GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC Graphics Card Review

Introduction Continuing our reviews for our last wave of graphics cards from GALAX, we have one of their custom PCB design for the RTX 2060 SUPER line-up, the RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC. I think I haven't stressed it much in previous reviews but the 1-Click OC in GALAX's products refers to their software-enabled OC mode wherein 1-Click OC models will have a special OC mode, higher than the factory pre-baked overclock. You'll need GALAX's Xtreme Tuner software for this little feature. Anyway, this review will still be part of our bulk review for GALAX and will share assets between each other. The other reviews in this series are below: GALAX RTX 2070 SUPER Work The Frames (WTF) Edition GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC Edition GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER 1-Click OC Edition GALAX RTX 2060 EX White 1-Click OC Edition About the GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC Intently enough, I started this review series with the RTX 2070 WTF from GALAX and I thought that was their most RGB product. Apparently I'm wrong. I know GALAX means well but the RGB = GAMER stereotype is never more true in the GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER GAMER 1-Click OC. This custom-design card features triple-fan cooling solution on a non-reference PCB. The GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC features a factory overclock of 1680Mhz boost right out of the box and can boost a bit more with its 1-click OC function. Other than that, the main highlight here is the RGB-lit triple fan cooler. Official product page Test Setup and Methodology Processor: Intel Core i9 10900K Motherboard: ASUS ProArt Z490 Creator 10G Memory: G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3600 16GB Storage: Patriot VPN100 1TB M.2 NVme PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1050w Cooling: Corsair H150i Monitor: ROG PG27UQ 4K 144hz HDR1000 VGA: Listed Note: This review was originally published September 8th, 2020. It has since been updated with our charts including the RTX 3080. For a full-hardware workout, visit https://benchmarks.ul.com for our system warm-up and stress test of choice. For benchmarking methodology please see our game benchmark method guide. We're working with CapFrameX to deliver this review to you. Since this is a GPU review, we benchmarked the area of the games that put heavy load on the GPU. All our test runs are repeatable, click the links below for area and details. Read our benchmarking methodology. DOTA2 – Kiev Major Grand Finals Game 5: OG vs Virtus.Pro (54:05 – 55:05) Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: FPS Benchmark Workshop Map The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands Rainbow Six: Siege – Benchmark Mode Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Kuwaq Yaqu Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019 - Fog of War Monster Hunter World: Iceborne - Wildspire Waste F1 2020: Benchmark Mode (Australia) See our Youtube playlist for benchmark sequences. Note: Some proprietary technologies of NVIDIA like PCSS, HBAO+, and HairWorks work on AMD GPU’s BUT to maintain uniformity amongst GPUs, these have been turned OFF. You can click on any of the benchmark charts enlarge. You can also move forward and backwards to quickly navigate through our charts via gallery view. For this test, only the out-of-box normal mode will be tested. Power Draw, Clock Speed and Temperature We'll switch things up and open with the power and temperature behavior of the graphics card first. We use Final Fantasy XV Benchmark to simulate a gaming workload but for those looking extreme loads, we do put our cards through Kombustor on first installation for stress testing to check for stability. For our reviews though, we use Final Fantasy XV to simulate a true gaming scenario. Power draw is captured inline via PCAT or Powenetics so no other components affects readings. Readings are taken from the average 15 min idle readings for both load and idle. Ambient temperature is kept at 28*C. Test Setup and Methodology Processor: Intel Core i9 10900K Memory: G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3600 32GB Storage: Patriot Viper VPN4100 1TB Gen4 M.2 PSU: Seasonic Platinum 1050w Cooling: Corsair H150i Pro 360mm AIO Monitor: ROG PG27UQ 4K 144hz HDR1000 VGA: Listed For a full-hardware workout, visit https://benchmarks.ul.com for our system warm-up and stress test of choice. For benchmarking methodology please see our game benchmark method guide. Test results are gathered and produced on CapFrameX. Since this is a GPU review, we benchmarked the area of the games that put heavy load on the GPU. All