The video card GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which appeared on the market not so long ago, is in steady demand. Although it did not provide a revolutionary leap in performance in its class, it offered a good combination of price and performance parameters, "pulling" the absolute majority of modern games at maximum settings.
While researching this video card, I noticed the original Ti suffix in the name. It indicates that the video card belongs to the performance Titanium series, but has not been used to designate NVIDIA products since the GeForce 4000 series (2003)! I noted its use simply as a kind of "hello from the past", a kind of "return to the roots." In fact, everything turned out to be more prosaic - in the current generation, the entire NVIDIA naming system has slightly changed.
Officially, this is not regulated in any way, but once the GTX prefix was considered to belong to the most powerful video cards: the top model and its "lightweight" version. This time it was substantially "democratized" - now even the modest GeForce 550 (the fifth most senior video card in the manufacturer's model line at the time of release) - and that one is proudly called GTX. Let's leave these marketing "pranks" on the conscience of NVIDIA specialists - it is more pleasant for a buyer to purchase an accelerator of the older series, even if it has a modest digital index.
The second change is the use of the same Ti suffix. The company decided to take this step so as not to produce a bunch of digital designations for video cards of similar performance (remember how price lists grew in due time with the advent of any GTX 275 or GTX 465, produced to "plug the holes" of the model line?). The calculation was also made on the psychology of the buyer - first, a full-fledged video card with the designation Ti is introduced to the market (so far there are two of them - GTX 560 Ti and GTX 550 Ti), and a little later a stripped-down version without a corresponding suffix.
I think that many will be tempted to see on sale "almost the same, but cheaper", and some buyers will not pay attention to the insignificant difference in the name at all.
In general, there is solid marketing all around. Meanwhile, the first video card "without titanium impurities" - GeForce GTX 560, has already visited the laboratory; below is a detailed research report for this product. I wonder if this accelerator will be able to compete with the older model, offering an advantageous price / performance ratio, or, on the contrary, will turn out to be a weak "cut-off" that got its big name by mistake. Let's figure it out, starting with the study of the architecture of the novelty, because it is from these data that it is easiest to understand how different the two "five hundred and sixties" are.
Architecture, cost and market position
This time, I will not go into all the details of the architecture features, so as not to tire readers, because the GF104 and GF114 graphics processors and video cards based on them (GTX 460, GTX 560 Ti) have already been studied far and wide. The novelty has a lot in common with both "sixties" GeForce - the current and the previous generation. The easiest way is to present the data in the form of a table, which will provide information on all video cards using graphics processors GF104 / 114, as well as the main characteristics of the GeForce GTX 550 Ti accelerator, which is one step below the new product in the model range and will also be used in tests.
| Graphics card model | GeForce GTX 550 Ti | GeForce GTX 460 (768/1024 MB) | GeForce GTX 560 | GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
| release date | 15 March 2011 | 12 July 2010 | May 17, 2011 | January 25, 2011 |
| GPU | GF116 | GF104 | GF114 | GF114 |
| Technological process, nm | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Number of transistors, million pieces | 1170 | ~1950 | ~1950 | ~1950 |
| Crystal area, mm 2 | 238 | 367 | 367 | 367 |
| Number of streaming multiprocessors | 4 | 7 | 7 | 8 |
| Number of scalar processors | 192 | 336 | 336 | 384 |
| Number of ROP units | 24 | 24/32 | 32 | 32 |
| Number of texture units | 32 | 56 | 56 | 64 |
| Core clock frequency, MHz | 900 | 675 | 810 | 822 |
| Shader domain clock frequency, MHz | 1800 | 1350 | 1620 | 1644 |
| Memory type used | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Memory bus width, bit | 192 | 192/256 | 256 | 256 |
| Effective video memory frequency, MHz | 4104 | 3600 | 4008 | 4008 |
| Memory bandwidth, GB / s | 98,6 | 86,4/115,2 | 128,3 | 128,3 |
| The amount of video memory, MB * | 1024 | 768/1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| TDP, W | 116 | 150/160 | 160** | 170 |
| Recommended cost, USD *** | 149 | 199/229 | 199 | 249 |
*
For most video cards, there are also "non-reference" versions with double the video memory.
**
Preliminary data.
***
At the time of release.
Readers tracking the evolution of GeForce graphics cards are enough of these numbers to understand what's what. Everything is simple here. When releasing a full-fledged version of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, NVIDIA did not "reinvent the wheel", but used the design reserves of the GF104 (GeForce GTX 460) graphics processor, laid down in the previous generation.
The new GPU GF114 did not offer anything fundamentally new in terms of architecture. 8 stream multiprocessors (which corresponds to 384 single stream processors, or, as the manufacturer calls them, "cores-CUDA" and 64 texture units) have already been implemented in the design of the previous GF104 processor. True, on the GeForce GTX 460 one of the multiprocessors was deactivated (which naturally led to a decrease in the number of stream processors from 384 to 336 units, and texture units from 64 to 56), and on the GeForce GTX 560 Ti it was finally "woken up" completely realizing the potential of the core GF 104/114.
NVIDIA also claims that the GF114 uses an optimized technological process, and minor changes have been made to the core design, which led to a decrease in heat generation and an improvement in overclocking potential. This seems to be true - the processor frequency on the GTX 560 Ti can be raised much more than on the "old" 460s.
So - the key difference: GTX 460 - seven active multiprocessors, GTX 560 Ti - eight active multiprocessors, otherwise these video cards differ only in operating frequencies. I will continue this series: the new GeForce GTX 560 received seven active multiprocessors, which means that in architectural terms, the accelerator completely repeats the GeForce GTX 460 1 GB.
How can we not recall NVIDIA's love for renaming their products. But not everything is so simple: since the GeForce GTX 560 uses the GF114 GPU, and not the old GF104, the video card should retain the good overclocking potential inherent in the older GTX 560 Ti model.
"New" (I think the quotes are appropriate here) is the already familiar GeForce GTX 460 1 GB, but with a new revision of the GPU. Its use allowed us to raise the operating frequency from 675 to 810 MHz (the difference is 20%), which should provide an increase in performance. The video memory on the new video card is also slightly overclocked - up to 1002 (4008) MHz, the same figure for the GeForce GTX 460 is 900 (3600) MHz, the difference reaches ~ 11.3%. If we compare the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and GTX 560, the standard frequencies are extremely close.
The recommended price for the GeForce GTX 560 is $ 199, while the GTX 560 Ti is priced at $ 249. Interestingly, NVIDIA also set the recommended prices for the new product for Russia, so the GTX 560 is recommended to be sold at 6,299 rubles (~ $ 225), and overclocked versions - at 6,699 rubles (~ $ 235). Let's see how these recommendations will be followed.
Graphics card design
The laboratory received the Palit GeForce GTX 560 Sonic Platinum video card. The original NVIDIA video card ("reference") almost completely repeats the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. Considering the close relationship between the GTX 560 and GTX 560 Ti accelerators, this is not surprising (a similar situation occurred when AMD released the Radeon HD 6790 video card, which was presented in the form of the already released Radeon HD 6870 with minor changes). It is also logical that the “no Ti” modification from Palit is also structurally similar to the full-fledged 560 Ti accelerators of the same company.
Thus, in this article, in addition to studying the performance of the GeForce GTX 560 accelerator as such, the design of the original "non-reference" Palit model will be considered. The products of this manufacturer are widely represented in Russian retail, so the data on temperature and noise characteristics should be useful for many buyers of GeForce GTX 560. And, adjusted for the slightly higher heat dissipation of the GPU, they also allow us to judge the operation of the Palit GeForce GTX 560 accelerator, which is similar in design. Ti.
The design of this video card is typical for the products of this company: a textolite with a mask of bright red color, a casing of the cooling system of a "clever" shape and a fan with an orange impeller.
Another characteristic point - the Palit designers are very fond of "cutting" their video cards in length, several times I have come across their printed circuit boards, which are shorter than the standard ones by a couple of centimeters. So the GeForce GTX 560 turned out to be compact - only ~ 188 mm in length (as measured by the PCB). On the whole, this is a positive moment, a small accelerator can be placed in a very compact case, and in a full-fledged "tower" it should interfere less with air flows, slightly improving ventilation.
