No pressure. The DOTA 2 International Tournament 2019 opens in August at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai. The stakes – at $25 million and growing, already twice that of golf’s Masters Tournament – are huge.

And once again, NVIDIA will provide unshakeable reliability and unmatched performance. The tournament will feature GeForce RTX 2080 graphics cards and 240Hz G-Sync monitors.

18 Squads Fight for Championship, Record Prize Pool

TI9’s pool – funded by Valve, which has chipped in $1.6 million, and DOTA players worldwide – is expected to ultimately reach $30 million, exceeding the record of $25 million of TI8.

That pool has attracted the world’s top teams. Twelve already qualify for TI9 through points from events all over the world. Another six will qualify through regionals in China, Southeast Asia, North and South America, Russia and Europe Aug. 15-18.

The final battle begins Aug. 20.

GeForce is the Platform of Choice for Esports

The spectacle promises to be another high point in our decades-long investment in esports.

Pro players and tournament organizers worldwide recognize GeForce GPUs as best in class. And this year’s event reflects the gaming community’s embrace of our Turing GPU architecture.

Launched last August, the Turing-based GeForce RTX 20 series has become the standard for top tournaments.

Maximizing the number of frames-per-second can be the difference between victory and defeat. That’s why more than 95 percent of pro gamers choose GeForce.

And our G-SYNC monitors provides a 240Hz refresh rate and low latency. The result: ultra-fast game response and a stable gaming environment. No delays, dropping frames or image tearing.

China’s First GeForce Boot Camp in Shanghai

Besides hardware support for teams and TI events, NVIDIA also offers GeForce Esports boot camps for our sponsored teams.

To expand those efforts, we’re launching the Shanghai GeForce Esports Studio ahead of TI9. Our Shanghai studio joins GeForce Esports studios in Santa Clara, Calif., and Munich.

Squads from the GeForce Esports family attending TI9 will boot camp in the new Shanghai studio. They’ll practice on the same platform – GeForce RTX and G-SYNC – featured at The International.

So who will come out on top? You’ll need to tune in.

Featured image, credit: Franck Michel, Creative Commons license