Galaxy GeForce GTX 560 Ti GC Video Card Review @ [H]

I really wonder how much memory is holding the 560 back vs. the 6950. Seems like partners slap doubled-up RAM on cards without much trouble, love to see what a 2GB 560 could do.
 
Rossi~ said:
In my opinion, if i were in your position (and owning an SSD for a few months) i would choose option 1 because SSD's are a fantastic way to speed up any PC. You obviously won't see any more FPS but your PC will be oh so very snappy. Snappy PC or more eye candy?
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JayteeBates said:
1080p isn't difficult for a 460, in fact I would venture that that until some significantly more demanding engines come out we are getting to a point where even 3rd tier (e.g. 460's) cards offer excellent performance. I currently run dual 460's in SLI at 5760x1200, 1080p is so much less demanding. So an SSD would be your best improvement IMO. It is the single biggest improvement to ssytem performance you can make.
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Thanks guys,

I won't be lying I'm still thinking about other 2 options even thought the performance do not go the cost :eek: I guess I'll have to beat up Cyclone to see what it can do. If I get stable 850s on core with a tad of voltage increase I'll be a happy camper....
 
Another great review guys! It absolutely impresses me just how efficient ATI's 6000 series GPU's are in that the power draw at load of a 2 gig 6950 is still significantly less than the new 560 Ti. That said, this Galaxy card appears to have a very nice cooling setup as you gotta love it when a video card only hits the upper 60's under load. Since I own a little stock in AMD, I am glad that they appear to have refocus'd their business strategy this generation by not neglecting the mainstream segment as they did the last generation with the 5000 series. You cannot beat this kind of value, and I am glad for competition because it makes great video cards from both ATI and nVidia more affordable to the masses. As PC gamers, this is critical because our hobby is at stake due to the popularity of consoles. If competition can bring lower prices for even greater hardware, then it will show people that PC gaming isn't just for people who have a lot of money to blow on 580 SLI or 6970 CFX setups.
 
Why is it every review of the lower end cards they always use the variant with less video RAM on them and then complain about the inability for the buffers to handle the graphics in high resolution or multi monitor setups? There are clearly solutions out there that have 2GB of RAM on them, but we never see them tested. I would have to bet that 2 560's in SLI with 2GB of RAM each would blow the door off of a 580 for about the same price, even in multi monitor or high resolution mode, and allow you to turn everything up due to the extra RAM. But no, we will probably see 1 cards with 1 GB each and the complains about the inability to match graphics settings will pop up again, becuase they used the cards with less RAM.
 
This is definitely the card I've been holding out for (and at about the right price). Cannot wait to get rid of this 5850.
 
hasoos said:
Why is it every review of the lower end cards they always use the variant with less video RAM on them and then complain about the inability for the buffers to handle the graphics in high resolution or multi monitor setups? There are clearly solutions out there that have 2GB of RAM on them, but we never see them tested. I would have to bet that 2 560's in SLI with 2GB of RAM each would blow the door off of a 580 for about the same price, even in multi monitor or high resolution mode, and allow you to turn everything up due to the extra RAM. But no, we will probably see 1 cards with 1 GB each and the complains about the inability to match graphics settings will pop up again, becuase they used the cards with less RAM.
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why would you perceive reviewers as 'complaining' about it? they are informing their audience of the limitations of the card.
 
I think the real winner here is the load temp. I would be willing to drop one of these into my htpc when the price hits $200
 
Does anybody know how the noise compares between the 560, 470 and 6950 1gb?

I can deal with a small performance loss or more power usage what i cannot deal with is the noise. After owning an 8800GT i will never buy a card without checking.
 
Disposed said:
Does anybody know how the noise compares between the 560, 470 and 6950 1gb?

I can deal with a small performance loss or more power usage what i cannot deal with is the noise. After owning an 8800GT i will never buy a card without checking.
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560 is one of the more quiet cards out there, if that's a primary criteria for you. Although I don't need a new video card right now, noise is one of my primary concerns too, even if it means giving up a little performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-upsetting-the-250-market/16

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-gtx-560-ti_4.html#sect0
 
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a123456 said:
560 is one of the more quiet cards out there, if that's a primary criteria for you. Although I don't need a new video card right now, noise is one of my primary concerns too, even if it means giving up a little performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-upsetting-the-250-market/16
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Looking specifically at this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121424&cm_re=gtx_560-_-14-121-424-_-Product

Looks to run much much cooler than reference. I did see a review with this specific model and it seems to hit 60 degrees under load. :eek: What i cant find is any reference to noise, i would assume having 2 fans they could run very low and manage to cool better and be quieter.