The thickness of the video card is standard for accelerators of this performance level - "two slots", the height is about 111 mm (this is also a standard).
The rear panel houses three connectors - HDMI, DVI and classic VGA. A good set that allows you to connect all kinds of monitors to the accelerator (including old ones without a digital interface). Of the common ones, the only thing missing here is the Display Port connector.
In the upper part of the rear panel there is a grill for exhausting heated air from the system unit. Unfortunately, the simplest palm test showed that even at maximum fan speeds, a very weak flow passes through the holes.
This problem is generally typical for cooling systems with a fan, in contrast to "turbines", which blow hot air out of the case well. In addition, the Palit video card has a leaky casing with many cutouts.
In the "tail" of the video card, the casing generally rests on miniature "legs":
In the same photo, you can see two six-pin auxiliary power connectors. On such a compact video card, they look like a foreign element, subconsciously you expect to see only one connector. But do not forget that we have a fairly productive middle-class accelerator.
The plastic casing of the cooling system is easy to dismantle together with the fan - just unscrew four screws.
An eleven-blade fan with an impeller diameter of 75 mm is "tightly" attached to the frame. This is not very good - in which case it will be problematic to replace it.
The video card with the cover removed looks like this:
Not a bad idea for "crazy handles": for the sake of interest, the video card can be used without a casing at all, by attaching a large 120 mm fan directly to the radiator. In width, it will fit perfectly, but it will protrude 1.5-2 centimeters beyond the upper edge of the PCB.
The radiator is a simple structure of aluminum fins mounted on two 6 mm heat pipes.
The base is an ordinary rectangular copper plate. The heat pipes are in contact with its back side, at the point of contact they are flattened to increase the contact area. On this video card, the graphics processor is covered with a heat-distributing cover, but the core area of the GF114 is small, so two tubes in the center of the base are enough to cover the most thermally stressed zone. The ends of the pipes go to the edges of the radiator, this is a standard scheme - this way you can more efficiently use the entire area of the fins, using remote areas.
The entire structure is secured with four spring-loaded screws. There are no additional radiators to remove heat from the power switches of the power converter; in addition, these board elements do not fall into the area of direct blowing by the fan. Thermal pastes, as always, in abundance.
The printed circuit board of the video card in question is not particularly complex. In the center is the GPU labeled GF114-325-A1. To the right of it is a five-phase power converter controlled by the NCP5395T controller.
Around the GPU are eight memory chips labeled Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04. This designation indicates an access time of 0.4 ns, which corresponds to an effective frequency of 5000 MHz (the real frequency is 1250 MHz, taking into account QDR GDDR5).
The reverse side of the PCB is of little interest. I will only note that the controller for the power converter of the GPU is taken out here, so that fans of "hardvolt mods" with soldering resistors can easily get to its legs without dismantling the cooling system.
Based on the results of the section, we can conclude that the design of the video card under consideration corresponds to the GeForce GTX 560 class. There are no special engineering refinements here, but a rather complex GPU power converter and a cooling system with heat pipes are used. In general, everything is as it should be.
Test stand
- Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 PRO (BIOS v 1204);
- Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4500 MHz (base frequency 3300 MHz);
- CPU cooling system: Noctua NH-D14 (2 x Scythe Slip Stream SY1225SL12SH; ~ 950-1800 rpm);
- RAM: Corsair TR3X6G1600C7 (DDR3-1600, 7-7-7-20, 2x2 GB, dual-channel mode);
- Video Cards:
- Palit GeForce GTX 560 Sonic Platinum
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti,
- Leadtek GeForce GTX 550 Ti,
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768 MB;
- Hard drive: Western Digital WD1001FALS (1000 GB);
- Power supply unit: Cooler Master Real Power M1000 (1 KW);
- Case: open stand.
Software
- Operating system: Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
- Video Card Drivers: nVidia Display Driver v. 266.66 for GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card, nVidia Display Driver v. 267.59 for GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics card, nVidia Display Driver v. 266.58 for the video card GeForce GTX 460 768 MB, nVidia Display Driver v. 275.20 Beta for the GeForce GTX 560 graphics card.
- Supporting utilities: MSI Afterburner v. 2.2.0 Beta 2, GPU-z v. 0.5.3, FurMark build 1.8.0, OCCT GPU v. 0.7.
The test bench processor operated at a frequency of 4500 MHz. This level of overclocking for the new 32 nm Intel CPUs is not the limit, the 4.5 GHz frequency was chosen as "typical" and achievable for most users of unlocked Sandy Bridge processors.
Testing tools and methodology
To overclock video cards, as well as monitor temperatures and fan speeds, we used the MSI Afterburner v. 2.2.0 Beta 2.
To warm up and check the stability of the video cards during the overclocking process, we used the OCCT GPUw (Error Check mode, 1024 x 768) and FurMark (Stability Test, Extreme burning mode, 1920 x 1200, AA0). The frequencies obtained were additionally checked by running Heaven Benchmark v 2.1 with an extreme level of tessellation and graphics tests from the 3DMark 06 and 3DMark Vantage packages.
To check the temperature regime of video cards in conditions close to everyday ones, Heaven BenchMark v. 2.1 (shader: high, tessellation: normal, AA4x, 1920 x 1200).
Performance in Crysis Warhead was tested using the Framebuffer Benchmarking Tool. In Lost Planet 2, Resident Evil 5, Mafia 2, Dragon Age 2, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Crysis 2, testing was carried out using the FRAPS v. 3.2.3. In other cases, built-in performance measurement tools were used.
The noise level was measured using a Becool BC-8922 digital sound level meter with a measurement error of no more than 0.5 dB. The measurements were carried out from a distance of 1 m. The background noise level in the room was no more than 27 dB. The air temperature in the room was 22-23 degrees.
Overclocking
The video card used for the tests belongs to the Palit Sonic Platinum series. This is an accelerator with "factory" overclocking, and the frequencies of the GPU and memory have been significantly increased. So, the GPU is overclocked from the standard 810 to 900 MHz (the gain is ~ 11.1%). The video memory operates at a frequency of 1050 MHz (an effective frequency of 4200 MHz, taking into account the quadrupling of QDR GDDR5), while the NVIDIA specifications specify the value of 1002 (4008) MHz (~ 5% increase).
I draw your attention to the fact that not all Palit GTX 560 video cards that look like the ones shown in the illustrations belong to the factory overclocked series, there are also ordinary ones operating at the nominal frequencies. On the one hand, their purchase is more profitable, since they ask for additional money for a Sonic or Sonic Platinum sticker, and the site's readers are able to overclock video cards on their own. On the other hand, it is generally accepted that better GPUs can be selected for such accelerators.
I started by lowering the frequencies of the GPU and video memory to the default values set by the manufacturer. Such "downlocking" was needed to test the video card "in its purest form".
I note that the MSI Afterburner v 2.2 beta 2 utility was used to adjust the frequencies and fan rpm. The only thing it cannot do is to adjust the GPU voltage. This is a serious obstacle to successful overclocking, we will have to wait for the next versions that fully support the GeForce GTX 560. We can only hope for the Palit designers, who had to use the increased default voltage value on the factory-overclocked video card.
And they did not fail, the graphics processor was overclocked from 900 to 960 MHz without raising the voltage. The difference of 60 MHz in relation to the nominal does not seem significant, but if we remember that the standard core frequency of the GeForce GTX 560 is only 810 MHz, then a significant increase of 18.5% is obtained.
This is a good option for performance testing. Surely many overclockers will use a video card with a similar core frequency, it is already difficult to go further "in the air"; and even if I had the ability to adjust the voltage, then I would most likely be able to raise the frequency by a couple of tens of MHz without a significant deterioration in temperature and noise characteristics.
Samsung video memory chips were overclocked to 4660 MHz (overclocking is ~ 16.3% in relation to the nominal value). This is not the best, but not a disastrous result either. The increase in frequency led to the expansion of the bandwidth to almost 150 GB / s.
Based on the results of the section, I got the impression that the GeForce GTX 560 overclocks approximately the same as the older model GTX 560 Ti. The difference may be due to slightly lower heat dissipation of the GF114 processor with disabled blocks (this should play into the hands of the younger model). On the other hand, it can be assumed that less successful GPU samples will be used for the production of such video cards, then in the case of overclocking certain GeForce GTX 560 samples, problems may arise.
