EVGA RTX 2060 KO offers relatively high workstation performance thanks to RTX 2080 GPU

EVGA has built its RTX 2060 KO around the TU-104 GPU of the RTX 2080 and 2070 Super, but with some parts switched off. In some workstation applications, but not in games, the card performs much better than regular RTX 2060 cards.

Gamers Nexus discovered that EVGA’s RTX 2060 KO contains a GPU marked TU-104-150. The RTX 2060 cards that have appeared so far are based on the TU106. The chip of the EVGA 2060 KO has dimensions of 545mm², where the TU106 measures 445mm². It is therefore actually a variant of the TU-104, the GPU of the RTX 2080 and RTX 2070 Super, concludes Gamers Nexus. Those video cards are usually a lot more expensive.

It happens more often that manufacturers use chips that do not pass the validation as a less powerful variant. They disable certain hardware components to reduce performance to a lower level. Indeed, in terms of games, RTX 2060 KO performs comparable to Nvidia’s own RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

However, in the Blender graphics application, the EVGA KO card outperformed the RTX 2060 FE by 27 percent by default. The KO card also achieved higher scores for SPECviewperf, a benchmark suite for measuring graphics performance of professional applications, up to 47.8 percent. Nvidia may have forgotten to adapt the respective TU-104-150 in terms of computing power for these applications, according to Gamers Nexus.

According to the video publication, this does not mean that the card is recommended for every user. For example, the performance in games is comparable to other RTX 2060 cards, but there is no room for overclocking and the cooling is of moderate quality. For users of specific workstation applications, the EVGA 2060 KO can be an interesting option. Nvidia would offer the TU-104 version to partners for the same price as the TU106. There is a chance that more 2060 variants with the chip will appear.