EDIT: Found my answer, its loud...
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20293/13
 
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Disposed said:
Looking specifically at this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121424&cm_re=gtx_560-_-14-121-424-_-Product

Looks to run much much cooler than reference. I did see a review with this specific model and it seems to hit 60 degrees under load. :eek: What i cant find is any reference to noise, i would assume having 2 fans they could run very low and manage to cool better and be quieter.

EDIT: Found my answer, its loud...
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20293/13
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Bit noisier that I would have expected but those cards probably have a main concern of getting a big factory overclock and being stable because that's what 95% of the people care about.

Looks like reference and no overclocking would yield the best results for your particular need.
 
shlooky said:
Nice review, but how is the CUDA performance vs older Nvidia GPU's?
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We don't care. Going to have to go elsewhere for that information.

Zarathustra[H];1036753523 said:
I agree. It is great for the consumer! That being said though, does it disincentivise people from going with the super-high end boards, if they feel they are going to plunk down $500 and have it eclipsed in less than 6 months :p
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Dunno about that.....

Commander Suzdal said:
I really wonder how much memory is holding the 560 back vs. the 6950. Seems like partners slap doubled-up RAM on cards without much trouble, love to see what a 2GB 560 could do.
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I think memory is holding the card's non-AA perf back at 2560x1600, the 6950 is just a better GPU.

heelix said:
Kyle - any SLI tests with it? (yet.. saw you had them)
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RTFA? Mentioned it twice. SLI and OCing are on the way. :)
 
I see the 560 going down to the $200 really soon. At $250 its flanked by too many cards.
 
Kyle,

Thoughts on AMD automatically enabling a driver cap on tessellation level? (user can still override it, but that is apparently the default setting now). I was thinking that as more DX11 games use it we could see the GTX560 compete better with the 6950 like your Civ5 comparison. Would explain the desire to limit tessellation by AMD.

I find it interesting that the GTX560 and the 6950 are matched in Civ5 and both have playability issues with going to 8x MSAA because the 6950 has so much more memory bandwidth and interpretation from other numbers 160GB/s should be enough for 8x MSAA. The 560s is almost certainly memory limited, but the 6950 shouldn't be. Suggests it is a GPU limitation on the 6950.
 
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phide said:
This is definitely the card I've been holding out for (and at about the right price). Cannot wait to get rid of this 5850.
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What's wrong with your 5850? They were good overclockers.
I think an overclocked 5850 would beat an overclocked 6870.
Unless you're talking about crossfire, then the 6870 scales much better.
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
What's wrong with your 5850? They were good overclockers.
I think an overclocked 5850 would beat an overclocked 6870.
Unless you're talking about crossfire, then the 6870 scales much better.
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don't mind phide. he's being irrational
 
Nuby1Canuby said:
What's wrong with your 5850? They were good overclockers. I think an overclocked 5850 would beat an overclocked 6870.
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The performance is fine. The rest of the ownership experience has been less than pleasant.
 
Anyone know where some stock clock 560 vs 260 results are? Just curious how out of date I am ... Linux users have been waiting patiently for a new mid-range card. It's still a bit power hungry, I think.

edit: well, if 260 -> 460 ~25%, and 460 -> 560 ~25%, then 260 -> 560 ~55%.
 
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Nvidia needs to get those rebates going ASAP if they want to compete. They are getting squeezed out of the mid-range market.
 
nvidia failed on a few key points with this launch. Lately it seems nvidia has been more concerned with money than where their cards sit in the food chian.

What they should have done is release 2 versions as I've predicted they would. They also failed at pricing. They should have had the following

1. GTX 560 Ti 384 Cores etc.. $229.99 to compete with 6870 (Same MSRP of 460 1gb @ launch)
2. GTX 560 336 Cores 1gb To compete with 6850 Better clocks on core/shader and memory than reference GTX 460 1gb@ $199.99

Those 2 cards would have launched at the same prices the 2 different GTX 460 cards launched at.

Nvidia had a real winner with the GTX 460 launch and with the 500 series they seemed to mimic everything from the 580 and 570 msrp but with much better execution. With this launch they strayed from what they did before due to what appears to me to be simple greed. Why price this card $259.99 other than to make more money. Granted the card is a higher performance than a GTX 460 but that is expected from a newer more refined version and it's not like the barts were any slackers, and you didn't see AMD straying from making them an exceptional value. Again nvidia failed at these key areas and this is puttting these cards in a complete other category thanks to AMD's smart preemptive price drops.