And still, it is difficult to imagine a sample of such a video card that will not take a frequency of the order of 950 MHz with increasing voltage (this time they did without it, and the Palit designers were probably careful not to set the highest value). This means that this accelerator unconditionally surpasses the operating frequencies of the GeForce GTX 460, which usually overclocks to 800-850 MHz, depending on the success of the instance. An extra 100-150 MHz is what can really make a difference in the performance of these video cards with the same core configuration.
Temperature regime and noise level
To warm up the video card, we traditionally used the Furmark tests (the well-known "donut" that provides extreme load) and Heaven Benchmark (in this case, milder conditions are simulated, close to everyday ones).
First, the video card was tested at standard frequencies of 810/4008 MHz. In general, this test does not make much sense, since a factory-overclocked accelerator is used, and the GPU voltage is unknown. The maximum that can be found out is how much the core temperature will rise during overclocking without increasing the voltage.
Furmark, as always, poses a daunting task for the cooling system.
The temperature is not the highest for a "donut", but the video card is clearly audible - the noise level is ~ 37.9 dB.
After overclocking, the temperature rises by only two degrees:
The fan speed is increased by 5%. In this mode, it is already uncomfortable next to a working video card - the noise level rises to 41.1 dB.
Now the data of the "game" test.
The Palit designers have very precisely tuned the automatic fan speed control. The fact is that 45% of the maximum speed is just that line, after which the video card becomes audible. And here the result is very good - about 33.4 dB, the accelerator barely audible hiss.
After overclocking, the temperature rises slightly, and the fan speed increases by only 2%. Subjectively, this leads to a deterioration in noise characteristics - the hiss begins to turn into a mid-frequency rumble. The sound level meter, however, recorded a figure of 34.1 dB, which is not much.
In addition, I present the results of the same tests at the "native" frequencies set by Palit specialists (900/4200 MHz).
Heaven Benchmark:
The indicators differ little from those obtained on the maximum overclocked card; it is not surprising, because overclocking was carried out without raising the voltage, and 60 MHz increase is not that much.
So, the Palit GeForce GTX 560 video card is not silent - even in the gaming test the accelerator can be “heard with the naked ear”, although you cannot call it particularly loud. On the other hand, Sonic Platinum is a product with serious factory overclocking, and the cooling system copes with its duties with dignity.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Introduction
Back in July of last year, THG editors suggested that nVidia turned off one of the Streaming Multiprocessors on a GeForce GTX 460 with a GF104 GPU to avoid crowding out the GeForce GTX 465 from the market. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a version of this chip with all eight stream processors enabled? We meant that the GeForce GTX 460 has already taken its rightful place among video cards with 336 CUDA cores and 56 texture units. And, of course, a fully functional version of this video chip can challenge the more expensive (and less attractive) GeForce graphics cards. It can also be a threat to the Radeon HD 6800 series graphics cards, which were released three months later.
It makes sense that nVidia did just that. The GeForce GTX 465 has enough competition even without the GF104. However, these video cards are no longer produced. It is also worth recalling that nVidia wants to completely discontinue the production of video cards based on the GF100 processor.
The GeForce GTX 470 is the only graphics card left from the company that uses the original Fermi architecture. It bridged the gap in nVidia's $ 259 line of graphics cards, right between the $ 200 GTX 460 and the $ 349 GTX 570. This is given the starting price of $ 350. It's amazing how healthy competition has a positive effect on us gamblers, isn't it?
nVidia is discontinuing the GF100 less than a year after the first announcement. It is replaced by the GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card. Instead of using the GF104 version of the graphics core, the GTX 560 uses a more advanced chip with improvements in the basic elements, first used in the GeForce GTX 580.
As a result, a GPU with just under two billion transistors (1.95 billion, according to nVidia) matches or even surpasses the performance of the GF100 with three billion transistors found in the GeForce GTX 470 graphics card.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | How to create a faster gaming GPU
As we all know, the GeForce 500 series is almost the same architecture as the 400 series.
The GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570 are built on the GF110, a redesigned GF100 with improved texture filtering, efficient Z-clipping, and transistor-level optimization that boosts performance with equal power consumption.
Likewise, the Geforce GTX 560 Ti graphics card is based on the GF114 processor - a redesigned version of the GF104. Recall that GF104 already includes texture filtering enhancements that were not included in the GF100. That is, the bandwidth of 64-bit FP16 texels is doubled from two per clock to four per clock in each texture unit. The GF104 and GF110 have these capabilities, the GF100 does not. Moreover, nVidia decided not to carry over the Z-clipping improvements to GF114, but instead leave the raster engine unchanged.
Ultimately, the GF114 is functionally identical to the GF104. In fact, nVidia even lists the same number of transistors (1.95 billion) and the GPU is manufactured using the same 40nm TSMC process.
The modified processor runs at higher clock speeds with lower power consumption, resulting in better performance, but it is still an improved version of the GF104. Of course, the main difference is that to create a GTX 460 graphics card, nVidia disables one of the stream processors on the GF104, while in the GeForce GTX 560 Ti it uses an uncropped GF114. Compared to the GTX 460, this means more clocks, more CUDA cores, and, in theory, better geometry performance, thanks to eight polymorphic engines and eight additional texture units. All these factors combine to create a graphics card that not only completely replaces the GeForce GTX 460, but is also fast enough to outshine the GeForce GTX 470.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | These characteristics look familiar.
If you're already familiar with GF104, then this chapter will be like last year's GPU101 tutorial. The GF114 consists of two GPCs (Graphics Processing Clusters), each with four stream processors. As you already know, all eight stream processors are fully included in the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.
 |
GF100 / GF110 SM
 |
GF104 / GF114 SM
Below we will provide a small excerpt from the GeForce GTX 460 review, slightly changing it:
"The GF114 uses 48 CUDA cores on the SM, instead of the 32 cores on the SM as in the GF100. Providing these more complex SMs with information requires higher instruction throughput, so we see another improvement: increasing the dispatcher blocks per SM from two in the GF100. up to four in GF114. In addition, each SM now has eight texture units (instead of four).
Simply put, it is a "wider" GPU than the GF100 and GF110. The result is improved performance over the GF100 in the most popular gaming applications.
 |
GF114 implemented in GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Inside, the chip is also slightly different. The full GF100 offers six GPC-independent ROP raster operations, each capable of outputting eight 32-bit pixels per clock (48 in total). All six partitions are associated with a 64-bit memory bus, which adds up to a 384-bit bus. The GF114 gets a maximum of four partitions, which gives up to 32 pixels per clock and a 256-bit bus. "
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Old suffixes, new cards
Since nVidia has fully included the GF114 GPU, the specifications of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti fully match the GPU. Thanks to 384 CUDA cores, the result is a GPU with great shader performance. 64 texture units appear thanks to 8 wider SMs. There are the same number of them as in the GF110, however, 16 SM is required to maintain the same functionality on the flagship GeForce GTX 580. nVidia is able to provide a GPU clock of 822 MHz, while the CUDA cores run at 1644 MHz (1: 2 ratio is obvious). Just like the 1GB GeForce GTX 460, the GeForce GTX 560 has four ROPs enabled, delivering up to 32 pixels per clock. The four 64-bit buses add up to 256 bits. The video card has 1 GB GDDR 5 video memory with a frequency of 1002 MHz, which gives a bandwidth of 128.3 GB / s.