our test runs are repeatable, click the links below for area and details. Read our benchmarking methodology. DOTA2 – Kiev Major Grand Finals Game 5: OG vs Virtus.Pro (54:05 – 55:05) Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: FPS Benchmark Workshop Map The Witcher 3 – Woesong Bridge Grand Theft Auto V – Palomino Highlands Rainbow Six: Siege – Benchmark Mode Shadow of the Tomb Raider - Kuwaq Yaqu Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2019 - Fog of War Monster Hunter World: Iceborne - Wildspire Waste F1 2020 - Benchmark Mode See our Youtube playlist for benchmark sequences. Note: Some proprietary technologies of NVIDIA like PCSS, HBAO+, and HairWorks work on AMD GPU’s BUT to maintain uniformity amongst GPUs, these have been turned OFF. The AMD equivalent of these features are disabled as well. You can click on any of the benchmark charts enlarge. You can also move forward and backwards to quickly navigate through our charts via gallery view. For this test, only the out-of-box normal mode will be tested. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, popularly known as CSGO, competes for Steam's most popular game. It has found a resurgence in its popularity and has recently peaked in 2020 in the number of players that play the game. Based on Valve's Source Engine, the game received major asset overhauls during the years since its inception nearly 10 years ago. Still, it's a light game and can be played on fairly lighter systems but the competitive scene for CSGO has seen average players demand high FPS from their systems thus gaining favorable standing with GPU vendors just from the demand for higher FPS alone. CSGO is a game that can easily go past 500FPS on enthusiast systems on maximum settings. We're including CSGO as requested by our community. API: DirectX9 (default) Maximum In-Game Settings Texture Streaming Disabled Vsync OFF DOTA 2 Note: JUNE 2020 - DOTA2 has recently implemented a transition from DirectX9 to DirectX11 and new install of the game will prompt users to switch from DX9 to DX11. With that said, we are testing DOTA2 in DX11 from now on. In contention for the most popular game on Steam and the biggest competition in eSports: DOTA 2 is powered by the Source 2 engine. The game is fairly light on low to medium settings but maxed out, with heavy action on screen especially during clashes, can really stress most systems. This is a game where frame times matter as responsiveness is very important in high-stakes competition. We're looking at consistently low frametimes in this game for the best experience Our test uses actual game replay, using the segment from game 5 of the Kiev Major 2017 Grand Finals between OG and VP. The clash during the 54:05 to 55:05 of the game is a nice example of how much a system will get punished during intense team fights in DOTA2. You can watch the replay of the actual game used in the benchmark here in Youtube or download the replay file here for your DOTA2 client: Game 3149572447. (save it to your DOTA2 replays folder) API: DirectX11 (default) Best-Looking slider setting (Ultra) FPS_MAX 240 Vsync OFF Rainbow Six: Siege Nearly 4 years later and Rainbow Six: Siege has become a phenomenon after a lukewarm beginning. The massive shift in focus of the game sees it stepping into eSports territory and the excellent mix of gameplay mechanics, good design and a dedicated dev team has put R6: Siege in a position it couldn’t even picture during launch. Rainbow Six: Siege focuses heavily on tactical and creative gameplay and its vertical levels and highly destructible maps encourage players to be quick on their feet so the action is always going. Powered by Ubisoft’s own AnvilNext 2.0 engine which powers some of Ubi’s recent visual masterpieces, R6:Siege also feature excellent graphics and can get very taxing at high detail settings. The game also features an Ultra HD texture pack download for those that want higher resolution textures but will of course demand more from the system. API: DirectX 11 Ultra Settings Anti Aliasing: TAA Ultra HD Texture pack not installed Ambient Occlusion: SSBC Vsync OFF The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt CD Projekt Red’s latest installment in the Witcher saga features one of the most graphically intense offering the company has to date. As Geralt of Rivia, slay monsters, beasts and men as you unravel the mysteries of your past. Vast worlds and lush sceneries make this game a visual feast and promises to make any system crawl at its highest settings. This game has found great resurgence in its playerbase thanks to the release of Netflix' Witcher series. API: DirectX 11 Frame Rate: Unlimited Nvidia HairWorks: Off Ultra Settings Motion Blur: Off Blur: Off Anti-aliasing: On Bloom: On Sharpening: High