[Manuel Calavera]

RTX 2070 Has Two Faces?

So what about the RTX 2070? Well, there are two of them it turns out. Both are essentially the same TU106 at heart, but binned differently. The TU106-400A and the TU106-400 with the A at the end carry all the same specifications except the base and boost frequency. The TU106-400A is the better binned die that NVIDIA sells to the AIB partner card makers for their more premium versions of the cards while the TU106-400 is the die that you’ll find under those few ‘budget friendly’ $500 versions of the RTX 2070.
Paul of Paul’s Hardware found that he was able to get his TU106-400 chip to perform quite well showing the value that could be had by overclockers who would rather play the lottery than buy the better binned chips, give his video a watch as it’s really well done and just generally fun to watch over here.
Meanwhile Steve over at Gamers Nexus found there’s quite a large delta between the TU106-400A and the lower binned TU106-400. They used the $500 EVGA RTX 2070 Black and the same EVGA RTX 2070 XC Ultra to show the differences and I urge you to read or watch their coverage of these two cards to see just how different two RTX 2070s can be.
Long and short of it really is that these are two very different performing chips under the same name, enough so that it would be beneficial to the end user and buyer to know which chip they are buying. But, there is the flip side argument that you know by buying a better version of the card you’re also getting a better binned chip. Thankfully in either instance you’re still getting the guaranteed clock rate listed on the package of the card you bought, so as with all things the silicon lottery still exists.