Official GTX560 Review Thread (updated with 17 reviews at this time)

[SolMiester]

A GTX 560 Ti overclocked to 900MHz would be more of a match for the HD 6950 than for the HD 6970 as the GTX 560 Ti at stock, tends to match more often a stock HD 6870 than outperforming it. So an overclocked version would overcome this deficit and being a better match for the HD 6950, not against the GTX 570 which is a more consistent better performer.

I don't think the 560Ti could ever be seen as a competitor to the 6970, there are a few games that favour NV, and it may get close, but the majority of games its more a match to the 6950, and even then the better memory bandwidth of the 6series gives it the edge, and most certainly at 25x16, though thats really a moot point as I cant see many people buying mid range card for 30"gaming...I dont know what Kyle at [H] was thinking?

 

[dpodblood]

From the reviews I have seen of factory OC'd 560's they generally land in between the 6950 and 6970 performance wise @ 1680 and 1920. Sometimes it can even beat out the 6970. I think that's pretty impressive for a card that costs significantly less.

 

[busydude]

I dont know what Kyle at [H] was thinking?

AFAIK, he is being biased towards AMD these days.. and his review methodology definitely shows AMD cards in good light.

 

[SolMiester]

AFAIK, he is being biased towards AMD these days.. and his review methodology definitely shows AMD cards in good light.

He uses some strange reasoning sometimes....he will bench at 1080, and say oh, such and such card can actually play at 25x16 in this game...What is the point of that? If it cant play that res period, why bother, people dont buy a card and have a bigger monitor sitting beside them to use when the card can play at a bigger res?....I dont get it?

The 6950 has better memory bandwidth period, and in texture heavy games that comes to the fore, it has a niffy dual BIOS system which allows for unlocking, however the 1Gb version is crippled in that it cant due to memory addressing. Im also sure the 1Gb version would be hampered in Eyefinity, so really, you are better off paying $10 extra for the full 2Gb version and flash?

 

[Abel007]

AFAIK, he is being biased towards AMD these days.. and his review methodology definitely shows AMD cards in good light.

He's had a hardon for AMD since [H]'s editorial on Nvidia several years back. Not that I care. I enjoy his site but have to read into the bias a little nowadays.

 

[GaiaHunter]

When [H] was saying that the GTX460 was a fantistic product and GTX460 SLI smashed 5870 CF, Kyle was really showing bias towards AMD...

The fact is the cards are pretty close and higher resolution, higher levels of AA, etc, will reduce or increase the gap between the 6870, GTX560 and 6950.

Loke at site like http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/...-geforce-gtx-560-ti-sli/#abschnitt_einleitung , that tests several games at different resolutions and different AA levels per resolution.

 

[Castiel]

 

[Legba]

I'm considering a GTX 560, but I'm still pondering which brand to pick. I currently have a 5770, so I would be switching side.

Now, I don't usually overclock, but factory overclock would be fine but not a big criteria.
I'm mostly looking for a board that is as quiet as possible (I have a Fractal Design case with fans running at 5V) and stable at factory settings.
Right now, this is between the Gigabyte SOC, the MSI Twin Frozr and a default nVidia design.

For people who already have them, how low can the fan speed go using Afterburner? I heard this was a problem with the GTX 460 where the fan speed was stuck at 40%. Is it still the case ? How low can the MSI or Gigabyte go ?
The idea would be to get a board with an advanced cooling system, such as the Gigabyte or MSI, and trade the temperature gain back to lower the fan speed.
Is the Twin Frozr really that quiet ? What about the Gigabyte ? Or is there little difference compared to plain nVidia design ?

Thanks !

 

[Castiel]

I'm considering a GTX 560, but I'm still pondering which brand to pick. I currently have a 5770, so I would be switching side.

Now, I don't usually overclock, but factory overclock would be fine but not a big criteria.
I'm mostly looking for a board that is as quiet as possible (I have a Fractal Design case with fans running at 5V) and stable at factory settings.
Right now, this is between the Gigabyte SOC, the MSI Twin Frozr and a default nVidia design.

