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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MeanBruce - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Wonder if you can tune the fans separately in SmartDoctor? Damn cool Asus!Burticus - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I picked up a GTX460 768mb for $150 last summer. I assume the GTX560 will be down to that price point by this coming summer. I am very happy with the GTX460 except in Civ 5 and I think I am CPU limited there (Phenom II x3).So when this thing hits $150 I will sell my GTX460 on fleabay for $100 and upgrade, I guess. I wish I could buy one and stick it in my 360....
JimmiG - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Looks like the video card market is picking up the pace again, which is both a good thing and not. I guess my GTX460 1GB from only 6 months ago now officially sucks and is only usable as a doorstop...a crippled, half-broken, semi-functional video card such as it is.On the other hand, it's great that technology is moving so fast. It just means that instead of buying a new video card and keeping it for 1.5 - 2 years, you once again have to upgrade every couple of months if you want to stay on top.
Also, regardless of the marketing, anything below a 570 *sucks* for gaming above 1680x1050. Look at the results of Stalker, Metro 2033 and Warhead. You need to drop to 1680x1050 before the 560 Ti manager near 60 FPS which is the minimum for smooth gameplay.
Soldier1969 - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Anything below $400 is a poor mans card period, I wouldnt stoop to that level of card running 2560 x 1600 display port max settings there is no substitute!omelet - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Congratulations.silverblue - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
I'm sorry to say, but knowing the 560 Ti is going to be a weaker and hence far cheaper part than the 580, why did you give it any thought? :)otakuon - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
The GTX 460 is still the best card in nVidia's lineup with regards to price for performance. The 560 is just nVidia's standard interim update to keep itself relevent. I see no need for current GTX 460 owners to rush out and buy this card (or anyone who wants to replace a Fermi card for that matter) when the 600 series will be out this summer and will most likely have new arcitecture.DeerDance - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
6850 beats them in price/performance, they are start at $150 at neweggDeerDance - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I was kinda surprised by final thoughtsout of 34 pictures of fps in games, 17 won 6950, 12 gtx560 and 5 were in range of 1frame from each other (4 of those are for 6950) so I wonder why the final thoughts gave edge to GTX560.
omelet - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
He may have just done an average of the percentage differences between the two.So if, for instance, the 560 won by 50% in one test and lost by 10% in each of two tests, that method would call the 560 10% faster, even though it was slower in 2/3 of the tests.Don't get me wrong, I don't think the conclusion is accurate (I think 6950 looks more powerful overall from the benchmarks), I'm just saying how I think he might have come to his conclusion.