Nvidia has quietly added a new version of its RTX 2060 graphics card to its lineup that comes armed with12 gigs of VRAM, double that of the original version that arrived back in 2019. Earlier this year, Nvidia announced that it will release a stock of older GeForce RTX 2060 and GTX 1050 Ti GPUs to deal with the severe shortage. The availability crisis was fueled in part by the ongoing semiconductor supply chain woes, and also due to scalpers who wanted to sell those cards at a premium to crypto miners.
The idea was that these entry-level GPUs would be of less use to crypto miners, which means gaming enthusiasts and those who want that graphics firepower for creative tasks can easily purchase them without any price jacking. To recall, NVIDIA recently launched the flagship CMP 170HX cryptocurrency mining graphics card that is tailor-made for Ethereum mining. However, the situation hasn’t improved much ever since the announcement. Third-party sellers continue to hawk whatever stock that remains of older GPUs at a much higher price than the official price tag at launch. But, it appears that Nvidia doesn’t want to give up without trying.
Making good on its promise — or at least half of it — NVIDIA has quietly updated its website with a new variant of the GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card that now packs 12GB of DDR6 VRAM and now sits somewhat in the same league as the RTX 2060 Super. The original model introduced a couple of years ago was armed with 6GB of graphics memory. NVIDIA says the updated GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card will be up for grabs from December 7 onward. Unfortunately, the company hasn’t shared how much buyers will have to shell out for the upgraded GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card with double the VRAM in tow. But the company did hint at a price hike, telling The Verge that “it is a premium version of the RTX 2060 6GB and we expect the price to reflect that.”
Let's Hope Scalpers Ignore It
In addition to the doubling of graphics memory, there are a few more differences between the two iterations. The 12GB version of GeForce RTX 2060 features 2176 CUDA cores and its base frequency is also slightly higher at 1470 MHz. The older 6GB variant, on the other hand, features 1920 CUDA cores and ticks at 1365 MHz. Interestingly, the boost clock speed of the new variant is slightly lower at 1650 MHz compared to the 1680 MHz figure for the older model. The net graphics card wattage has also gone up from 160W to 185W, while the system requirement has also touched the 550W mark, up from 500W for the 6GB version.
The rest of the key parameters related to memory (speed, configuration, and bandwidth), display (peak supported resolution, standard connectors, and multi-monitor output), and gaming-related features remain identical between the 6GB and 12GB variants of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2060 GPU. Interestingly, the company is rumored to launch new RTX 3000 series GPUs soon that will build upon the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080 DNA.