For people who already have them, how low can the fan speed go using Afterburner? I heard this was a problem with the GTX 460 where the fan speed was stuck at 40%. Is it still the case ? How low can the MSI or Gigabyte go ?
The idea would be to get a board with an advanced cooling system, such as the Gigabyte or MSI, and trade the temperature gain back to lower the fan speed.
Is the Twin Frozr really that quiet ? What about the Gigabyte ? Or is there little difference compared to plain nVidia design ?

Thanks !

Don't waste your money on a reference design. The Asus and MSI are 249.99 and are the best of the 560's

 

[evolucion8]

Kyle's methodology doesn't favor any GPU vendor, it favors the architecture or SKU that is more suitable for high resolutions, features and Anti Aliasing performance. Kyle used to be very biased with nVidia, but since the GTS 250 scandal, he started to have a slight bias toward AMD. His GTX 560 article shows pretty much the same thing that other reviews show, but with a slight different perspective and pretty much the same result. The GTX 560 barely outperforms the HD 6870, once OCED, it can almost match the HD 6950 at stock, but it costs more and in the end, better off with the HD 6950 1GB and for 10% more, you can take the HD 6950 2GB, the SKU segments are too tight now.

 

[Idontcare]

Welcome to the forums Legba! :thumbsup:

 

[Legba]

Thanks for the welcome

Well, right now, I'm stuck between the two Gigabyte (OC and SOC) and the MSI Twin Frozr... The price difference is not really an issue, but noise and stability are.
I have read mixed reviews of the MSI, some saying it's really quiet, others saying it's noisier than the reference design. It's certainly a lot cooler - but how easy is it to trade that for less noise ? And all the reviews are with the fan on auto - but I don't plan on running it on auto, I used a custom fan curve in Afterburner with my 5770 and I plan on doing the same with the 560.
So, it's really hard to gather reliable information about the silence of the two gigabytes and the MSI... Choices...

 

[maniacalpha1-1]

I played some Bad Company 2 with my MSI 560, set it up to 1680(max for monitor) and according to fraps it stayed well over 60(like 90) most of the time. That was by watching it in the corner by eye, I don't ever benchmark and don't know how to use the tool. Now, maybe I don't understand what MSAA/CSAA does, but I set it up to 32X CSAA to see if it would jerk FPS down and it didn't.

At any rate this hopefully means I'm good to go for BF3 as long as it's within the increased parameters you'd expect for the next engine up 2 years later(FB 1.5 to 2.0)

 

[ronnn]

AFAIK, he is being biased towards AMD these days.. and his review methodology definitely shows AMD cards in good light.

Thanks for the laugh. Kyle is brutal to all comers, but many don't like how he doesn't differentiate between 60fps and 90fps. He just can't seem to see the difference when playing a game.

 

[Wreckage]

Review of an overclocked 560 stomping on a 6970
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138790

 

[jonks]

Thanks for the laugh. Kyle is brutal to all comers, but many don't like how he doesn't differentiate between 60fps and 90fps. He just can't seem to see the difference when playing a game.

if you use vsync is there a difference?

 

[ronnn]

Guess like the op of the other thread you were too lazy to actually link to the review. (This actually is in reference to the post above the post above)

 

[Castiel]

Guess like the op of the other thread you were too lazy to actually link to the review. (This actually is in reference to the post above the post above)

I linked to the review in the first post

 

[evolucion8]

Review of an overclocked 560 stomping on a 6970
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138790

Sorry to burst your bubble, but HAWX 2 has issues with AMD hardware. In reality, an overclocked GTX 560 at more than 950MHz barely matches the stock HD 6950 and the GTX 570, the HD 6970 is faster than both.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/01/25/galaxy_geforce_gtx_560_ti_gc_video_card_review/9