| GeForce GTX Graphics Cards Specifications | ||||
| GeForce GTX 560 Ti | GeForce GTX 570 | GeForce GTX 460 1 GB | GeForce GTX 470 | |
| Graphics Processing Clusters (GPCs) | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs) | 8 | 15 | 7 | 14 |
| CUDA kernels | 384 | 480 | 336 | 448 |
| Number of texture modules | 64 | 60 | 56 | 56 |
| ROP blocks | 32 | 40 | 32 | 40 |
| GPU frequency, MHz | 822 | 732 | 675 | 607 |
| Shader unit frequency, MHz | 1644 | 1464 | 1350 | 1215 |
| Memory frequency (baud rate) | 1002 MHz (4008 MT / s) | 950 MHz (3800 MT / s) | 900 MHz (3600 MT / s) | 837 MHz (3348 MT / s) |
| Video memory volume GDDR 5, GB | 1 | 1.25 | 1 | 1.25 |
| Video memory bus, bit | 256 | 320 | 256 | 320 |
| Memory bandwidth, GB / s | 128.3 | 152 | 115.2 | 133.9 |
| Texture mapping speed, billion / sec. | 52.6 | 43.9 | 37.8 | 34.0 |
| Technological process (TSMC), nm | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Form Factor | Dual slot | Dual slot | Dual slot | Dual slot |
| External interfaces | 2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI |
2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI |
2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI |
2 x DL-DVI, 1 x mini-HDMI |
| Power consumption, W | 170 | 219 | 160 | 215 |
Externally, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti looks the same as the GeForce GTX 460. Both cards use axial fans to direct airflow to the massive aluminum heatsinks with a copper base. Both cards are dual-slot with the same number of outputs, including two dual-link DVIs and one mini-HDMI port. In addition, both cards require external power and are equipped with a pair of auxiliary six-channel inputs.
 |
However, there are a few differences. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is 23cm long and the GTX 460 is 21cm long. Under the plastic shroud of the GTX 560, one more heatpipe can be seen to allow more heat to be dissipated. There is also a metal plate that covers the memory chips and the graphics card's power circuit. Previously, these components were simply left open.
Of course, we are now talking about reference design. Several third-party GTX 560 graphics cards have already appeared in the laboratory, which do not correspond to the reference version from nVidia. For example, a Gigabyte video card has a length of 24 cm, two fans, 6 + 1 phases of the power supply regulator (versus 3 + 1 in the reference version) and a completely different printed circuit board.
NVIDIA equips its reference model with the same power control circuitry found on the GeForce GTX 580 graphics card. This circuitry prevents overloading the voltage control circuitry. The company says it is up to the graphics card manufacturers to include them in the GeForce GTX 560 Ti or not.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Oh yes, about that Ti ...
Depending on your age, the Ti suffix from NVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti may or may not make sense. The story is that back in 2002, nVidia limited "performance-oriented" graphics cards to the Ti suffix, and "budget" graphics cards to the MX suffix. There were several different models in the GeForce Ti line, most of them based on the NV25 GPU, but we clearly remember that the GeForce 4 Ti 4200 was the leader. If you are okay with a search on the Internet, then you can even find some of our reviews of this 2002 map.
However, nVidia is returning the Ti suffix. When the company asked us what we thought about the name of this card, we were a little taken aback at first. "Nice guys." But if you look more closely, the name makes sense. GF114 is a microcircuit that can control any video card. And instead of starting to fool the consumer with digital indexes (GTX 555, GTX 550, and so on), we assume that soon we will be able to see the GeForce GTX SE, if nVidia presents a less powerful copy of the GF114.
Differentiation by suffix is not as expressive as the already accepted system of calculus. If you remember the days of the GeForce 4, then the less expensive MX series video cards were discontinued due to the fact that they were trailing behind the slowest GeForce 3 video cards in terms of performance. Performance isn't everything these days, there are many basic features to consider. But even now, there is the possibility of confusing the inexperienced person who pays more attention to games than the hardware that he buys.
Luckily, we don't think Nvidia will go for these tricks, but the GeForce GTX 460 and GF104 are still fresh in our minds. Perhaps, just like in July, partner video cards will start to seep into the market with more and more aggressive frequencies (and higher prices). By the time AMD launched its Barts-based GPU, NVidia was having a hard time persuading someone to test the overclocked graphics cards from partners to compare them with AMD's reference cards. Perhaps segmenting the GeForce GTX 560 series more thoroughly won't cause a repeat of this situation, which has caused a lot of negativity inside nVidia.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Tessellation performance
Given the emphasis AMD initially placed on tessellation in DirectX 11, as well as the emphasis that NVidia is giving to tessellation in DirectX 11 now, we wanted to put both manufacturers' graphics cards through the hardest test to assess the architecture's impact on geometry performance. This test was supposed to be the Unigine Heaven Demo, but now that the HAWX 2 gaming test has become available, we decided to switch from an artificial test to it.
When testing nVidia video cards, it was interesting to see how the frame rate changed depending on the number of polymorphic engines in the samples. We found that the capabilities of the Fermi architecture did not necessarily scale linearly, as Nvidia might suggest. This is manifested in the fact that the GTX 570 with the GF110 processor uses fifteen polymorphic engines, the GTX 560 uses eight engines, and the difference when turning tessellation on / off in HAWX 2 is only one percent. Obviously, geometry is not a critical parameter.
The situation with AMD is not much clearer. The Cayman got a second block of tessellation, while Barts gets by with only one, but it still scales better. The only thing that can be argued is that the Cypress architecture offers more with tessellation enabled. A great option for today is the Radeon HD 5870, especially if you can find it at a big discount. But if more developers follow Ubisoft's lead with the geometry-heavy game HAWX 2, more performance will be needed than the geometry-optimized Radeon HD 6000 series graphics cards.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Hardware and tests
| Test bench configuration | |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge) 3.4 GHz, overclocked to 4 GHz (40x100 MHz), LGA 1155, 8 MB L3 cache, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Motherboard | ASUS Maximus IV Extreme (LGA 1155) Intel P67, BIOS 0504 |
| RAM | 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) Kingston DDR3-1333, KHX2000C8D3T1K3 / 6GX @ 8-8-8-24, 1.65V |
| HDD | 160 GB SATA 3Gb / s, Intel SSDSA2M160G2GC |
| Video card | GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1 GB GeForce GTX 570 1.25 GB GeForce GTX 460 1 GB GeForce GTX 470 1.25 GB Radeon HD 6950 2 GB Radeon HD 6870 1 GB Radeon HD 5870 1 GB Radeon HD 4870 X2 2 GB |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master UCP-1000 W |
| Software and drivers | |
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Video card driver | AMD 8.82.2 GeForce Release 266.56 (for GTX 560 Ti) GeForce Release 263.09 (for GTX 570) GeForce Release 260.99 (for GTX 460 and 470) |
| Games | |
| Lost Planet 2 | Highest Quality Settings, No AA / No AF, 4x MSAA / 16x AF, vsync off, 1680x1050 / 1900x1080 / 2560x1600, DirectX 11, Steam version |
| Just Cause 2 | Highest Quality Settings, No AA / 2x AF, 8x AA / 16x AF, vsync off, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, Bokeh filter and GPU water disabled (for nVidia graphics cards), Concrete Jungle Benchmark |
| Metro 2033 | High Quality Settings, AAA / 4x AF, 4x MSAA / 16x AF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, Built-in Benchmark, Steam version |
| F1 2010 | Ultra High Settings, No AA / No AF, 8x AA / No AF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, Steam version, Custom benchmark script, DX11 Rendering |
| Aliens Vs. Predator | Benchmark High Quality Settings, SSAO, No AA / 16xAF, Ultra Quality Settings, 4x MSAA / No AF, vsync off, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600 |
| Battlefield: Bad Company 2 | Custom (Highest) Quality Settings, No AA / No AF, 8x MSAA / 16xAF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, opening cinematic, 145 second sequence, FRAPS |
| 3DMark11 | Performance Default |
| HAWX 2 | Highest Quality Settings, 8x AA, 1920x1200, Retail Version, Built-in Benchmark, Tessellation on / off |
| World of Warcraft: Cataclysm | Ultra Quality Settings, No AA / 16x AF, 8x AA / 16x AF, From Crushblow to The Krazzworks, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, FRAPS, DirectX 9 Rendering |
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Test results
We recently discussed the 3DMark11 benchmark with nVidia over the phone. The company seems to dislike this test because it does not reflect the future development of games, namely the increased use of geometry to improve realism.
Undoubtedly, 3DMark11 focuses on lighting, in particular on one of the DirectX 10 shaders. However, we had a frank conversation with Futuremark, who said that they designed their test with the correct tessellation optimizations. Excessive scene geometry has a significant impact on the visual quality, but can potentially significantly reduce the performance of entry-level and mid-range graphics cards. While the first graphics benchmark in 3DMark does not touch on geometry at all, the second, third and fourth benchmarks include what we consider to be a reasonable amount of tessellation - that is, there is no scene with such large triangles where we would think: "Oh! A little geometry could be added here."
