So you’ve finally made up your mind to upgrade your GPU with a good budget at hand. But still wondering which one’s better? You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for the difference between GTX and RTX.
Even though there’s still a point to consider that the GTX 16 series was launched a year after the release of the 20 series, that is why it is necessary to know the name, performance and value of these variants.
Knowing that GTX and the RTX series are the only 2 series that has survived to day and its basically a standard choice for every user looking to buy a Nvidia graphics card.
One the questions the came to mind is why would Nvidia release the GTX 16 series after the release of their might RTX 20 series cards?
One of the major similarities in both GTX and RTX series is that they both are designed on the same GPU structure and same technology. The reason to that could be that they just wanted to introduce this technology in an RTX series first, which offer Upper-mid ranged to higher categories using the latest programmable shading such as variable-rate shading, texture-space shading, and multi-view rendering.
But they were launched at a very reasonable price but it quickly got out of the range of some of us pretty quickly due to the overwhelming response of its audience.
Then Nvidia came up with another series using the same technology and features but the GTX series were offering mid and lower ranged GPUs.The GTX series were introduced as a more powerful generation of GPUs then the RTX 20 series but they also made it very clear that RTX series was launched with some additional features that GTX doesn’t have.
Another thing that is admirable about the RTX series is that it does not only have more cores but it has 2 NEW CORES, the RT Cores and the Tensor Core that offers a little over the edge performance. If you take those 2 new cores out, there’s not much of a difference between the GTX and the RTX series.
One more amazing things about the RTX series is that it offer Real-Time Turing Ray Tracing which is because of these new RT cores. Now I’m not going to go into a lot of technicality but Real-Time Ray Tracing is when you get the most realistic graphics and lighting on the screen. Indeed the results are imazing
Check this video out form The Official Geforce Channel featuring the RTX 30 Series which came after the release of GTX series offering higher-end GPUs along with the top of the line performance.
But then the GTX series is not really behind the RTX, it has this Turing Shaders integrated in the chip that offers a better performance to any other previous generations and the GTX series also offers a lot better frame rate.
One more thing that really bothered me was, What does RTX and GTX really means? So I went on a quest to find the true meaning and so far what know is that the GTX means Giga Texel Xtreme Shader and the RTX means Ray Tracing Texel Xtreme Shader.
Now both RTX and the GTX series has their own variants
The RTX Models
| 2060 |
| 2070 |
| 2070 SUPER |
| 2080 |
| 2080 Ti |
| 2080 SUPER |
| Quadro A4000 |
| 3050 |
| 3060 |
| 3070 |
| 3070 |
| 3080 |
| 3090 |
| 3080 Ti |
| Quadro A6000 |
| Quadro A5000 |
| 3070 Ti |
| RTX Titan |
The GTX Models (Most Demanded)
| 1650 |
| 1660 |
| 1660 Ti |
| 1070 Ti |
| 1070 Max-Q |
| 1080 Max-Q |
| 1080 Ti |
| 1070 |
| 1080 |
| 1060 |
Now we cannot compare the performance of the GTX 16 series with the GTX 10 series because there’s a HUGE difference between the GTX 16 series and any other GTX series.
Here a quick overview or lets just say “in a nutshell”
RTX 20 Series Vs GTX 16 and 10 series
| Technology features: | RTX 20-Series | GTX 16-Series | GTX 10-Series |
| Turing Architecture | Yes | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA Adaptive Shading | Yes | Yes | No |
| VR Ready | Yes | GTX 1660 or higher | GTX 1060 or higher |
| Concurrent Floating Point & Integer Operations | Yes | Yes | No |
| Turing NVIDIA Encoder (NVENC) | Yes | Yes (except 1650) | No |
| Ray-Tracing Cores | Yes | No | No |
| Tensor Cores | Yes | No | No |
| NVIDIA DLSS | Yes | No | No |
Source: Nvidia
What is GTX?
A little more about the GTX cards, if you are on a tight budget but you’d still want to play Call Of Duty Warzone, or Apex Legends with a decent performance to be competitive, then you just have to really consider the GTX series. It definitely offers the Bang for your Buck!
Apart from that it is also very friendly to the environment. The GTX series has a lower power consumption then their other variants. Lower power with improved performance is definitely a good deal for anyone.
What Is RTX?
On the other hand the RTX series was introduced with these all-new RT cores. The RTX series offers dedicated ray tracing feature which enables the GPU to process upto ten gigarays/sec allowing you to experience real-time movie like lighting and textures while playing your favorite PC Game.
It also has this Tensor Core that delivers over a hundred teraflops processing using artificial intelligence, that gives better performance to passionate gamers.
Basic Comparison Between Nvidia GeForce GTX and RTX
| Comparison | Nvidia GeForce GTX | Nvidia GeForce RTX |
| Launched | Nvidia GeForce GTX is launched by Nvidia in 2008. | Nvidia GeForce RTX is launched in 2018 |
| Generation | The Nvidia GTX has multiple series, with the first edition launched in 2008 as the GTX 260 under Series 200. Besides; GeForce GTX Series 16 | The Nvidia RTX is the most recent addition to the Nvidia family, as it is featured with ray-tracing cores and an AI-powered DLSS 2.0 version. |
| Features | It has Ultra-fast GDDR6 memory and advanced graphics processing abilities that delivers the best gaming experiences. | Nvidia GeForce RTX is known for being the highest performing and the most high-end series, which brings real-time light simulation to users while gaming. |
If you are looking for the best suited motherboards for your next build with an RTX or a GTX GPU then you must Read This
