NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8GB

A 2019 powerhouse that still handles 1440p gaming like a champ, but runs hot and costs too much on the used market. Buy it if you find one cheap, skip it at current prices.

What surprised us most is how well this card still handles 1440p gaming. The 448 GB/s memory bandwidth and 9.06 FP32 TFLOPS of compute mean you're not going to be CPU-bound in most titles, and the 8GB of VRAM is still enough for the vast majority of games at 1440p with sensible settings. The ray tracing performance is where things get interesting, with 40 RT cores doing real work but showing their age compared to newer architectures. The thermal situation is the real story though, this card runs hot under sustained load, and our data shows it sits near the bottom of the barrel for thermal performance. You'll want decent case airflow, and if you're planning to push it hard, factor in some extra cooling.

Stacked against the modern competition like the RTX 5070 Ti or RTX 5080, the 2070 Super gets absolutely demolished in raw performance, but that's not really a fair fight. The more relevant comparison is against other used Turing and Ampere cards. Against the RTX 3060 Ti, the 2070 Super trades blows in rasterization but loses on efficiency and thermals. Against the RTX 2080, the 2070 Super is basically the same card with slightly fewer cores, and you can often find the 2080 for similar money. The real competitor here is the RTX 3060 12GB, which gives you more VRAM for less money, even if raw performance is slightly lower.

At $679 USD on the used market, this is a tough sell when you can get newer cards with better efficiency and more VRAM for not much more. The value proposition made sense in 2019 when it was $499 new and undercut the RTX 2080, but today you're paying a premium for a card that's showing its age in thermals and feature set. If you can find one for under $400, it's a solid budget 1440p card. At current asking prices, you're better off saving a bit more for something newer.

The RTX 2070 Super Founders Edition is a card that punched way above its weight class back in 2019, and honestly, it still holds up for 1080p and 1440p gaming today. The one thing to know? This is the card that made ray tracing actually playable without needing a second mortgage. With 2560 CUDA cores, 8GB of GDDR6, and a 1770MHz boost clock, it delivers a PassMark G3D score of 18127, which puts it solidly in the middle of the pack against modern GPUs but still plenty capable for most people's actual gaming habits. The Founders Edition design is also one of the best-looking reference cards Nvidia ever shipped, with that dual-fan metal shroud that feels premium in a way most AIB cards don't.

If you're building a new system or upgrading from anything newer than a GTX 1080 Ti, this isn't the card for you. The thermal issues, aging architecture, and inflated used prices make it a poor choice for new builds. Go grab an RTX 3060 12GB or RTX 3060 Ti instead, you'll get similar or better performance with more VRAM and actual warranty coverage.

The RTX 2070 Super Founders Edition is a great card that's stuck in an awkward pricing position. If you already own one, keep it, it's still perfectly capable for 1080p and 1440p gaming. If you're buying used right now, the current asking prices don't make sense when newer options offer better efficiency, more VRAM, and actual warranty coverage. Wait for prices to drop or spend a bit more on something from the RTX 30 or 40 series.