The 6950 is a clearly better buy at it's new price hands down (Glad I'm the lucky owner of 2)

Another thing I wanted to say is in other reviews where they have a faster CPU the 560 fares better against its competition. It seems like the geforce cards being more cpu dependent plays a role in this gpu. If you look at the hardware canucks review http://www.++++++++++++++++++++/for...9-nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review-6.html they use a 4ghz i7 instead of a 3.6ghz and their 560 results (in real world testing) make the 560 look a bit better. That's a good point to note to users with faster CPU's in their rig than the Hardocp reference rig.

At the end of the day value and price is key. This is where GTX 560 fails big time. This is one of the few reviews that puts a focus on that and I'm glad the outcome was what it was. I hope nvidia gets its act together soon. I think everyone here could agree if nvidia would have launced 2 versions mentioned above in 1 & 2 of this post this would have been as good or better of a launch as the GF 104 launch.
 
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Kyle,

Would you be willing to do a small writeup on your thoughts on the state of the video card market? It would be great if you could answer some stuff like:
1. Which company has better drivers (if either)
2. Which company has a more forward-thinking vision
3. Do integrated graphics (sandy bridge, AMD APU) look like they will offer sufficient performance to run our games going into the future
4. Who has more reliable hardware (if either)
5. Anything else you want to editorialize on with regards to video cards

I'd really like to read your thoughts on how you feel about both companies and the market in general.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about nVidia and the 560's positioning. This is the most negative review I've seen among the bunch (superiority complex notwithstanding). They'll sell just fine.
 
anandtech isn't exactly wild about it. interestingly anand and here are the main sites I trust.
 
trinibwoy said:
I wouldn't worry too much about nVidia and the 560's positioning. This is the most negative review I've seen among the bunch (superiority complex notwithstanding). They'll sell just fine.
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After reading some of the other reviews i really have to wonder whats going on.

Some of the reviews put this card well below the 6950 some show it being faster and some show it damn similar.

Cant help but wonder whats going on, the benchmarks seem to be all over the damn place.

Maybe one set of drivers is working better than others? Hard to believe so many review sites are full of shit there are quite a few showing quite different results than [H].
 
I saw the mention that the SLI results were on the way. Figured I had waited an entire 8 hours... (grin) ... but I'm also hoping for something a bit more complete. Got some cash burning a hole in my pocket.

If you can, like to see SLI stats on the 460, 560, 570, and 580 @ 2560x1600. I'm looking at the performance/dollar stats mostly.
 
Disposed said:
After reading some of the other reviews i really have to wonder whats going on.

Some of the reviews put this card well below the 6950 some show it being faster and some show it **** similar.

Cant help but wonder whats going on, the benchmarks seem to be all over the **** place.

Maybe one set of drivers is working better than others? Hard to believe so many review sites are full of **** there are quite a few showing quite different results than [H].
Click to expand...

I guess you just have to decide if you want to trust timedemos/canned benchmarks, or real-world get-your-hands-dirty and actually play the games just like a normal gamer method of evaluation.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I guess you just have to decide if you want to trust timedemos/canned benchmarks, or real-world get-your-hands-dirty and actually play the games just like a normal gamer method of evaluation.
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That's a major factor, here and also what I mentioned a few posts ago. I've noticed after reading quite a few articles, even ones with real world testing that higher CPU speeds seem to help the performance of the GTX 560 Ti a bit. In hardware canucks they use a 4ghz i7 and in real world testing it performs anywhere from 5% - 10% faster than in the Hardocp review. I'm not saying it's CPU bottlenecked but it seems that faster CPU's help that card stretch it's legs a bit better. At the end of the day the value is still lacking compared to AMD's offerings so it doesn't change the results shown here. This GPU is simply overpriced by about $30.
 
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Lord_Exodia said:
nvidia failed on a few key points with this launch. Lately it seems nvidia has been more concerned with money than where their cards sit in the food chian.

What they should have done is release 2 versions as I've predicted they would. They also failed at pricing. They should have had the following

1. GTX 560 Ti 384 Cores etc.. $229.99 to compete with 6870 (Same MSRP of 460 1gb @ launch)
2 GTX 560 336 Cores 1gb To compete with 6850 Better clocks on core/shader and memory than reference GTX 460 1gb@ $199.99

Those 2 cards would have launched at the same prices the 2 different GTX 460 cards launched at.

