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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh: Overview and Capabilities Analysis in 2025

Introduction

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh is an updated version of the popular mobile GPU, maintaining a balance between performance and price. Despite the emergence of new generations of graphics cards, this model remains relevant for mid-range laptops. In this article, we will examine its features, strengths and weaknesses, and determine who it is suitable for in 2025.

1. Architecture and Key Features

Turing Architecture: A Proven Foundation

The RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh is built on the Turing architecture, which debuted in 2018. However, NVIDIA optimized the chip for mobile devices, enhancing energy efficiency. The manufacturing process is 12 nm (TSMC), allowing for reduced heat output without sacrificing power.

Unique Features

- RTX (Ray Tracing): Support for real-time ray tracing, albeit with a limited number of ray tracing cores (30).

- DLSS 2.5: A machine learning algorithm that boosts FPS in games with minimal loss of quality. As of 2025, the list of supported titles exceeds 200.

- NVIDIA Reflex: Reduces input lag in competitive games such as Valorant or Apex Legends.

- FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR): Compatibility with AMD's technology, expanding the list of games with improved scaling.

2. Memory: Speed and Impact on Performance

GDDR6: A Proven Standard

The card is equipped with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory (an upgrade from the original version with 6 GB). The bus is 192-bit, with a bandwidth of 336 GB/s (14 Gbps × 192 / 8).

Practical Advantages

- 8 GB: Sufficient for gaming at 1440p with high texture settings.

- Smooth VR Performance: Supports headsets like the Oculus Quest 3 without drops in performance.

- Buffer for Professional Tasks: Rendering in Blender or DaVinci Resolve is more stable than on models with 6 GB.

3. Gaming Performance: FPS and Resolutions

1080p: The Perfect Balance

- Cyberpunk 2077 (Ultra, RTX Off, DLSS Quality): 65-70 FPS.

- Hogwarts Legacy (High, RTX Medium, FSR 2.0): 55-60 FPS.

- Call of Duty: Warzone 2 (Ultra, DLSS Balanced): 90-100 FPS.

1440p: Acceptable for Most Games

The average FPS drops by 20-30%, but with DLSS/FSR, smoothness is maintained. For example, Elden Ring (High, FSR Quality) delivers 45-50 FPS.

4K: Only for Less Demanding Titles

In CS2 or Rocket League, the card manages 60 FPS on medium settings. However, for AAA games of 2025 (e.g., GTA VI), 4K is unfeasible without serious compromises.

Ray Tracing: The Price of Beauty

Activating RTX reduces FPS by 35-50%. For example, in Cyberpunk 2077 with Ultra RTX, the FPS drops to 30-35, but DLSS Balanced boosts it to 45-50 FPS.

4. Professional Tasks: Not Just Gaming

CUDA and OpenCL: Power for Work

- Video Editing: In Adobe Premiere Pro, rendering a 4K clip takes 20% less time compared to the GTX 1660 Ti.

- 3D Modeling: In Blender, the BMW test (Cycles) completes in 8.5 minutes versus 12 minutes on the RTX 3050 Mobile.

- Scientific Computing: CUDA support speeds up tasks in MATLAB or Python (30% faster than AMD RX 6600M).

Driver Optimization

NVIDIA Studio Drivers ensure stability in professional applications. However, for some OpenCL tasks, AMD Radeon may offer better optimization.

5. Power Consumption and Heat Output

TDP and Recommendations

- TDP: 90W (10W higher than the original RTX 2060 Mobile).

- Cooling: Requires a system with 2-3 heat pipes and quality fans. In ASUS ROG or Lenovo Legion laptops, thermal modes are stable (75-80°C under load).

- Tips: Use cooling pads like the Cooler Master Notepal X3. Avoid long loads on your lap—this disrupts ventilation.

6. Comparison with Competitors

NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti Mobile:

- Pros: Newer Ampere chip, supports PCIe 4.0.

- Cons: Only 4 GB of GDDR6. In ray tracing games, it lags by 15-20%.

AMD Radeon RX 6600M:

- Pros: 8 GB of GDDR6, better power consumption (80W).

- Cons: Poor ray tracing support, FSR lags behind DLSS in quality.

Intel Arc A770M:

- Pros: 16 GB of GDDR6, excellent performance in Vulkan games.

- Cons: Drivers are still unstable for DirectX 12.

7. Practical Tips

Power Supply: Laptops with the RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh require a PSU of 180-230W. Check compatibility with your model.

Platform Compatibility:

- Thunderbolt 4: Connect external 4K/120Hz monitors.

- NVIDIA Optimus: Automatic switching between integrated and discrete graphics for power saving.

Drivers:

- Regularly update via GeForce Experience.

- For professional tasks, use Studio Drivers.

8. Pros and Cons

Pros:

- Supports DLSS 2.5 and RTX for games with "flair."

- 8 GB of GDDR6 is adequate for most tasks.

- Optimized for professional applications.

Cons:

- TDP of 90W requires good cooling.

- Limited in 4K even with DLSS.

- Turing architecture lags behind Ampere in energy efficiency.

