NVIDIA has launched the long awaited next generation
of graphics cards from the company, the GeForce RTX. Based on the company's new
Turing architecture, the new graphics card focus on real-time ray tracing
application in gaming as well as artificial intelligence.
Turing is NVIDIA's brand new, eight-generation
architecture that succeeds Pascal. It brings with it new RT Cores that replace
the previous CUDA for ray tracing applications and also includes new Tensor
Cores for AI. NVIDIA first debuted this architecture in the workstation grade
Quadro RTX 8000, 6000 and 5000 GPU and it is now being brought to consumer
grade graphics cards. NVIDIA claims Turing is 6X faster at ray tracing
applications than Pascal.
A brief summary on ray tracing; in real world, we
see because rays of light bounce off of objects. Ray tracing works similarly,
where rays of light hit objects and then bounce off to the camera, sometimes
directly, sometimes after hitting other objects in the vicinity, just like in real
life. This light is then captured by the camera, which is then used to render
the scene. The reflected light carries the information of the object it hit,
based on its coded values, which is how the camera knows what it's 'seeing'. To
make the process a bit simpler, the light is sent backwards from the camera to
the light source, as it reduces some of the computational load.
An upside to this technique is objects can be made
to look very realistic as they are lit in a very natural way. Reflections, refractions
and shadows also work as they would in real life, which adds to the feeling of
realism. It's not exactly photorealistic, but it's a significant improvement
over current rendering techniques.
Because you need to calculate a ray of light for
each and every pixel on your camera, which is your screen, ray tracing is
extremely computationally intensive compared to standard rendering techniques.
This is why it was only really used in 3D animation, such as animated movies,
which are slowly rendered on a frame by frame basis over a period of several
months. It was not at all feasible in 3D games, except it now is (on a somewhat
simpler scale) using NVIDIA's new graphics cards.
The products launching today include the RTX 2070,
2080 and 2080 Ti. Along with the new RT Cores and Tensor Cores, these cards
also include a new NGX neural graphics framework for AI algorithms, GDDR6
memory with 600GB/s bandwidth, new NVIDIA NVLink with a higher 100 GB/s
bandwidth for SLI, hardware support for USB-C and VirtualLink, and other
technologies such as Variable Rate Shading, Multi-View Rendering and VRWorks
Audio.
NVIDIA has launched Founders Edition versions of
each of these three cards. These feature a factory overclock, dual 13-blade
axial fans, full-card vapor chamber, diecast aluminum cover, and DisplayPort
1.4a with 8K HDR at 60Hz support over a single connector.
The RTX 2070, 2080 and 2080 Ti will be starting at US$ 499, US$ 699 and US$ 999, respectively. The Founders Editions will be priced at US$ 599, US$ 799 and US$ 1,199, respectively. Cards will be available starting from
NVIDIA as well as the usual partner OEMs starting September 20 for the 2080 and
2080 Ti, with the 2070 coming in October.
NVIDIA is working with developers such as EA, Epic
Games, Square Enix on games with ray tracing. Upcoming games with ray tracing
include Battlefield V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus, Control,
Assetto Corsa Competizione and more. These games will utilize the new DirectX
Raytracing (DXR) API developed by Microsoft on Windows.
GeForce RTX will also support Deep Learning
Super-Sampling (DLSS), which will be coming in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Final
Fantasy XV, Ark: Survival Evolved, Hitman 2, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds,
Serious Sam 4 and more.
