Do not buy the 2060 KO/ KO Ultra..

[Deleted member 193596]

so i just bought a 2060 KO because i was interested in the TU 104 crippled down to a TU 106 like die.

it sounds great first.. a 2060 for 299€? it is from EVGA and has a good looking cooler too!


but then reality hits.
Fans are at 2500 RPM at almost 61DB (cheap sound meter from Amazon infront of the open Case NZXT H710 without dust filters), the Card runs at 84°C and throttled from 1850 to ~ 1790 Mhz after an hour of playing world of warcraft in 1440p ultra..
opening the case does not help either (it drops down to 82°C...)

so i thought let's don't give up and open the card and repaste it.

4 screws later...

the whole die and heatsink was drowned in thermal paste (like literally a whole NT H1 tube you get with a NH D15)
the thermal paste was as thick as a camera bump on the new iPhone and it was oily and sticky.

removed it, put a reasonable amount of NT H1 on it and tried it again.
81°C and the fans are still like a leafblower... (if it could talk to me i'd bet it says "please kill me"...)

if you are actually planning to buy it with the intention of getting a decent deal (i mean it is actually very cheap for what you get)...
just don't.. really. it is the worst and loudest Card i've ever owned.


PS:
Overclocking/Undervolting.
+90 on the Core (up to 2040 Mhz when under light load but still heavily dropping due to missing power limit options)
+750 on the Memory (FPS drops after going above +800)

the only way to have the card not as loud that i don't want to be in the same room is at 925mv at 1800ish Mhz with around 73°C at 75% Fan Speed.

 

[John Naylor]

We wrote off EVGA a long time ago ... 1st was the 20 support calls over 20 month including 5 RMAs for a card that simply wouldn't run at advertised speeds ... then came:

The 570 SCs with burning CRMs
The 970 SC where 1/3 of the heat sink missed the GPU
The burnt up VRMs, missing thermal pads on the 1060 - 1080

Looking st TPUs test results of AIB cards, the top dog in recent years has mostly gone to MSI and EVGA is usually at the bottom of the list... Ranked by highest fps when overclocked in TPU testing

2080 Ti Card
MSI Lightning Z
MSI Gaming X Trio
EVGA FTW
Asus Strix OC
Zotac Amp
MSI Duke
EVGA X Ultra
Founder's
Reference

2080
MSI Gaming X Trio
Zotac AMP Extreme
Asus Strix OC
Gigabyte Gaming OC
Palit Gaming Pro OC
Palit Super Jet Stream
Nvidia FE
Reference

2070
Zotac AMP Extreme
MSI Gaming Z
PalitGameRock
Asus Strix
Nvidia 2070 FE
EVGA Black

 

[Hemmingstamp]

We wrote off EVGA a long time ago ... 1st was the 20 support calls over 20 month including 5 RMAs for a card that simply wouldn't run at advertised speeds ... then came:

Jeeez, my dreams are shattered after hearing only nice things about their support in the past. That's why (Until RTX) they were my go-to choice for hardware.

 

[milewski1015]

Maybe you just got a bad card, which is what it sounds like given your report on the thermal paste situation. Although, GN did report that EVGA did just take the cooler from the 1660, threw it on the card, and then just restricted the power limit. I feel like the only reason you should be buying one of these is if you're looking for cheap 2070 Super performance in workstation applications like Blender, SolidWorks, etc. Otherwise you're probably better off paying a couple bucks more for a 2060 with a different cooler.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

I feel like the only reason you should be buying one of these is if you're looking for cheap 2070 Super performance

I was looking at one of these for F@H. Now the only way I'd buy one is if I can get it cheap enough to justify an aftermarket cooler as well.

Oh, there's one of these on my local CL.

 

[davidm71]

I still think EVGA is a good company. Last year when I fried an old 980 ti card because my waterblock install wasn't great they replaced the card for me under warranty on the last day of warranty. What a company! Own a Sapphire 5700 XT card and that sounds like a jet engine. Forced to run it on its 'Silent' profile to have piece of mind.

 

[Deleted member 194470]

I think the 2060 ko is a gimmick card. It's not a true nvidia design so I would expect problems. I have evga and its pretty good and good customer service.

 

[Hardcore Games]

Avoid the KO which are stripped down versions. I have a full fat EVGA RTX 2080 and it runs great.

 

[Vario]

Try a different heatsink. For example, I have an Arctic Mono Plus I use on a 1060 and under load it sits between 50C to 60C. You'd be surprised how effective the Arctic heatsinks are despite looking rather plain or even undersized.

 

[Mussels]

I had EVGA 970s in SLI that had massive coil whine, and i've never touched the brand since.

 

[Vayra86]

Have mediocre experiences with EVGA as well. Missing thermal pads resulting in failing GPUs, several oopsies in cooler designs over the last few generations, and I'm missing the actual pros to offset all those cons.

They do have a religious cult following on the forums though. Great service and warranty. But isn't the point that you don't want to use it?

 

[Arkz]

Try a different heatsink. For example, I have an Arctic Mono Plus I use on a 1060 and under load it sits between 50C to 60C. You'd be surprised how effective the Arctic heatsinks are despite looking rather plain or even undersized.

Shouldn't have to replace the heatsink on a card to get it to work properly at it's advertised specs.

 

[kiriakost]

Otherwise you're probably better off paying a couple bucks more for a 2060 with a different cooler.

It is a fact that these days we actually buying mostly the quality cooling system than the card it self.
But the young people they do not have the necessary experiences so to remove the poor apples from their list of choices.