Nvidia had a real winner with the GTX 460 launch and with the 500 series they seemed to mimic everything from the 580 and 570 msrp but with much better execution. With this launch they strayed from what they did before due to what appears to me to be simple greed. Why price this card $259.99 other than to make more money. Granted the card is a higher performance than a GTX 460 but that is expected from a newer more refined version and it's not like the barts were any slackers, and you didn't see AMD straying from making them an exceptional value. Again nvidia failed at these key areas and this is puttting these cards in a complete other category thanks to AMD's smart preemptive price drops.

The 6950 is a clearly better buy at it's new price hands down (Glad I'm the lucky owner of 2)

Another thing I wanted to say is in other reviews where they have a faster CPU the 560 fares better against its competition. It seems like the geforce cards being more cpu dependent plays a role in this gpu. If you look at the hardware canucks review http://www.++++++++++++++++++++/for...9-nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review-6.html they use a 4ghz i7 instead of a 3.6ghz and their 560 results (in real world testing) make the 560 look a bit better. That's a good point to note to users with faster CPU's in their rig than the Hardocp reference rig.

At the end of the day value and price is key. This is where GTX 560 fails big time. This is one of the few reviews that puts a focus on that and I'm glad the outcome was what it was. I hope nvidia gets its act together soon. I think everyone here could agree if nvidia would have launced 2 versions mentioned above in 1 & 2 of this post this would have been as good or better of a launch as the GF 104 launch.
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the problem here is that Nvidia is simply not going to be able to keep up in the price front. (in the current area we are talking about) What your saying makes market sense but fails miserably in the financial sense. They HAVE to be worried about money. they have eaten the last two generations off the back of other products. even a company as strong as Nvidia can't do that forever. What saved them from a bloodbath was AMD weakness. (they really can't afford not to be making money any place they can) The 460GTX was an awesome card you say and for us the consumers it was, for Nvidia it was damage control for eroding market share. the card probably cost about the same as a 5800 to make but was placed much lower. why they chose to cripple it as much as they did I don't know (protect the GF100 series?).

the GF114 is the same size as the GF104, meaning it cost quite a bit more then barts (barts is quite a bit smaller and cheaper then cypress) but doesn't do much to support it. all other things equal AMD is making money when they aren't. That along with last scaled down version failure (the 460GTX768mb was an awesome bang for the buck card but selling at 90 bucks had to make some one loose sleep) given that I don't see them trying that same strategy here. They didn't make that work well even when they owned that price point (I think we can discard the 5830)

I gotta admit I am disappointed as well. I was expecting it to do better then it did. I thought it would be notch above the 6870, not competing directly with it.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I guess you just have to decide if you want to trust timedemos/canned benchmarks, or real-world get-your-hands-dirty and actually play the games just like a normal gamer method of evaluation.
Click to expand...

The [H] is not the only place on the whole interwebs that does more than canned benchmarks.

Thats why i wonder about drivers but Lord_Exodia brings up another point.
 
SpeedyVV said:
Wow, thats got to hurt.

To come out with a card and not be at the lead of its price point is basically a fail.

NVIDIA can now adjust the price, but the momentum of a launch seems to have been lost.

It is great for the consumer to have this level of competition on Graphic cards. I wish the same was going on at the CPU side of things.
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Similar things happened when the 68xx cards launch. Nvidia used overclocked FTW 460 cards to rain on AMDs launch.
 
Valset said:
the problem here is that Nvidia is simply not going to be able to keep up in the price front. (in the current area we are talking about) What your saying makes market sense but fails miserably in the financial sense. They HAVE to be worried about money. they have eaten the last two generations off the back of other products. even a company as strong as Nvidia can't do that forever. What saved them from a bloodbath was AMD weakness. (they really can't afford not to be making money any place they can) The 460GTX was an awesome card you say and for us the consumers it was, for Nvidia it was damage control for eroding market share. the card probably cost about the same as a 5800 to make but was placed much lower. why they chose to cripple it as much as they did I don't know (protect the GF100 series?).

the GF114 is the same size as the GF104, meaning it cost quite a bit more then barts (barts is quite a bit smaller and cheaper then cypress) but doesn't do much to support it. all other things equal AMD is making money when they aren't. That along with last scaled down version failure (the 460GTX768mb was an awesome bang for the buck card but selling at 90 bucks had to make some one loose sleep) given that I don't see them trying that same strategy here. They didn't make that work well even when they owned that price point (I think we can discard the 5830)

I gotta admit I am disappointed as well. I was expecting it to do better then it did. I thought it would be notch above the 6870, not competing directly with it.
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If things are the way you say they are then I'd agree, however I've never bought the GPU size debacle. I think it's a myth in all honesty. Noone knows besides nvidia and TSMC how much nvidia pays per wafer of chips. They may very likely have a better deal worked out with TSMC than AMD. It's quite possible that amd pays MORE for Barts chips than nvidia pays for GF110.

