ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Video Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Video Card Review - ASUS's ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP is on our test bench today, and we 'reare going to overclock it until it screams. We're going to see if this video card can match the performance of a Radeon HD 6950. Will the voltage tweaking provided by ASUS give it enough boost to make it worth the purchase? We will find out.
 
Wow. I'm not often impressed by overclock results but this card is great. If I was in the market for the 560 this would be at the top of my list. Very nice review Grady.

I have a question on the games you guys use for video cards. Due to the issues with current Nvidia drivers and Dragon Age II why keep using it? It seems like it's time to shelve that game from the testing suite. Sorry if this has been asked a million times in other review topics, but I was curious.
 
Derangel said:
I have a question on the games you guys use for video cards. Due to the issues with current Nvidia drivers and Dragon Age II why keep using it? It seems like it's time to shelve that game from the testing suite. Sorry if this has been asked a million times in other review topics, but I was curious.
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Agreed, kind of pointless to do a comparison with a game if you know one company is broken in that game anyway. You already have a DA2 review so if people want to know about that specific game they can read that.

Also, color me confused but how does a highly oc'd nv card beating a stock amd card warrant a good value? If you're going to continue to include oc information in your reviews, I would like to see you play it evenly and oc all cards included. Especially in an "apples to apples" comparison.
 
While putting OC vs OC makes sense, so does OC vs stock. To show off that a cheaper card can potentially at times beat a more expensive card, when pushed to its limits.
Good review anyway, nice to see a quality 560 ti come out strong.
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
While putting OC vs OC makes sense, so does OC vs stock. To show off that a cheaper card can potentially at times beat a more expensive card, when pushed to its limits.
Good review anyway, nice to see a quality 560 ti come out strong.
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I liked the review.
The 560 TI here has a great bit of headroom for overclocking.
The ASUS card is very nicely positioned in price.
Your argument is well taken.

That said it would be interesting to see how far both cards could be pushed......ASUS 560 Ti versus anybody's HD 6950, and what the end result would be.....

I realize that is not the scope of this article.:p
 
DOOMHAMMA said:
While putting OC vs OC makes sense, so does OC vs stock. To show off that a cheaper card can potentially at times beat a more expensive card, when pushed to its limits.
Good review anyway, nice to see a quality 560 ti come out strong.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying "don't show oc vs stock", I'm saying if you're going to oc one $239 card and not the "other" $239 card, then you're only giving one side of the picture. Reason being that many readers will use these reviews to make a purchasing decision, so it's especially important that you put it on as even of a playing field a you can.

If a GTX 560 Ti can get a max oc of 10% to beat a stock 6950 that's cool. If the same 6950 can also be oc'd 10% and beat the 560 Ti then that changes things a bit because the 560 Ti is no longer the better value.

Ideally I think a review should include data for both cards, both stock and potential. Leaving out one or the other leaves room for the interpretation of bias in the review. Look at it the other way, how would this review be percieved if you only oc'd the amd card and not the nv card?

Besides, aside from the time involved is there a solid reason NOT to include oc data from (an already included included in the review so we know you have one) competing product?
 
I was curious what temps you get in FurMark. My 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP JD PhD Esq was getting uncomfortably close to 85C. I pulled the HS off and re-TIMed it with AS Ceramique, which did result in a lowering of temperatures. I can't get it to go over 80C now, which still seems pretty hot for a "souped-up" cooler like the DirectCU.

I was a bit disappointed in the heatsink retention mechanism as well, just four tiny screws with wimpy springs and no backplate. Mine isn't flat, either, there's measurably more TIM on the top of the chip than the bottom. Maybe I just got a dud.
 
Derangel said:
Wow. I'm not often impressed by overclock results but this card is great. If I was in the market for the 560 this would be at the top of my list. Very nice review Grady.

I have a question on the games you guys use for video cards. Due to the issues with current Nvidia drivers and Dragon Age II why keep using it? It seems like it's time to shelve that game from the testing suite. Sorry if this has been asked a million times in other review topics, but I was curious.
Click to expand...

What we may do is go back to using a previous driver version, just for that game, which seems to allow us to use the Very High setting. The game is still a great test of DX11 features. It is true we are hurting for good games, but good games are on the horizon we are looking to add, so stay tuned.
 
If a GTX 560 Ti can get a max oc of 10% to beat a stock 6950 that's cool. If the same 6950 can also be oc'd 10% and beat the 560 Ti then that changes things a bit because the 560 Ti is no longer the better value.

Ideally I think a review should include data for both cards, both stock and potential. Leaving out one or the other leaves room for the interpretation of bias in the review. Look at it the other way, how would this review be percieved if you only oc'd the amd card and not the nv card?
Click to expand...

My point exactly.:D
 
nice overclock on that card. but HOLY CRAP!!! on the power usage.. 113w more than the 6950 when overclocked and just barely beats the stock 6950 in a couple games(except F1 where it handily beats the 6950). i'm thinking it should of gotten a silver with a possible gold award mentioning just because of the insane power usage to performance ratio.


Daedalus454 said:
I was curious what temps you get in FurMark. My 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP JD PhD Esq was getting uncomfortably close to 85C. I pulled the HS off and re-TIMed it with AS Ceramique, which did result in a lowering of temperatures. I can't get it to go over 80C now, which still seems pretty hot for a "souped-up" cooler like the DirectCU.

