The Palit GeForce RTX 2060 Gaming Pro OC comes with the largest out of the box overclock currently available for the RTX 2060. The rated boost frequency is 1830 MHz, which is 150 MHz higher than the NVIDIA Founders Edition. With these clocks, the card runs at 1964 MHz on average (FE averages 1865 MHz). Unfortunately, the memory isn't overclocked even though the chips could certainly take it, as our manual overclocking section shows. Out of the box, at 1440p, the card is 4% faster than the Founders Edition, which is not a whole lot. Compared to the GTX 1060, the performance increase is a staggering 60%, but you have to consider the much higher price point of the RTX 2060. Compared to AMD's fastest, the RX Vega 64, the Gaming Pro OC is 5% faster with better power/heat/noise at the same time. The GeForce RTX 2060 is an excellent choice for 1440p gaming at full details, or 1080p if you want to drive a high-refresh-rate monitor.

Just like all other Turing-based cards, the Palit Gaming Pro will sit in its board power limit all the time during gaming, which is NVIDIA's new way of dialing in the most efficient operating point for this generation of cards. Palit did increase their board power limit to 190 W, which unlocks additional performance but comes at the cost of power efficiency. With 180 W in gaming, power draw is 15 W higher than the Founders Edition, but that's not unexpected for a factory overclocked card, and the difference is relatively small anyway. Compared to AMD's offerings, the RTX 2060 is more than 50% more power efficient with better performance at the same time. Manual overclockers will be able to max out the power delivery of the 8-pin power input because Palit's card is the only one so far that lets you set the 225 W power limit.

Just like the Founders Edition, the Palit RTX 2060 Gaming Pro OC does not include the fan-stop feature that completely turns off the card's fans in idle and light gaming for a perfect noise-free experience. With 27 dBA in idle, the fans are pretty much inaudible and slightly quieter than the Founders Edition—whisper quiet. Gaming noise levels reach 36 dBA, which is noticeably higher than the Founders Edition, but temperatures are the best we've seen on any RTX 2060 so far with only 68°C. The foundation for that is Palit's thermal solution which comes with four heatpipes, making it the strongest we've reviewed so far. If only the fan settings were a bit more balanced to match FE noise levels with better temperatures, which seems possible.

Manual overclocking was slightly held back by the card's memory chips. While GPU OC potential was the best we've seen so far, memory ended up a bit lower, which is because Palit uses Micron memory chips. The NVIDIA Founders Edition and Zotac AMP both use Samsung memory, which is able to reach higher clocks. Overall, Palit's Gaming Pro OC is the best overclocker so far, but the differences are in the single digit percentage range when real-life performance is considered, which makes it relevant to hardcore overclockers only.

A unique feature of NVIDIA's GeForce RTX Series is support for ray tracing and DLSS. RTX Technology adds real-time ray-tracing capability in games that support it, while DLSS is a new form of AI-accelerated anti-aliasing that improves performance while still maintaining visual quality that's comparable to other anti-aliasing methods. The adoption rate for both technologies has been much slower than expected, but a lot of developers have pledged support, so these features might actually matter in the coming months. For a few years, AMD has offered support for VESA Adaptive Sync with their cards, while NVIDIA's G-SYNC monitors came with a substantial price increase—this has been addressed now and all NVIDIA cards support Adaptive Sync.

According to Palit, their RTX 2060 Gaming Pro OC will retail for $359, which is a small $10 increase over the Founders Edition, or 2.9%. In return, you get 4% higher performance out of the box, which alone justifies the increased cost. On top of that, you get slightly reduced noise levels, but no USB-C VirtualLink connectivity, and the second DisplayPort has been removed. NVIDIA's Founders Edition also comes with amazing looks and a backplate. NVIDIA recently announced a game bundle with the RTX 2060 which lets you pick either Anthem or Battlefield V with a qualifying purchase of the RTX 2060, which will certainly help offset the cost of the card. Compared to AMD's Vega lineup, the Palit RTX 2060 is a definite winner. It is cheaper, more compact, runs faster, quieter, and uses less power—it also offers RTX and DLSS technology.