9. Final Conclusion: Who Should Consider the RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh?

This graphics card is a choice for those seeking a balance between price and performance:

- Gamers: Ideal for 1080p/1440p with high settings and RTX.

- Students and Professionals: Powerful for editing, 3D design, and programming.

- Laptop Owners: Models with the RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh cost $800-1100, which is cheaper than similar models with RTX 3060.

If you are not chasing 4K or ultra-settings in the latest AAA games, the RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh will remain a reliable option even in 2025.

Basic

Label Name

NVIDIA

Platform

Mobile

Launch Date

January 2019

Model Name

GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh

Generation

GeForce 20 Mobile

Base Clock

1005MHz

Boost Clock

1560MHz

Bus Interface

PCIe 3.0 x16

Transistors

10,800 million

RT Cores

Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores are specialized processing units designed specifically for deep learning, providing higher training and inference performance compared to FP32 training. They enable rapid computations in areas such as computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, text-to-speech conversion, and personalized recommendations. The two most notable applications of Tensor Cores are DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) and AI Denoiser for noise reduction.

240

TMUs

Texture Mapping Units (TMUs) serve as components of the GPU, which are capable of rotating, scaling, and distorting binary images, and then placing them as textures onto any plane of a given 3D model. This process is called texture mapping.

120

Foundry

TSMC

Process Size

12 nm

Architecture

Turing

Memory Specifications

Memory Size

6GB

Memory Type

GDDR6

Memory Bus

The memory bus width refers to the number of bits of data that the video memory can transfer within a single clock cycle. The larger the bus width, the greater the amount of data that can be transmitted instantaneously, making it one of the crucial parameters of video memory. The memory bandwidth is calculated as: Memory Bandwidth = Memory Frequency x Memory Bus Width / 8. Therefore, when the memory frequencies are similar, the memory bus width will determine the size of the memory bandwidth.

192bit

Memory Clock

1375MHz

Bandwidth

Memory bandwidth refers to the data transfer rate between the graphics chip and the video memory. It is measured in bytes per second, and the formula to calculate it is: memory bandwidth = working frequency × memory bus width / 8 bits.

264.0 GB/s

Theoretical Performance

Pixel Rate

Pixel fill rate refers to the number of pixels a graphics processing unit (GPU) can render per second, measured in MPixels/s (million pixels per second) or GPixels/s (billion pixels per second). It is the most commonly used metric to evaluate the pixel processing performance of a graphics card.

74.88 GPixel/s

Texture Rate

Texture fill rate refers to the number of texture map elements (texels) that a GPU can map to pixels in a single second.

187.2 GTexel/s

FP16 (half)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy.

11.98 TFLOPS

FP64 (double)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy, while single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

187.2 GFLOPS

FP32 (float)

An important metric for measuring GPU performance is floating-point computing capability. Single-precision floating-point numbers (32-bit) are used for common multimedia and graphics processing tasks, while double-precision floating-point numbers (64-bit) are required for scientific computing that demands a wide numeric range and high accuracy. Half-precision floating-point numbers (16-bit) are used for applications like machine learning, where lower precision is acceptable.

6.11 TFLOPS

Miscellaneous

SM Count

Multiple Streaming Processors (SPs), along with other resources, form a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM), which is also referred to as a GPU's major core. These additional resources include components such as warp schedulers, registers, and shared memory. The SM can be considered the heart of the GPU, similar to a CPU core, with registers and shared memory being scarce resources within the SM.

Shading Units

The most fundamental processing unit is the Streaming Processor (SP), where specific instructions and tasks are executed. GPUs perform parallel computing, which means multiple SPs work simultaneously to process tasks.

1920

L1 Cache

64 KB (per SM)

L2 Cache

3MB

TDP

65W

Vulkan Version

Vulkan is a cross-platform graphics and compute API by Khronos Group, offering high performance and low CPU overhead. It lets developers control the GPU directly, reduces rendering overhead, and supports multi-threading and multi-core processors.

1.3

OpenCL Version

3.0

OpenGL

4.6

DirectX

12 Ultimate (12_2)

CUDA

7.5

Power Connectors

None

Shader Model

6.6

ROPs

The Raster Operations Pipeline (ROPs) is primarily responsible for handling lighting and reflection calculations in games, as well as managing effects like anti-aliasing (AA), high resolution, smoke, and fire. The more demanding the anti-aliasing and lighting effects in a game, the higher the performance requirements for the ROPs; otherwise, it may result in a sharp drop in frame rate.

Benchmarks

FP32 (float)

Score

6.11 TFLOPS

3DMark Time Spy

Score

6165

Compared to Other GPU

FP32 (float) / TFLOPS

GeForce GTX 1070

6.592 +7.9%

GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile

6.503 +6.4%

GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh

6.11

Radeon Pro WX 7100 Mobile

5.843 -4.4%

Radeon Pro 580

5.641 -7.7%

3DMark Time Spy

Arc A770M

10469 +69.8%

GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Mobile

8211 +33.2%

GeForce RTX 2060 Mobile Refresh

6165

Radeon R9 Nano

4543 -26.3%

Radeon Pro W5500M

3419 -44.5%