Of course, nVidia claims that such a synthetic benchmark focuses on future games, not the ones released today. However, Futuremark claims that game developers will not increase the complexity of scenes for the sake of complexity.
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According to Futuremark, 3DMark11 contains enough geometry to increase realism
In the end, it is more important how 3DMark11 accurately reflects most real-world games. When you look at the benchmark results based on games with DirectX 11 (everything we tested today, with the exception of World of Warcraft, is based on DirectX11), you will notice that in fact 3DMark11, for some reason, is not always good. copes. The most noticeable difference is between the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and the Radeon HD 6870. In this test, the AMD video card outperforms nVidia, but in all cases with real games (with the exception of F1 2010 - more on that later) nVidia takes the lead. The GTX 470 also gives a disproportionately low result compared to the Radeon HD 6870. It is interesting to note that even in AMD's own lineup, the Radeon HD 5870 outperforms the Radeon HD 6950 in many tests, although 3DMark11, on the contrary, shows a significant lead.
Perhaps 3DMark11 represents the future more than nVidia thinks, if the dual tessellation engine helped the HD 6950 get so far ahead of the HD 5870. Or maybe AMD's reliance on DirectX 10 lighting shaders only underscores the high performance of DX10, while nVidia, perhaps offers a more forward-looking architecture for the future. In any case, do not base your buying decision on synthetic test results alone. The folks at Futurmark have gone to great lengths to eliminate the influence of AMD / nVidia's game development policies, but this in turn leads to different results in synthetic tests and in real games.
Metro 2033 (DX11)
At 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, the GeForce GTX 570 and the Radeon HD 6950 2 GB stand out, especially with anti-aliasing enabled. Anti-aliasing is hardly necessary on less powerful video cards, as Metro 2033 is one of the more demanding games we used in our testing.
Surprisingly, the Radeon HD 5870 confidently takes third place in all three tests, proving that the previous generation of AMD cards is still competitive, more than a year after its release.
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti sits in the middle, beating the Radeon HD 6870 without anti-aliasing, losing a little at two resolutions with anti-aliasing, and then beating AMD's graphics card at 2560x1600 (though not at a playable frame rate). Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that the 560 Ti beats the GeForce GTX 470, which is based on a more sophisticated GPU, dissipates more heat and draws more power.
LostPlanet 2 (DX11)
It's really no surprise that GeForce cards dominate Lost Planet 2, with the TWIMTBP (The WayIt's Meant To Be Played) logo. Surprisingly, the Radeon HD 6950 came in second at 2560x1600.
Today, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is put on a par with the GeForce GTX 470, showing us that CUDA cores, by themselves, do not lead to an increase in performance - texture bandwidth is also important, and the GF114 architecture is better suited for massive games than some of the more powerful GPUs from NVidia.
Interestingly, AMD's Radeon HD 5870 is in last place, but at 2560x1600, it climbed one point.
Aliens Vs. Predator (DX11)
The Radeon HD 5870 regains its leadership among mid-range AMD video cards, even beating the 2 GB Radeon HD 6950 in all three resolutions.
In the meantime, the nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti falls into the middle, beating the Radeon HD 6870 and GeForce GTX 470. It's actually quite difficult to get good frame rates with 4xAA enabled, so we recommend paying more attention to tests with anti-aliasing turned off.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
Many games that were the first to support DirectX 11 have been labeled as "DX11 Proven Games". They, of course, supported some DirectX 11 features, but this is not enough to show all the capabilities of the API. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was one of the first DX11 titles and it also received the "proven" game mark, as did AvP and DIRT2.
NVidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti performed pretty well at 1680x1050, slightly outperforming the GTX 470 and even the more expensive 2GB Radeon HD 6950. Further, at 1920x1080, the GTX 560 Ti lost out to the HD 6950, and at 2560x1600 it turned out to be even lower than the Radeon HD 6870. At this resolution, we see three video cards, such as the HD 6870, GTX 560 and GTX 470, which have almost the same number of frames in give me a sec.
The real news is that AMD's Radeon HD 5870 overtook almost all cards (except the GeForce GTX 570) at all three resolutions.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Test results. Continuation
F1 2010 (DX11)
We heard that F1 2010 is also marked as a "proven" DX11-class game, but in fact it is inferior to DiRT 2 due to the removal of tessellation support and limiting API support to only shader mask and blur effect. However, the game looks pretty good.
At 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, the GeForce GTX 570 wins first place, but the Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series follow. At 2560x1600, AMD's Radeon HD 5870 even took first place.
Meanwhile, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti lags a bit behind. It was able to catch up with the GeForce GTX 470, which it should replace, but still loses to cheaper cards from AMD.
Just Cause 2
While Just Cause 2 also has the TWIMTBP logo, the Radeon HD 5870 clearly shows us that nVidia's graphics cards are not helped much by this logo, but it doesn't seem to be the case for the HD 6000 series cards.
The Radeon HD 6950 2GB was only able to outperform the GeForce GTX 560 Ti at 2560x1600. If the Radeon HD 5870 didn't show better numbers for less money, one would suspect that this is due to the sponsored nVidia logo.
World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Recently, we've gotten a lot of requests to include World of Warcraft in our regular graphics card reviews, which we did. In addition, we wanted to conduct additional performance scaling tests for configurations with multiple video cards, since the game initially lacked support for such configurations. We will discuss this in more detail below.
As the performance level of single graphics cards continues to rise, the results here are pretty close to what we saw before this part. The difference is that we run the game as it ships - with DirectX 9 mode (and not with experimental code to run DX11, which improves performance). As before, nVidia's graphics cards performed very well, with the GeForce GTX 570 and 560 Ti taking the first two places in all resolutions.
The Radeon HD 6950 fights the GeForce GTX 470 for third place. The rest of the video cards are located below. It is worth noting that the Radeon HD 5870 ranks fourth at 2560x1600 and comes right behind the Radeon HD 6950. Again, the Cypress architecture shows its superiority.
We ran a little ahead and added the results of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 for those using old DirectX 10 graphics cards. As you can see, the old flagship is still able to compete with modern models, even at high settings at 2560x1600. However, the HD4870 X2 has a slight high quality issue with the latest beta driver from AMD.
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it had to be water ...
Scaling to SLI and CrossFire
In Lost Planet 2, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti dominates the Radeon HD 5870 and 6870 in single-player mode, so the fact that a pair of these cards do the same thing in SLI isn't really surprising.
Perhaps more interesting is the fact that the Radeon HD 5870 and 6870 showed almost the same performance. We saw the Radeon HD 6870 deliver more frames at 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, only letting the HD 5870 go ahead at 2560x1600. However, in CrossFire, the two HD 6870s showed a small margin at 2560x1600, thus showing better scaling of Barts-based cards.
With Aliens Vs. Predator is a completely different story. In single card mode, the Radeon HD 5870 came in second at 2560x1600, and it uses this advantage to take first place in the dual graphics test. GeForce GTX 560 Ti and Radeon HD 6870 previously showed almost the same results and are now very close in SLI and CrossFire.
In F1, in dual mode, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, as well as in single mode, performed poorly, and two video cards from AMD again took the lead. The cheaper Radeon HD 6870 even showed higher frame rates with 8x MSAA enabled than the GTX 560 Ti with it disabled.
The better upscaling of the Radeon HD 6870 allows it to outperform two GeForce GTX 560 Ti in SLI mode, despite the fact that nVidia's graphics card was faster at 2560x1600 in single card mode. More remarkable is the fact that the Radeon HD 5870 outperforms other pairs of video cards in CrossFire and finishes in first place.
