Ray tracing is one of the most talked about technologies in gaming right now. It promises more lifelike lighting, reflections, and shadows in games that support it, delivering a much more realistic visual experience. And while Nvidia graphics cards that support the cutting-edge technology usually cost an arm and a leg, today you can snag one at a stellar price. Amazon is selling the EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming for $290. That’s $60 below its more recent price of $350. This card has been at this price for a few weeks—since around the time AMD’s excellent $350 Radeon RX 5700 launched, coincidentally enough—but it’s not clear how much longer this deal will be available.
In addition to the card, you get two free games that support ray tracing: Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Control. If you’re still not clear what ray tracing aims to do, think about how lighting works in the real world. It bounces off highly reflective surfaces, transforms when it passes through liquid, and creates shadows all over the place. Ray tracing helps bring these kinds of effects to a game in way that wasn’t possible before. The end result is more vivid and realistic scenes.
As for the GeForce RTX 2060, you can expect great performance at 1440p and 1080p resolutions. It’s not really a 4K card. For that, you’d want at least the $500 RTX 2070 Super.
While this short EVGA model uses a single fan design, it’s thicker than the average graphics card, meaning you’ll need a little extra clearance if you’re slapping this into a tight space.