Ambient Occlusion: SSAO Depth of Field: On Chromatic Aberration: Off Vignetting: On Light Shafts: On VSync OFF Grand Theft Auto V The fifth and most successful installment to date in the highly controversial Grand Theft Auto series brings a graphical overhaul to the PC version of GTA V which many have lauded as a superior approach in porting a console game to PC. Featuring large areas and detailing, GTA V is a highly challenging application in terms of scene complexity. Our benchmark uses a run from Palomina Highlands running through a lush area to a remote road all the way to a neighborhood in our car to simulate multiple scene changes. API: DirectX 11 FXAA Off MSAA 4x TXAA Off Very High settings Anisotropic Filtering: 16x Motion Blur disabled Advanced Graphics enabled Vsync OFF Shadow of the Tomb Raider Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the latest installment in the reboot run of the classic Tomb Raider franchise. The game follows the story set forth by the previous game which Shadow of the Tomb Raider short follows after. Technology-wise, the game uses the Foundation engine updated to meet the demand of developer Eidos Montreal to push the engine to its limits. The game supports DirectX 12 and is one of the launch titles to support RTX technology namely DLSS which launched a couple of months post-launch. API: DirectX 12 Graphics Settings Preset: Highest Texture Quality: Ultra Texture Filtering: 8x Anisotropic Anti-Aliasing: TAA DLSS: OFF Raytraced Shadow: OFF Vsync OFF Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019) Call of Duty Modern Warfare is a reboot of the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare storyline, set in a different world where you, along with Captain Price have to stop the world from going to war. Call of Duty Modern Warfare reignites the franchise by introducing full crossplay support where Xbox and PS4 players can play together with PC players. On PC, the game features a new engine pushing photorealism for COD far beyond what their older engine is capable of. The new engine also introduces raytracing and the AI is designed to perceive light as well. With a revitalized multiplayer arena, the game will require fast frame rates. API: DirectX 12 Render Resolution: 100% Texture Resolution: High Texture Filter Anisotropic: High Particle Quality: High Tessellation: All Shadow Map Resolution: Extra Particle Lighting: Ultra DirectX Raytracing: OFF Ambient Occlusion: Both Anti-Aliasing: Filmic SMAA T2X World Motion Blur: Off Vsync: OFF Shaders Installed before benchmarks* Conclusion Let's open this up with a direct comparison versus this card's more generic brother, the GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER 1-Click OC. Note that "GAMER" in the product name. The RTX 260 SUPER 1-Click OC is a dual-fan cooled option with a modest 15Mhz overclock vs. a stock RTX 2060 SUPER. Against the RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC though, it appears to be the same card but looking at it from a numbers perspective in our charts as well as the chart above which shows us a head-to-head view of both cards under 4K load, we see that the RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC has a temperature and performance difference. The Gamer card has the advantage if terms of clock speeds which in turn results in a slight increase in average performance but due to the usage of 80mm fans, GALAX has tuned cooling to a more relaxed fan speed to reduce noise. This is what I assume is the reason this card consumes a bit less power although its RGB closes that gap pretty quickly. With that data in mind, the GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC by default is not the better cooled card and despite its triple fan, gamers who may assume such is the case need to be informed that you might need a custom fan curve to effectively take advantage of the triple fan cooling. Still, this card performs better than its reference brother and adds a few reason why its definitely a more worthy buy. So in closing, the slight OC and RGB does give this card a slight advantage over its reference brother or even the EXOC series from GALAX. The only drawback is that out of the box, the fans of the RTX 206 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC could've been a bit better tuned. Still, its an effective card and if you're vertically mounting the card, it's definitely a looker. A good combination of price, performance and aesthetics, the GALAX RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC is something I can easily recommend for those looking a midrange gaming card, especially for esports titles like Valorant or CSGO. GALAX backs the RTX 2060 SUPER Gamer 1-Click OC with a 3-year warranty. I give it a B2G Recommend Seal! [letsreview]