. We did however run the Epic Games Infiltrator demo, which that tests the Unreal Engine 4's rendering engine with Nvidia's new DLSS capabilities. Although it's just a demo, the results looked promising. The RTX 2080 averaged 103 fps with DLSS enabled versus non-DLSS rendering at 65 fps average on the GTX 1080. That's more than a 50 percent performance improvement, and close to Nvidia's performance claims for the RTX 2080.

In terms of traditional performance the new GeForce RTX 20 series further extends NVIDIA's performance lead. The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is currently the fastest graphics card you can buy, and possibly the one to consider if you want to play games at 4K and with full quality settings. By the numbers, the reference RTX 2080 Ti is around 30% faster than the GTX 1080 Ti at 4K gaming. With Founders Edition specifications (a 10W higher TDP and 90MHz boost clock increase) the lead grows to 36%. Nvidia's Founders Edition will run you $1,199, so if you also plan to spend to get a 4K monitor with 144Hz refresh rates, the overall spending is very high.

If you're planning to game at 1440p and don't intend to upgrade to 4K anytime soon, the RTX 2080 hits the right balance of price and performance. The RTX 2080 general performance is impressive, and the jump from the GTX 1080 is noticeable and worth the investment, especially for demanding games. You can expect a 35% performance improvement over the GTX 1080 at 4K, moving up to 40% with Founders Edition specifications. Compared to the GTX 1080 Ti, the RTX 2080 is pulling ahead by about 8%.

Have in mind that neither RTX graphics card can play graphically intensive 4K games at a full 144 frames per second. None of the games we tested were able to hit an average or peak fps value near the native refresh rate of a 4K G-Sync monitors.

But the performance hasn't come for free in terms of energy efficiency. TDPs have been increased for the RTX series, which means you are dealing with greater power consumption. The RTX 2080 features power draw at the wall slightly more than the GTX 1080 Ti's draw. The RTX 2080 Ti's system consumption leaps by more than 60W to reach Vega 64 power draw at the wall.

The practical benefits of ray tracing remain unknown. Many of games will likely support it in the future, but the real test will be whether the next generation of consoles will offer support.

The Turing architecture brings impressive changes, and Nvidia still has very little competition from AMD in this range of high-end graphics cards. If you're considering a high-end graphics card right now, you'll probably be looking exclusively at something from Nvidia.