'Our performance results at this ~$260 price point indicate that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is more apt to compete with the Radeon HD 6870 than the Radeon HD 6950 as one might have thought, in terms of performance."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4137/...-6950-1gb-xfxs-radeon-hd-6870-black-edition/7

"As far as we can gather AMD went through quite a bit of effort to launch a viable GTX 560 Ti competitor today – a feat they appear to have succeeded at."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-upsetting-the-250-market/17

"AMD’s scramble to launch the Radeon HD 6950 1GB has produced a card with similar levels of performance and pricing as the GTX 560 Ti, making it impossible to just blindly recommend the GTX 560 Ti. "


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...s/40165-amd-radeon-hd-6950-1gb-review-17.html

"At 1920 and 1680 even a slight price premium over its NVIDIA counterpart is simply too much since performance stays neck and neck through every test. Overall power consumption and noise levels are also two areas where the HD 6950 1GB loses out as it seems like removing 1GB of memory had very little impact upon overall efficiency. "


http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte-gtx-560-ti-soc-review/21 <<Gygabite 560 SOC 1GHz core

"At the current baseline clock frequencies this card is battling with cards like the Radeon HD 6950 and GeForce GTX 570 ... and that's surely not a bad position to be in for a card like this."

It didn't mention HD 6970. So you can cherry pick all the benchmarks that you want, but certainly the HD 6970 performs much closer to the GTX 580 than the GTX 560 to the HD 6970. So I can just follow your suit and state blindly "HD 6970 matches the GTX 580" and post a Crysis benchmark. :awe: HAWX 2 performs horrible on all AMD hardware.

 

[happy medium]

gtx560 @ 1020 ~ = a 6970 or gtx 570, simple as that. With voltage Id estimate 75&#37; of gtx560's can achieve this. For 249$, I'd say thats the best bang for your buck right now @1080p or 1600x1050.

 

[evolucion8]

gtx560 @ 1020 ~ = a 6970 or gtx 570, simple as that. With voltage Id estimate 75% of gtx560's can achieve this. For 249$, I'd say thats the best bang for your buck right now @1080p or 1600x1050.

Good luck in buying one that overclocks at over 1GHz. With OC SKU's commanding a price premium over the standard GTX 560, better off buying the HD 6950 for $10 more and unlock it to HD 6970.

 

[Wreckage]

Good luck in buying one that overclocks at over 1GHz. With OC SKU's commanding a price premium over the standard GTX 560, better off buying the HD 6950 for $10 more and unlock it to HD 6970.

EVGA warranties their cards for overclocking, if you brick your 6950 with a bios flash.... well buyer beware.

 

[evolucion8]

EVGA warranties their cards for overclocking, if you brick your 6950 with a bios flash.... well buyer beware.

Well, only a mind of yours would brick a HD 6950 videocard which comes with a Dual BIOS switch. :whiste: Can EVGA replace a bricked GTS 560 if a flash goes wrong? Buyer beware.

 

[apoppin]

Well, only a mind of yours would brick a HD 6950 videocard which comes with a Dual BIOS switch. :whiste: Can EVGA replace a bricked GTS 560 if a flash goes wrong? Buyer beware.

Just so you know, the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC has a dual BIOS . . .
:whiste:

... and you can brick either card and be denied warranty if it *dies* in the flashed state (meaning you cannot flash it back, but the RMA department can certainly read it)


OK, i'm back to work .. more new cards are coming pretty soon, you know.

 

[Elfear]

Review of an overclocked 560 stomping on a 6970
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138790

Hey if Hawx 2 and LP2 are your games than the 560 is definitely the better buy.

gtx560 @ 1020 ~ = a 6970 or gtx 570, simple as that. With voltage Id estimate 75% of gtx560's can achieve this. For 249$, I'd say thats the best bang for your buck right now @1080p or 1600x1050.

There are much better bang for your buck cards out there at 1680x1050. 460, 5850, 6850, 6870, 5870, 470, etc.