We literally banged our heads against the wall for several days trying to figure out the issue of launching Blizzard's World of Warcraft: Cataclysm on SLI / CrossFire. AMD said it released a CrossFire profile update shortly after we finished testing. Nvidia still has bug reports indicating that scaling is not as consistent as it should be. However, after a number of minor fixes and device driver updates, we are pleased to announce that you can now see scaling in the same Crushblow when flying over The Krazzworks. NVidia claims it doesn't see perfect scaling, but the performance of two GeForce GTX 560 Ti (with 8x anti-aliasing) is enough to match two Radeon HD 5870s (no anti-aliasing). The Radeon HD 6870 lags behind in the same way as in the test results of single video cards.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Overclocking
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Gigabyte sent us their GV-N560SO-1GI graphics card, specially overclocked to 1 GHz (versus the nominal 822 MHz) for the GPU and 1145 MHz (versus 1 GHz) for the video memory. Gigabyte says the card will retail for $ 269, up $ 20 from the previously announced price of $ 249.
As you can see, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, clocked at 1GHz, is significantly faster than the reference nVidia graphics cards sent earlier. It's not as fast as the GeForce GTX 570 as Gigabyte promises, but the fact is the results are pretty similar and the price is $ 80 less. Now, Gigabyte is using its own selection process for the GF114, capable of stable operation at 1GHz. Not every GPU is capable of performing at this level. However, it is fair to assume that most GeForce GTX 560s will work confidently with average speed... Nvidia confirms that frequencies around 900 MHz are fairly typical of the GPUs we tested earlier.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Noise and power consumption
Power
Having recently changed the way we measure power, we wanted to make sure we were getting the right results. After running a few games on DirectX 9, 10, and 11, we were unable to achieve higher power consumption levels than Metro 2033 (although older games seem to have higher power draws). However, we have noticed that lower resolutions are more demanding on power than higher resolutions. This makes some sense - unless you're putting artificially high workloads on the GPU, the CPU is forced to work harder. Therefore, our power consumption test passes at 1680x1050 using AAA and 4x AF.
It is obvious that the Radeon HD 4870 X2 was once a real "beast". Video cards with two GPUs can still provide decent performance in modern games, but they literally suck energy during operation. The absolute speed may not be as high, but the performance per watt ratio is poor.
The next in power consumption is the GeForce GTX 570, followed immediately by the GeForce GTX 470. The difference is that the GTX 570 is much more powerful, and the 4W difference is still small compared to the speed you will get.
| Video card | Average system power, W |
| GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 263.3 |
| GeForce GTX 570 | 292.6 |
| GeForce GTX 460 | 241.0 |
| GeForce GTX 470 | 288.9 |
| Radeon HD 6950 | 253.1 |
| Radeon HD 6870 | 234.1 |
| Radeon HD 5870 | 249.6 |
| Radeon HD 4870 X2 | 402.0 |
The GeForce GTX 560 Ti consumes less of these two graphics cards, on average by 25W, but still more than AMD's Radeon HD 6950 2GB, which is faster at high resolutions. The total difference of 10 watts in power consumption of the entire system makes the performance per watt ratio in favor of AMD.
Radeon HD 5870, GeForce GTX 460 and Radeon HD 6870 are close to each other and round out the list. However, as you can see from our benchmarking analysis, the Radeon HD 5870 is definitely the performance favorite, and that's more than a year after its release.
Noise
We were unable to include the Radeon HD 4870 X2 in our DirectX 11 benchmarks because it only supports DirectX 10. But we were able to test it for noise, power consumption, and performance in World of Warcraft. This card serves as a good starting point in our acoustic test. The card is quite noisy under load.
However, at idle, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is no more noisy than the other video cards reviewed here. The most noisy cards tend to be flagships rather than mid-range and pricey cards. I must say that nVidia really solves the problem of noise in graphics cards based on the GF100. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the quietest card we've tested. After the 10th launch of Metro 2033, it produces as much noise as the GeForce GTX 460 does when idling.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti | Conclusion
We weren't impressed by the top-notch graphics until the launch of AMD's Antilles-based Radeon HD 6990. The Radeon HD 5970 costs about $ 600 or more. But this video card was released over a year ago. GeForce GTX 580 costs $ 500. If you buy multiple flagship cards to pair them in SLI or Crossfire, it will cost you an exorbitant amount of about $ 1000 or more. Now there are options in the middle class.
GeForce GTX 460, Radeon HD 6870, GeForce GTX 570, Radeon HD 6950 - any of these video cards in SLI or Crossfire can delight you.
Now comes the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which sits right at the center of the four. In terms of performance, this graphics card almost exactly replaces the GeForce GTX 470. In terms of price, it will save you $ 10. In terms of noise, the 560 Ti is definitely the winner, although the GTX 470 is also quiet, like the GeForce GTX 480. The GTX 560 Ti also wins in power consumption, requiring an average of 25 watts less than the GTX 470.
All of these things, taken separately, are additional enhancements that nVidia should have made anyway. Thanks to the powerful and hot GF100 GPU, the GeForce GTX 470 sits alongside sleeker cards like the GTX 570 and 460 in the company's product line. So the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is not impressive even with all these little add-ons put together. But there is nothing wrong with this graphics card, it is just an improved version of the GTX 470, but $ 10 cheaper.
We are not enthusiastic about the graphics cards from nVidia partners built on the GF114. Gigabyte's GV-N560SO-1GI graphics card didn't beat the GeForce GTX 570 in any of our tests, but it came close in some of them. Gigabyte claims the graphics card will retail for $ 269. That's a pretty low price point for a card with a 1GHz GPU. However, will the company be able to maintain that price when the GeForce GTX 570 sells for $ 349?
But what about the competitors? Although the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in almost every way and is only $ 20- $ 40 more expensive, it would be unfair not to mention that some HD 6870s sell for less than $ 200 when discounted. Even now, you can spend $ 100 less on the Crossfire configuration than on the SLI with the GeForce 560 Ti. The Radeon HD 5870 looks pretty good too, but only if you can find it cheaper than the GeForce.
Undoubtedly, now is the best time to update a video card that is outdated by one or two generations. If you already bought a decent card last year, then the GeForce 560 Ti is hardly a reason to spend the extra $ 250. The 560 Ti is slightly faster, slightly more efficient, slightly quieter and slightly cheaper than the goodbye GeForce GTX 470.
Postscript: AMD Appears With Twenty Radeon HD 6950 1GB
We love good competition, but bad marketing can ruin everything.
AMD has contacted us with the announcement that it will ship a 1GB version of the Radeon HD 6950 in mid-February for between $ 269 and $ 279. "Well, good," we thought then. "Worry will be when she comes out ... in three weeks. Until then, these are just empty words on paper."
After a while, video cards appeared and, of course, we ran them through our full suite of tests.
In almost every case, a smaller framebuffer (and tighter memory sync) produces one or two more frames per second than the 2GB model. This is not worthy of a separate diagram. In Metro 2033 with 4x MSAA and 16x AF enabled, the 1 GB video card did not have enough buffer to maintain performance and the FPS dropped to 10 frames per second versus 30 on the 2 GB version.
To be honest, perhaps AMD should have introduced the Radeon HD 6950 first, and not a 2GB graphics card for $ 300. However, they don't, perhaps to avoid competing with the $ 240- $ 260 Radeon HD 6870. Obviously, AMD released them together before the start of sales of the video card from nVidia, and the option seemed to be held in reserve until they saw that the GTX 560 Ti could. Losing sales of the HD 6870 in favor of the cheaper Radeon HD 6950 sounds better to AMD than losing sales to nVidia.
Now, facing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, AMD says the 1GB Radeon HD 6950 will be priced at $ 259 and the Radeon HD 6870 will drop to $ 219. Whether these prices will stay or not remains to be seen. In any case, our conclusion on the GTX 560 Ti remains the same. It still doesn't give us a reason to upgrade. If we compare video cards in terms of performance, then solutions from AMD look better.
Dirty gossip creates ...
The story would have ended if the 1GB Radeon HD 6950 had not appeared. On the eve of nVidia's launch, one of our partners told us that AMD had put up a 1GB HD 6950 for sale in a warehouse in Newegg for $ 259. At the time of this writing, there were 20 video cards available. We spoke to Newegg and they confirmed it. When you read this, they will no longer be available for sale.
Obviously 20 people will be very happy to get a graphics card that is faster than a GeForce GTX 560 Ti for the exact same price. Everyone else will have to wait. Either way, this is one of the weakest marketing moves we've seen. AMD's graphics card is strong enough to withstand on its own, even at an initially predicted price of $ 269 - $ 279.
