Why You Can Trust CNET RTX 2080 graphics deals: Asus gaming laptop and MSI desktop on sale at Newegg
Plus, an RTX 2060-based gaming laptop is discounted for budget buyers.
Nvidia announced its new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3000-series graphics cards earlier in September that promise to be better, faster, stronger than its current stable of RTX 2000-series GPUs. The new cards and gaming PCs with the new cards won't begin rolling out until later this fall, which means you'll need to exercise patience if you're looking to upgrade your current gaming rig. If you're on a budget or don't want to wait, however, then now is a good time to pick up a new gaming laptop or desktop with a 2000-series GPU at a discount.
Read more: Best graphics card for gamers and creatives in 2020
Newegg has a number of laptops and desktop PCs marked down. I found three that are attractive, starting with an RTX 2080-based laptop from Asus that's almost half price. There's also a gaming desktop from MSI with RTX 2080 graphics that's discounted by $350 and a MSI laptop with RTX 2060 graphics that's currently priced $100 lower than its already low price. Let's jump into the deals.
The Asus ROG Zephyrus is the company's thinnest, most compact gaming laptop. Despite its trim dimensions, which pack a 15.6-inch display into a 14-inch chassis, the ROG Zephyrus does not sacrifice performance. This model boasts Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics along with an eighth-gen, six-core Intel Core i7-8750H CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. The 15.6-inch display features a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution and a speedy 144Hz refresh rate, and the keyboard offers some bling in the form of four-zone RGB backlighting.
This matte black tower features GeForce RTX 2080 graphics and the ninth-gen, eight-core Intel Core i7-9700F CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD and a 650-watt power supply. The RTX 2080 GPU will last you a while -- definitely until the prices start coming down on the new RTX 3080 and 3090 cards.
The GeForce RTX 2060 is the budget card in Nvidia's RTX lineup and is the cheapest route to real-time ray tracing, which reproduces how light behaves in the real world to give games a more photorealistic look. This MSI laptop features a 15.6-inch display with a 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution and 120Hz refresh rate powered by a ninth-gen Intel Core i5-9300H CPU, 8GB of RAM and the aforementioned GeForce RTX 2060 GPU. For storage, it supplies a 512GB SSD. It's $100 less than the RTX 2060-based Gateway laptop at Walmart. The only difference is that the MSI uses an older Core i5 processor and offers half the memory but twice the storage capacity.