I was a bit disappointed in the heatsink retention mechanism as well, just four tiny screws with wimpy springs and no backplate. Mine isn't flat, either, there's measurably more TIM on the top of the chip than the bottom. Maybe I just got a dud.
Click to expand...

there is only so much ASUS can do, the fermi gpu's run hot no matter what they do. now they could of made the fan profiles far more aggressive but all the companies are going a bit to far on trying to keep the cards quiet. me personally i'd rather have noise and lower temps then silence and higher temps. but either way 85C is perfectly fine for these cards and gpu's. unlike CPU's they can handle well over 100C. if i'm not mistaken the actual thermal temp is some where around 110-120C. but using furmark as a temp baseline and claiming the card run's hot is just wrong. thats what furmark is designed to do and in no way represents real world numbers.


Devilpup said:
If a GTX 560 Ti can get a max oc of 10% to beat a stock 6950 that's cool. If the same 6950 can also be oc'd 10% and beat the 560 Ti then that changes things a bit because the 560 Ti is no longer the better value.

Ideally I think a review should include data for both cards, both stock and potential. Leaving out one or the other leaves room for the interpretation of bias in the review. Look at it the other way, how would this review be percieved if you only oc'd the amd card and not the nv card?
Click to expand...

if anything i think it does more harm than good to the card being reviewed when the card its going up against isn't overclocked.. because i sure as heck would spend the extra 30 bucks to get the 6950 which uses 113w less power to get almost the same performance as an extremely overclocked GTX 460 TI that uses way more power..
 
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I can't help but think that as product reviews go this seems a little like treading water.

Have you got a 6870 x2 review lined up for release soon?
 
Devilpup said:
there is only so much ASUS can do, the fermi gpu's run hot no matter what they do. now they could of made the fan profiles far more aggressive but all the companies are going a bit to far on trying to keep the cards quiet. me personally i'd rather have noise and lower temps then silence and higher temps. but either way 85C is perfectly fine for these cards and gpu's. unlike CPU's they can handle well over 100C. if i'm not mistaken the actual thermal temp is some where around 110-120C. but using furmark as a temp baseline and claiming the card run's hot is just wrong. thats what furmark is designed to do and in no way represents real world numbers.
Click to expand...

I'm happy that companies are focusing on noise as well. I'm rather sick of having a jet engine in my case. My next upgrade won't be designed totally around silence, but getting things a little quieter is a huge priority.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
there is only so much ASUS can do, the fermi gpu's run hot no matter what they do. now they could of made the fan profiles far more aggressive but all the companies are going a bit to far on trying to keep the cards quiet. me personally i'd rather have noise and lower temps then silence and higher temps. but either way 85C is perfectly fine for these cards and gpu's. unlike CPU's they can handle well over 100C. if i'm not mistaken the actual thermal temp is some where around 110-120C. but using furmark as a temp baseline and claiming the card run's hot is just wrong. thats what furmark is designed to do and in no way represents real world numbers.
Click to expand...

Naturally, FurMark is a self-billed "torture test," so I would expect it to exceed normal, legitimate temps, but it can do this consistently - ie, it's not dependent on driver versions or specific games, it will always try to max out your card. That's where the perceived value for me is.

My old 8800GTS 640 would hit 95 easily in normal use, so I'm not concerned about damaging the GPU at 80. I'm just comparing it to other Fermi cards with non-ref coolers - for instance, the MSI 560GTX-Ti TwinFrozr II OC, which according to BenchMark Reviews runs at around 58 C running FurMark.

Perhaps I'm more sensitive to these temperatures having just rebuilt my rig as air cooled after running on water for a year and a half. 85 seems awfully hot compared to 40 :).
 
Brent_Justice said:
What we may do is go back to using a previous driver version, just for that game, which seems to allow us to use the Very High setting. The game is still a great test of DX11 features. It is true we are hurting for good games, but good games are on the horizon we are looking to add, so stay tuned.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah this fall and winter are a hell of a good time to be a PC gamer.:D
 
We are not going to revert to a previous driver so that NVIDIA is shown in a better light in DA2. NVIDIA needs to fix its issues. For those of you saying that our numbers serve no purpose, stand back and look at the big picture. Do you know how many driver problems HardOCP gets fixed for the community by showing these to our readers? If no attention is brought to these, you just end up with broken drivers.
 
I have bought recently to off them with stock clock at 925. Asus also provide a bios fix which improve performance and fun control , it is very easy just install the .exe file. Also if you use the latest nvidia beta drivers 280.xx you will see an enormous boust in all games. I played crysis 2 and metro at max settings with my dell u2711 at 2560x1440. In sli mode it outperform and gtx 590 in games. Best clock for this card is 945.
 
cuongnq said:
What is RO2:confused:
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http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=48698

Wait for the HD trailers later this month, only video available is crappy shakeycam videos.
You must buy it for the fact that HBO's Band of Brothers/The Pacific sound team is working on the game. Besides the preorder is only 31€ on steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/35450/

And the mod support is incredible, there are 12 mod teams already working on RO2 for over a year now, even though game is not released yet. There will be infinite amount of playability.
 
Could you please expand and clarify the section on noise? Noise is of particular importance to me and I really couldn't understand that section.
 
If you go to Services->Support->Download->Option 3-Select Model Manually-"Start" and go through and select the ENGTX560 Ti Series from the Graphic Card->nVidia list, the BIOS update you can download from this page worked for me.
 
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