It is unlikely that you would buy a 1GB HD 6950 if you are playing on a triple Eyefinity monitor configuration in CrossFire. To do this, you need a 2GB graphics card to support 5760x1080 resolution with AA and AF active. However, the Radeon HD 6950 1GB is more attractive at 1920x1080 with maximum detail or 2560x1600 with slightly less detail.
Basically, thanks to memory, the Radeon HD 6950 competes with nVidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti.
Probably, nothing affects the performance of a computer in games like a video card. Indeed, the more powerful this component, the more enjoyable the game. Now the market has a huge number of video processors from different manufacturers... The choice is extremely wide: from low-powered entry-level models to top-end "monsters" for crazy money. And, as always, NVIDIA stands out among all this variety. It has long been famous for its high-quality and efficient graphics cards.
Recently, the company has released a new graphics card from the mid-price segment - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti. Its characteristics are such that the language does not dare to call it average. However, with the current pace of technology development, it will soon become so. What is its peculiarity? At least, its main feature is that fabulous money is not asked for it. The high cost of products from this brand is commonplace. All the more remarkable is the release of a product for an adequate amount with good characteristics.
general information
GTX 560 Ti replaced the successful, but hopelessly outdated model GTX 460. The new video card has everything new: technical process, number of cores, core frequency, memory, number of processors. It should be noted that only the top versions of the company's video cards are marked with the Ti index. 560 Ti clearly show how much this video card is better than its predecessor. A fair amount of change is being observed in the cooling system as well. Now you don't have to be afraid that the video card will overheat under high loads. Also, the appearance of the gadget has been slightly changed. And for the better.
I must say that NVIDIA always had a terrible confusion with the indices of video cards. What letters they didn’t use! As a result, the company succeeded in completely confusing the user. Therefore, you should not rely on the Ti index. It is better to study the documentation for the GTX 560 Ti separately, the characteristics of which will not necessarily be top-end. But this does not mean at all that the video card is worthless. Moreover, judging by the reviews, it is capable of "pulling" even the most difficult games. How? Now we will figure it out.
Design and appearance
Gone are the days when video cards were soulless pieces of a board. Now each of them is a work of art. The appearance of the video card in question is also not satisfactory. Cool looks are a feature of the GTX 560 Ti, while the performance is not affected in the least.
The insides of the video card are covered with a black casing with engraving. And in the middle of all this splendor, a powerful cooler of the cooling system is conveniently located. On the back there are power connectors, and on the front there are DV connectors for two monitors and one HDMI connector. Nothing extra. This asceticism in the number of connectors is very simple to explain. Firstly, this is not a top model. Therefore, it is impractical to supply it with a full set of connectors. Second, the old schemes are known to be the most reliable. Therefore, the lack of a complete set of connectors in this case is a plus.
GPU
The GTX 560 Ti uses a GPU with the abbreviation GF 114. This is a brand new GPU that was developed specifically for the GTX 560 Ti. Its characteristics are such that it is head and shoulders above all previous models. The novelty is characterized by an increased number of cores and much less heat dissipation. That is, the graphics processor not only works faster, but also heats up much less than previous models. This means that you can get good power from the video card. Especially when you consider the powerful cooling system of the GTX 560 Ti.
Interestingly, such graphics processors are used in top-end video cards from this company. This alone testifies to the "semi-royal" status of this device. Perhaps the reason for the high performance lies also in this.
Video memory size
The amount of video memory is the most important characteristic of a video card. According to some, it is the volume that determines the degree of "coolness" of the video card. But this is far from the case. So how much memory is available on the GTX 560 Ti? The characteristics will not greatly affect its performance, but still. in this card is only 1024 MB. Not enough, of course. Where is she to the flagship models. However, not a single volume ... The main advantage lies in the frequency of the core and memory.
Core and memory frequency
The higher the frequency, the more efficient the video card. The faster it processes information. The GTX 560 Ti is fine with that. The core frequency of this video card is 822 MHz. And the memory frequency is 4000 MHz. This means that you can achieve high performance in the most "voracious" games. Even though the amount of memory is only gigabytes. As already mentioned, memory is not the main thing here. By the way, ASUS GTX 560 Ti has exactly the same characteristics. Which is quite natural. The GPU is the same. The only difference is in the little things.
Thanks to the high core and memory bus frequencies, the performance of the video card is much better than it might seem at first glance. Of course, the number of universal processors themselves is of no small importance here. There are 384 of them here. That's more than enough to boost productivity. Here is the answer to how a video card can cope with "heavy" games without having top-end characteristics.
Specifications
Core: GF114 * Number of transistors: 1.95 billion * Process technology: 40 nm * Number of stream processors: 384 pcs. * Graphics core frequency: 822 MHz * Frequency of stream processors: 1645 MHz * Type, memory size: GDDR5, 1 GB * Memory frequency: 4008 MHz * Data bus: 256 bit * Number of texture units: 64 pcs. * Number of ROP units: 32 pcs. * Interface: PCIe 2.0 X16 * Energy consumption: 170 W * Price as of March 2011: from 7500 rubles
When NVIDIA introduced video cards GeForceGTX 580 and GTX 570, we had no doubt that their budget versions would appear soon. And now it happened - they sent it on sale GTX 560 Ti, the direct heiress GTX 460... Last year, this graphics card turned the entire market upside down. The payment for 7000 rubles showed 100 fps in DX10 and 30 fps in DX11 games. How was this possible? It's very simple.
The firm of brooms does not knit
By the time the GTX 460 was launched, the developers realized that the cut but top processor for weak motherboards GF100- it is to work at a loss, so we created a new crystal, GF104... Instead of sixteen, it had only eight SM-blocks, but not 32, but 48 CUDA cores were installed in each. In total, this gave 12 full-fledged SM-blocks, but with a limit of eight tessellation engines and 64 texture blocks. Due to this simplification, NVIDIA was able to increase the operating frequency of the GF104 to 675 MHz.
The processor turned out to be so powerful that in theory it should have overtaken GTX 470... The developers did not want to flaunt the GF100's shortcomings, and they deprived the GTX 460 of one SM-block. Now that there are fast GTX 580 and GTX 570 in stock, NVIDIA has nothing to fear, and they introduced the GF104 in all its glory: with a new name, GF114, and on a fresh video card - GTX 560 Ti.
In addition to the returned SM-block, there are few changes. Basically - the proprietary features of the GF11x: improved edge clipping, FP16 texture processing in one clock cycle, reduced power consumption, active CPU throttling and, of course, huge operating frequencies. The new processor is 20% faster and operates at 822 MHz. Nothing else has been changed. Memory bus - 256 bits, GDDR5 volume - 1 GB, ROP - 32 pieces.
Titanium
In addition to the new processor and increased frequencies, there is another interesting thing in the GTX 560 Ti - the prefix “ Ti" in the name. Why NVIDIA installed it and what it means is unknown, but the debate is fierce. The fact that NVIDIA already had series with this name adds fuel to the fire.
For the first time "Ti" appeared on video cards GeForce2 and GeForce3 in 2001 and marked the transfer of production from 180 nm to 150 nm. The series did not live long. In 2003, the suffix appeared on video cards GeForce4 4x00- and then disappeared for eight long years to return to us in 2011 on, by the way, the "fifth" series of NVIDIA video cards.
Why the company needed to revive an old and thoroughly forgotten brand is not clear. It is possible that this is how NVIDIA designates the older version of the GTX 560: there is an opinion that the company will soon release video cards with limited capabilities and without a corresponding end.
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In addition to the standard GTX 560 Ti versions, there are many overclocked options available for sale. We have been on tests Palit GeForce GTX 560 Ti Sonic: her processor is overclocked to an impressive 900 MHz, and the memory - up to 4200 MHz. The cooling system is adequate. A large aluminum cooler covers not only the processor with memory, but also all the batteries, plus two fans cool it. Unfortunately, despite the high frequencies, the motherboard's performance increased by only 5% - this is certainly good, but we would like more. But note that 900 MHz is far from the limit for a new processor. There are already options on sale with an incredible 1 GHz speed! We tried to achieve such numbers on our test bench, but neither the ZOTAC card nor the Palit card were able to rise above the stable 950 MHz. |
Get to know me
NVIDIA left the design of the GTX 560 Ti on the conscience of the manufacturers, so there are a dime a dozen different versions of the board on sale. Basically, they differ in color and cooling system, but there are also more serious changes - there are increased frequencies of the processor, video memory or a larger amount of GDDR5. We got two options for tests: a reference card from ZOTAC and overclocked - from Palit... We'll talk about the latter in the sidebar, and we'll talk about the standard one right now.
