Sparkle GeForce GTX 560 Ti questions.

S

sonicboom

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
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Has anyone ever used this card? I'm thinking of upgrading my htpc's 450 gts to this, but never heard of the company. A friend had used it for about a month but he went and got the 3gb 580 gtx, and selling this one for 180.
I like the fact it draws 24 amps,( that's only 2 more than my 450 gts), and shelling out an extra 60 bucks for a good increase in performance seems reasonable to me. Only thing is I'm not too sure of the manufacturer.
 
No experience with them. It had better have the remaining warranty on it then I wouldn't be too worried if its still a couple years. You can buy a new one on sale for almost that price so I'd have a hard time paying 180 for a used one. Maybe 160 or less.
 
I've always thought that sparkle was a really bad name for a pc hardware manufacturer to use. It incites visions of sparklers going off inside of my computer case.... and that's not pleasant ..
 
No experience with this card, but a friend of mine used one of their 9800GTX+ models 3 years ago. It lasted a month or so before it started having artifacts.

Also, my EVGA GTX 560ti 2GB draws 30 amps, or so it claims. I doubt the extra 1GB of RAM draws all of that extra power. Are you sure the Sparkle only draws 24 amps?
 
Whoa, those are just recommended PSU specs. It doesn't mean the card is actually drawing 30A * 12V or 360W. Just like 125W cpu TDP is a thermal rating for the socket and whatnot.
 
Yea, I understand those are recommended specs, and in reality it draws less, but given my psu has 35A on the +12v rail, I look to keep draw as low as I can without entirely crippling graphic performance. My current setup is very quiet, and it runs relatively cool. Not sure what adding the gtx will do, but I'm itching to try.

To your question Skillz, this htpc is mainly for tv watching and recording(dvr), movies(bluray) web browsing and it can do some light gaming. The gts 450 does a nice job, but I believe the gtx560 ti is about 2x as powerful for a marginal increase in heat and power.
 
My experience with their Calibre line has been nothing short of exceptional. I'm not sure about their "normal" line, but their higher end line is of very good quality, and I would recommend their Calibre line if it wasn't so much more than other brands.

I had a GTX460, triple slot, with the factory installed Artic Cooling dual-fan HS and the card held very heavy overclocks (980c) without breaking 60*, if I remember correctly, and in the GTX 460 fan club on another forum, I was a solid 10* C cooler then even the MSI TFII cards.
 
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