The PC gaming ray tracing obsession began with the first RTX 20 graphics cards released on this day in 2018 — the GeForce RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti led the charge, but games were thin on the ground
Nvidia’s Turing GPU became available to enthusiasts for the first time on this day eight years ago.
On this day in 2018, Nvidia unveiled its Turing GPUs, marking a significant milestone for PC gaming. These GPUs, specifically the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti, heralded a new era of gaming with real-time ray tracing, a technology that Nvidia claimed would bring realism to gaming that was previously thought to be a decade away.
Despite Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's enthusiasm, it became clear that many gamers were not particularly interested in ray tracing, and the performance impact of enabling this feature was often too great for mainstream gaming. At the time of launch, there were few games that showcased the capabilities of the RTX 20 series, with early showcases like Battlefield V, Metro Exodus, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider proving to be more a testament to pixel peeping than showcasing the new technology's true potential.
The RTX 2080 Founders Edition, Nvidia's premium offering, was priced at $799, but could sometimes be found cheaper from third-party manufacturers. However, the company's premium pricing strategy meant that even its flagship card, the RTX 2080 Ti, was priced at $1200, a price tag that many gamers considered to be out of reach. Despite the initial lack of compelling content, it is now evident that ray tracing has become more popular, with even consoles and mobile games adopting the technology.
However, its widespread adoption has been slow, and it has taken additional technologies like Nvidia's DLSS to make ray tracing more accessible for mainstream gamers, even in 2026.
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