The GeForce GTX 560 Ti from ZOTAC is an unimaginable combination of black plastic, yellow metal and intricate stamping. The board requires 170W and two 6-pin power plugs to operate. There are four ports for displaying images - two DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI. The card itself is small, only 23 cm, and will fit into any case.
Finding competitors for the GTX 560 Ti wasn't easy. When we first started the test, the average price of the card was at the level Radeon HD 6950, HD 5870 and GTX 470- 9500 rubles. By the end of the tests, the price dropped to 8,000 rubles, and the board turned out to be a little more expensive HD 6870... As a result, at our stand with Core i7-920 and 6 GB of RAM Kingston HyperX DDR3-1666 visited six video cards at once.
You knew
The results were predictable. The GTX 560 Ti easily beats the GTX 470 and HD 6870, beating them in all tests. But she could not cope with the main competitors. The Radeon HD 5870 performed 3% higher than the test subject, and the HD 6950 - 6%. Buy old top from AMD Of course, it's too late, after all, the card loses in the benchmarks of DX11 games, but it's definitely worth paying attention to the HD 6950: the card came out the winner of most runs.
Unfortunately, we cannot yet recommend something for selection, prices are changing too actively. Let's just say one thing for sure: the performance of all video cards corresponds to their cost. So take it from the calculation of your finances - you will not lose.
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As for myself about th GTX 560 Ti, the card is excellent. It is economical, cool and very productive. To this you need to add a decent overclocking potential: the processor of any GTX 560 Ti easily rises to 900 MHz, and cards with factory overclocking will about It is not much more expensive than the standard versions. In general, if you need a good card for 8500 rubles, do not think - buy a GTX 560 Ti.
PROS:
- high performance in DX11 applications
- good overclocking potential
- modest power consumption
MINUSES:
- high price
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A video card is one of the main elements when assembling a gaming computer. Large manufacturers very often release new models in different price categories. But this does not mean that previous versions of video cards are losing their relevance. Released in 2011, the Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti could be a good choice for budget PC build today.
To get a complete picture of what exactly the video card is, you need to take a closer look at the characteristics of the GTX 560 Ti:
- The GPU is a GF114 with a 40nm process technology.
- The core clock speed is 822 MHz.
- The number of installed transistors is 1950 million.
- The number of streaming multiprocessors is 8.
- The number of rasterization blocks is 32.
- Texture blocks - 64.
- The amount of video memory is 1024 MB of GDDR5 type and a bandwidth of 128 GB / s.
- The effective frequency is 4008 MHz.
- The memory bus is 256 bits.
These specs of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti should be enough to run modern games at low to medium settings. Also, this video accelerator will perfectly cope with processing photos and videos in "heavy" programs.
Video card overview
The processor is responsible for the disclosure of the power of the video card. For the GTX 560 Ti, Intel chips are a great option. Video accelerator in conjunction with Intel processor core i3 and higher will work at 100% of its capabilities in modern games and programs.
The power consumption of the video card is 170 watts. From this it follows that the optimal choice of the power supply will be options with a power of 300 W and higher. This power will be sufficient even when working with a lot of RAM and a powerful processor.
As for the heating of the video accelerator, then working temperature Nvidia GTX 560 Ti graphics card is 80-85 degrees. In rare cases, it can reach 100 degrees. With an increase in this indicator, it is worth seriously thinking about replacing the factory thermal paste with a new one.
Performance improvement
If the standard power of the video card seems not enough for you, then you should pay attention to the overclocking of the GTX 560 Ti. It will increase productivity.
For overclocking, you need MSI Afterburner. After launching it, you can observe the interface with the following indicators:
- Core Voltage - is responsible for the core voltage.
- Power Limit - power consumption limit.
- Core Clock - GPU core frequency.
- Memory Clock - GPU memory frequency.
- Fan speed - cooler speed.
Of all the points, we will need to increase two indicators: Core Clock and Memory Clock. We increase the frequency of the GPU core to 900 MHz. We raise the memory frequency to 2100 MHz.
You need to do these steps gradually. For each step, raise the indicators by 20-30 MHz.
After the overclocking of the Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti video card is completed, you need to perform a stress test using the Funmark utility. It will allow you to identify malfunctions, if any. In the event of a malfunction, the values increased in MSI Afterburner should be reduced.
The final overclocking result can be viewed using the GPU-Z program. It allows you to monitor all indicators of the video accelerator.
Testing in games
The GTX 560 Ti was released in 2011. Despite this, its capacity is enough to launch and play comfortably in modern projects.
The video card was tested in the most demanding games to date. During the tests, the following indicators were obtained:
Grand Theft Auto 5. When starting GTA V at high settings, the number of FPS in the game was 15-20 frames, at some moments there were freezes. To increase the FPS, the graphics settings were lowered to medium. The minimum number of frames increased to 30-35.
The Witcher 3. For the most comfortable game, you need to run The Witcher on the minimum graphical settings. The average number of frames is 25-30. In locations with a large number of objects, this indicator is reduced to 20 frames.
Battlefield 1. When launching the campaign at medium settings, the FPS was around 30 frames per second. When switching to online battles, this figure dropped to 24. This amount is quite enough for a comfortable game at medium settings in FullHD format.
Dishonored 2. Despite not the best optimization in the game, the average number of frames during the tests is 25. Very rarely during intense action scenes there are drops of up to 20 frames and small, sometimes imperceptible freezes appear.
Assassin's Creed: Origins. Unfortunately, a more powerful video card is needed to play AC: Origins comfortably. The specs of the GTX 560 Ti are not enough to pull FPS to at least an acceptable 25 frames even at low settings.
Watch Dogs 2. The situation is similar with this project. Game optimization is not the best part of it. From this, launching the game on video accelerators with 1 GB of memory turns out to be low performance. The minimum number of FPS at low settings is 15 frames.
Based on the tests performed, you can see that the GTX 560 Ti can play most modern projects at low and medium graphics settings.
Comparison of different manufacturers
The GTX 560 Ti is manufactured by 5 different companies. To choose the optimal one, you need to consider in more detail the video accelerator models.
| Manufacturer | Gigabyte | Asus | Palit | Zotac | MSI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | GF114 | GF114 | GF114 | GF114 | GF114 |
| Technical process | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
| Number of CUDA cores | 384 | 384 | 384 | 384 | 384 |
| Number of transistors (mln, pcs) | 1950 | 1950 | 1950 | 1950 | 1950 |
| Crystal area (mm2) | 367 | 367 | 367 | 367 | 367 |
| Number of streaming multiprocessors | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Number of scalar processors | 384 | 384 | 384 | 384 | 384 |
| Shader Domain Clock (MHz) | 1664 | 1664 | 1664 | 1664 | 1664 |
| GPU frequency (MHz) | 900 | 830 | 900 | 950 | 750 |
| Processor limit temperature (° С) | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| DirectX | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| Video memory size (MB) | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 |
| Video memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus width (bit) | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| Effective memory frequency (MB) | 4008 | 4008 | 4008 | 4008 | 4008 |
| Bandwidth (GB / s) | 128.3 | 128.3 | 128.3 | 128.3 | 128.3 |
| Price GTX 560 Ti | 6500 RUR | 6200 RUR | 6400 RUR | 6490 RUR | 6350 RUR |
The main differences between manufacturers are in the processor clock speed. The minimum figure for a video card from MSI is 750 MHz. The maximum frequency - 950 MHz - belongs to the model from Zotac. As for the price range, it is minimal and practically does not depend on the manufacturer.
Where to get drivers
For maximum performance, download the latest Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti drivers from the official website. The manufacturing company tries to release new driver versions as often as possible. They are aimed at improving the performance of the device in modern games.
You can download the Geforce Experience program to stay tuned for new driver releases. With its help, users receive notifications about the need to install updates.
