NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti: Upsetting The $250 Market
by Ryan Smith on January 25, 2011 9:00 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead, still one of the toughest game in our benchmark suite. Even 2 years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a playable framerate is still beyond the grasp of a single card.
While we throw in our 2560x1600 charts for good measure, the real chart to keep an eye on is at 1920x1200, the kind of resolution cards around this price range are targeted at. With that in mind, our first game – and often a prognostic of overall performance – is not in NVIDIA’s favor. The 6950 does quite well here, leaving the GTX 560 down by well more than the 4% price difference between the cards. Overall we’re looking at performance fairly close to the older 5870 in Crysis.
Amidst NVIDIA’s own stable of products, what becomes clear is that the GTX 560 has a close peer in the soon to be phased out GTX 470. At 1920 and 1680 the GTX 560 is always faster than the GTX 470, but never immensely so; and at higher resolutions the GTX 470 still has an advantage. Meanwhile the GTX 460 1GB is outclassed by a consistent 28%. It’s not bad for what’s technically the same GPU, eh?
The story of minimums is even a bit more lopsided against NVIDIA here. The lower the resolution the more it falls behind the 6950 1GB, by 15% at 1920 and 25% at 1680. However on a positive note, on an absolute basis the 560 is doing pretty well here; at 29.5fps minimum at 1920, it’s basically never falling below 30fps, meaning not only can it play Crysis but that it can do so smoothly. It is quite interesting to note though that the 560’s minimums are almost identical at 1920 and 1680, indicating a non-resolution dependent bottleneck. ROPs and/or memory bandwidth look to be the culprit here, particularly with the GTX 460 1GB coming so close at 1680.
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surt - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
It doesn't work like that. Computer games generally have no more than 3 frames rendered at a time. The remainder is pre-render textures, models, etc ... everything that might be needed to render a frame. They need to have everything handy that might be needed to make a picture of your view-point. Any enemy that might step into view. The mountains behind you in case you turn around, etc. If it isn't already stored on the card, they have to go get it from disk, which is comparatively extremely slow (thousands of times slower than anything that is already in memory).ATOmega - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Okay, so it's released today. Where are they? I can't find one at local stores and they don't even know when they're getting them in.MrJim - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Full bitstreaming audio capabilities? Thinking about this card and Adobe Premiere CUDA-hack :)heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
The 560 is only faster when you feature games that show a bias towards Nvidia products. Heck, in some of those tests, it was beating a 6970!Lolimaster - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
And know you can adjust that absurd tessellation levels(that no one notices) with 11.1a hotfix.560 is unimpressive, without much effort 6870 1GB / 6950 1GB are taking the bang for buck crown. Specially 6870 at near $200.
If you want futureproof don't look back, 6950 2GB all the way.
cknobman - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
thats exactly what I was thinking.heflys - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I just don't see how a game like HAWX, with its history, can be a indicator of the 560 being faster.Sufo - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Yeah, i have to agree here. In the the two games generally considered the most taxing of modern systems (crysis and metro) the 6950 comes out on top (by like 15% at that) - i think it's a mistake to say:"The GTX 560 Ti ultimately has the edge: it’s a bit faster and it’s quieter than the 6950, and if that’s all you care about then there’s the answer you seek."
I haven't totted it up but even if the 560 over all benches has a few frames over the 6950 (tho tbh, it doesn't even look that way :/) the fact that it loses in games like this means people buying it on that recommendation, thinking it's the faster card, will be disappointed.
murray13 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I just don't get your conclusion. You say that the 560 is faster than the 6950 1g but looking at the graphs it's a draw. It's faster is some games the AMD is faster in others.I originally just looked at the games I play and when I did that the 6950 won all of them. It's a good thing I went back and looked at all of them before I posted. I was ready to really give it to ya. But as it is I just think these two cards are about as evenly matched both in performance and price as I've seen from the two camps in a long time.
Running a 8800GTX I'm about due for a gfx card upgrade. With what is out right now the 6970 is about the best bang for my buck.
Ever since Anand stopped doing the vid card reviews (yeah it's been a while) I haven't exactly agreed with the conclusions being given. Everyone's entitled to theirs I guess.
vol7ron - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I'm still on the E6600 C2D with a 9800GTX - the next upgrade is going to be crucial. It all hinges on that Z68 chipset.We've been looking at i7-2G for our workstations as well. I don't think we're considering the Z68 for that, since it's not necessary and the P67 is a good capable board.
All-in-all; personal upgrade is still on schedule (sometime around 2011Q2-2012Q2), hinging on Z68 and SSD releases.