Conclusion Continued
4K Performance
For 4K there is no doubt you really want the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 Ti O11G GAMING. There just is no other GPU that can handle 4K as well as this GPU even one and a half years after its release. It’s still the king for 4K gaming, you just have no choice.
We have found that it does seem to struggle in some current games. It isn’t perfect and is starting to show its age already. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metro Exodus really stress it. In Red Dead Redemption 2 the stress comes on at 4K trying to run the highest in-game settings. Other cards are stressed even at just 1440p with maxed out settings in those games.
The ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2080 Ti shines at 1440p with maxed out settings, but does struggle at 4K. In Metro Exodus, the same is true with the “Extreme” preset. It is very challenging at 4K, but better at 1440p. Shadow of the Tomb Raider was also very demanding at 4K with max settings and SMAA 4X. These games prove that we need next-gen GPUs to push them at 4K max settings and come close to 60FPS.
Ray Tracing Performance
Then we come to NVIDIA Ray Tracing Support. The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 Ti O11G GAMING provides the fastest Ray Tracing performance in games. It makes NVIDIA Ray Tracing viable in many games at 1440p, but not 4K. At 1440p Call of Duty Modern Warfare runs very fast with Ray Tracing enabled.
In other games like Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider it lowers performance even at 1440p, but can still be playable. You may find yourself having to lower a setting or two though at 1440p to achieve 60FPS. It at least opens up options for Ray Tracing, which the GeForce RTX 2080 FE struggles with at 1440p.
Now trying to run NVIDIA Ray Tracing plus maximum settings at 1440p or 4K does show the limitations of even the mighty GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. In games like Metro Exodus and Shadow of the Tomb Raider there is no way you’ll be running 4K with max in-game settings and Ray Tracing at 60FPS. We truly will need next-gen GPUs for that sort of thing. Therefore, this does show the limitation that the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti has in today’s games.
Overclocking
Overclocking the ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 Ti O11G GAMING was very easy. ASUS GPU Tweak II works great and allows easy overclocking. We managed to push the Power Target up and the Voltage even worked, raising it for us. This allowed us to push the GPU from about 1770-1790MHz up to 2040MHz average. We were also able to raise the memory from 14GHz to 16.2GHz for much higher memory bandwidth.
Overall, this overclocking boosted performance between 10-14%. At the highest, we experienced a 14% performance uplift. This often-brought performance to more playable levels at extreme settings and really did make a difference.
We were also impressed with the default frequency before overclocking. The factory boost clock is very high and GPU Boost was boosting it very high over the boost clock. This means excellent performance already without even having to overclock.
For comparison check out our overclocks on a reference NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition video card that we overclocked in a previous review. We hit about 2010MHz on the GPU with that card and 16GHz on the memory. Therefore, the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2080 Ti overclocked higher on both GPU and memory giving us the highest and best performance yet out of an RTX 2080 Ti GPU.
Final Points
The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 Ti O11G GAMING video card is an excellent video card. It is built well, it is robust, it offers a very fast out-of-box factory overclock and GPU Boost is able to raise the clock speed over the boost clock. The thermal solution keeps the GPU very cool with no noise.
The video card is geared for overclocking and handles it well. The design and thermal solution does not hold it back but lets it flourish to new heights. We achieved the highest overclock out of any RTX 2080 Ti yet, and thus the highest performance.
The video card allows you to play today’s games at the best performance possible. It makes NVIDIA Ray Tracing viable at 1440p and gives you options. It is really the only solution for 4K gaming at the moment. If you have a 4K setup, the RTX 2080 Ti is your only choice. Even though we are one and a half years on with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, it still offers the best gameplay experience in 2020.
The ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080 Ti O11G GAMING has a high price premium and is currently $1279.99 at Amazon. If you want the best gaming performance though, this is what you’ll be spending.
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