Again I'm not saying what your saying is wrong. I'm simply saying the theory makes sense on paper but in real life noone knows if it plays out that way or not. I do however feel that nvidia could sell the GTX 560 Ti for that price ($229.99)and still profit a bit. That's me guessing as I also have no idea what they pay, but I see the GTX 560 Ti being derived off of the GF104 (gf114) costing exactly the same to produce as the gf104 since it's simply a refreshed version of the same gpu.
 
Held out on opening the cheapo GTX 460 until I saw how this turned out...should've just cracked the thing open weeks ago when it first came.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
If things are the way you say they are then I'd agree, however I've never bought the GPU size debacle. I think it's a myth in all honesty. Noone knows besides nvidia and TSMC how much nvidia pays per wafer of chips. They may very likely have a better deal worked out with TSMC than AMD. It's quite possible that amd pays MORE for Barts chips than nvidia pays for GF110.

Again I'm not saying what your saying is wrong. I'm simply saying the theory makes sense on paper but in real life noone knows if it plays out that way or not. I do however feel that nvidia could sell the GTX 560 Ti for that price ($229.99)and still profit a bit. That's me guessing as I also have no idea what they pay, but I see the GTX 560 Ti being derived off of the GF104 (gf114) costing exactly the same to produce as the gf104 since it's simply a refreshed version of the same gpu.
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agreed to an extent. but it is an important factor. even with a good deal your not talking that big of a difference. they pay for wafers (or working chips in some cases.) and there will simply be a LOT more on a wafer given that chip is 25% smaller. I do agree that we can't know for sure but its a pretty safe bet that they are cheaper. There is no way TSMC is going to try and gouge AMD when they are hoping to keep some of their buisness in light of GF. but the GPUs are only part of the story anyways, PCB cost, memory, and R&D cost all play in. its is damn hard to get ahead of the others in those. if all else is equal (more or less) then its down to the GPU. and 25% is a nice advantage.

It sill irritates me that they did cripple the GF104 like they did. If they had released it in full I guarantee you they would not have been pricing the 5870 at 400 dollars. and Nvidia ended up dumping most of the GF100 cards anyways.
 
Stoly said:
I see the 560 going down to the $200 really soon. At $250 its flanked by too many cards.
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Don't see $200 soon, but I could see where $230 might be in order. Then again, maybe everyone else in the world loved it and we are just crazy and it is worth every cent NVIDIA is asking......but I don't think so.

gunderwood said:
Kyle,

Thoughts on AMD automatically enabling a driver cap on tessellation level?
Click to expand...

No, that would really go against the whole DX11 support thing. Maybe it is a driver issue and not tessellation, but I don't think so.

petertew said:
Kyle,

Would you be willing to do a small writeup on your thoughts on the state of the video card market? It would be great if you could answer some stuff like:
1. Which company has better drivers (if either)
2. Which company has a more forward-thinking vision
3. Do integrated graphics (sandy bridge, AMD APU) look like they will offer sufficient performance to run our games going into the future
4. Who has more reliable hardware (if either)
5. Anything else you want to editorialize on with regards to video cards

I'd really like to read your thoughts on how you feel about both companies and the market in general.
Click to expand...

Have not done a State of the Silicon Union in a while.....

1. NVIDIA, but not by the margin it used to have.
2. I think both teams have great vision, sometimes it leans one way more than the other, but hard to say one it better than the other in vision department. I would give the edge to AMD right now. Eyefinity support. Superior perf per watt. Superior per per square mm of die. NVIDIA is still the bull in a china shop, AMD has turned into the serpent....both will kill you, AMD will just exert a lot less effort while NVIDIA still have to knock all the shit off the shelves to get to you.
3. Intel - no. AMD - yes. This is still not going to supplant cutting edge discrete cards.
4. I would call this 45-AMD, 55-NVIDIA. Just a gut feeling, no real stats to back that up.
5. Na, ask all the questions you want though in another thread, let's keep this on topic please.
 
Ah, Hindsight........... If they had just released this at $199 then all the reviewers would be going crazy for it. Wait a few weeks and you'll be seeing "deals" at that price point anyways.

Anyway you spin it... at this point the big conclusion is that I can't help but be damn interested in a 6950.
 
I seriously doubt they will be dropping the price right away, but I could be and hopefully am wrong. I run strickly Nvidia cards for Distributed computing and Nvidia currently trumps amd for what i do; so I have to run Nvidia
 
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