During CES 2020, EVGA unveiled a brand-new GeForce RTX 2060 model, the “KO GAMING.” Its biggest selling point lies in its price tag: as opposed to your average RTX 2060 ($349), this SKU is launching at just $279.
The KO’s introduction this week seems overtly intentional. AMD unveiled its Radeon RX 5600 XT ($279) on Monday, which (according to the company’s slides) will put NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER and GTX 1660 Ti to shame by as much as 15% and 20%, respectively.
AMD RX 5600 XT:
- Cores: 2304
- Boost Clock: 1560 MHz
- Memory: 6 GB GDDR6
- Memory Clock: 12 Gbps
EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 KO GAMING:
- Cores: 1920
- Boost Clock: 1680 MHz
- Memory: 6 GB GDDR6
- Memory Clock: 14 Gbps
EVGA’s $279 RTX 2060 puts a wrench into AMD’s plan to lure mid-range, 1080p gamers away from NVIDIA, however. While there isn’t much in the way of benchmarks yet, the Radeon RX 5600 XT (which doesn’t release until Jan. 21) is expected to either line up with or fall slightly short of the RTX 2060’s performance, but even in the former scenario, NVIDIA’s option could be a no-brainer for gamers due to incentives such as ray tracing and DLSS.
In fact, EVGA has a secondary, more powerful KO model, the “ULTRA GAMING.” This SKU is priced at $299 and features an even faster boost clock (1755 MHz vs. 1680 MHz).
EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 KO ULTRA GAMING:
- Cores: 1920
- Boost Clock: 1755 MHz
- Memory: 6 GB GDDR6
- Memory Clock: 14 Gbps
The theory now is that other AIBs will follow suit with cheaper, re-designed RTX 2060 SKUs of their own, or simply drop prices.