Review: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G

Alongside the release of NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition, we have each and every of the board partners i.e ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, Palit, Zotac, etc releasing their own version of the RTX 2060. For this review, we will be taking a look at the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G to see how does it fare against the RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

Specifications

Unboxing

The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G comes in the usual eye logo packaging that we’re familiar with – you’ll only see the eagle if it’s under the AORUS branding. Just like the rest of the RTX 20 series cards in the market, it uses GDDR6 memory and comes with real-time ray tracing and DLSS features for the existing and upcoming RTX games.

At the back of the box, you’ll find more of the highlighted features such as the Windforce cooling fan design, copper heatpipes that is in direct contact with the GPU die for better cooling performance, RGB Fusion 2.0 lighting and the included metal back plate at the back of the PCB.

The Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G

Since Gigabyte has drawn a clear line between its Gigabyte and AORUS branding, you’ll be seeing this same design across the higher-end of each series under the Gigabyte brand. The triple-fan design is pretty similar to the RTX 2080 Gaming OC 8G, with one the middle fan rotating in opposing direction for better cooling performance.

Despite having a triple fan cooler, this card only takes up two PCIe expansion slot. So, you’ll get some extra clearance for small form factor chassis. The only RGB lighting you’ll get on this card is the translucent GIGABYTE logo that can be disabled via RGB Fusion when not needed. It’s not flashy and over-exaggerated in terms of design, so those who like simple design for their graphics card might find it to their liking.

To power the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G, you’ll need at least a 500W power supply with 8-pin PCIe power connector. That’s pretty much the same as the GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

The backplate on the back of the PCB looks pretty similar to the one on the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2080 GAMING OC 8G, albeit it’s slightly shorter.

Here’s a quick design comparison for both the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Founders Edition and the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G. Apart from the obvious difference in length, the Gigabyte card appears to be slightly slimmer than the RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

As for the display output, you’ll get a total of three DisplayPort and one HDMI on the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G. Unlike the RTX 2060 Founders Edition, this doesn’t comes with a USB Type-C port.

On the RTX 2060 Founders Edition, you’ll get two DisplayPort, one HDMI, one USB Type-C and one DVI-D.

Test System Setup

For our games benchmark test, we’ve selected a number of AAA titles to run at its highest possible settings using the following setup under ambient temperature of 30°C:

The test is done separately for games that support both DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 at the resolution of 1920×1080, 2560×1440 and 3840×2160.

Games Benchmark

Starting off with 1080p, we can see that both the RTX 2060 Founders Edition and RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G can handle majority of the selected AAA titles at above 60FPS with the highest settings without much issue.

Both the latest Assassin’s Creed running at its highest settings are deemed too heavy for the RTX 2060 to handle, so we recommend tuning it down from ultra to high for the best result. As for Battlefield V with DXR enabled, the result aren’t looking that good without DLSS. Higher numbers can be achieved with DLSS enabled but we’re looking forward to see better improvement in terms of graphics quality in the next DLSS update from the game publisher.

As we scale up to 1440p, both the RTX 2060 are still capable of maintaining 60FPS on most of the selected titles. Though, we can notice some of the games i.e Watch Dogs 2, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Tom Clancy’s The Division at DX12 started to fall below 60FPS.

It gets rather challenging for both the RTX 2060 as we move on on to 4K resolution. Based on the result above, you can see that maintaining 60FPS at 4K resolution and highest settings is probably something you should leave it to the RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti. If you insisted on playing these AAA titles on 4K using the RTX 2060, lowering the settings to medium or high is recommended but at the cost of the graphics quality in overall.

Temperature

The GPU idle temperature is around 44°C and hovers around 66°C most of the time during our games benchmark. Enabling real-time ray tracing feature for RTX games will result in a slightly higher peak temperature reading at 67°C. Compared to the RTX 2060 Founders Edition, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G is 10°C cooler on full load. Manual adjustment on the fan curve via AORUS ENGINE to suit your need if you’re not comfortable with this temperature.

Verdict

Based on the game performance benchmark alone we can already see that the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G does pack quite a punch of its own. Although 4K resolution might be a bit too much for it to handle,the benchmark result shows that the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G has no problem in handling the selected AAA titles at 1080p and 1440p on the highest settings.

Apart from being faster than a RTX 2060 Founders Edition, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G also runs much cooler on load with its signature triple-fan cooler. Unlike it’s AORUS counter part, it’s not going to be a fancy decorative piece in your system when it comes to RGB lighting. Even so, there are still some sacrifice to be made when it comes to having a triple-fan cooler – especially when it comes to the length of the card itself. This means that the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G will have lower compatibility with small-sized chassis as compared to the RTX 2060 Founders Edition.

When it comes to the retail price, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G is definitely not the most affordable RTX 2060 around. At the price of RM 1,999, it is rather expensive if you were to consider that it’s not as solidly built and lacks of the support for USB Type-C which can be found on the RTX 2060 Founders Edition. Though, the Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming OC Pro 6G does have its own qualities to compensate for this.

Pros

• Decent cooling performance
• Performs better than a GTX 1070 Ti in most cases
• Supports DLSS and Ray Tracing features for RTX games
• Bundled with free game for a limited time (Battlefield V or Anthem or Metro Exodus)

Cons

• Doesn’t support NVLink
• No USB Type-C
• Price is a bit steep