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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martixy - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Looks quite good.Would get it for the GP compute power just as much as the pixel-pushing power.
I just question the end price in my little corner of the world. :) Most likely it will be double that($249). 250 I can do, 500 - nah... Go figure.
tonyblair - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Ah, do my eyes decieve me or has good old Anandtech gone back to using bog standard reference GTX460's for Nvidia launches? Haha.mapesdhs - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Yeah, it's kinda lame, given nobody in their right mind would buy a stock 460
anymore. Many places don't even sell them now, and a highly oc'd 460 is
easily $50 to $60 less than a 560, so a proper comparison would be useful.
Alas, they succumbed to the moaning minnies.
If anyone's interested, I can run the downloadable Stalker COP benchmark
using this review's settings (my own 460 FTW tests have been using 1920x1080,
Extreme detail, SSAO = Default/High, Enhanced Full Dynamic Lighting, so not
directly comparable).
I can't test 2560x1600, but I can test 1680x1050 and 1920x1200, also with
FTW SLI.
Ryan, what full settings did you use for the Stalker test? ie. the SSAO (or
other) mode, etc.?
Ian.
JimmiG - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
I agree.. GTX460 cards are available at speeds up to 850MHz or perhaps even more, a huge difference from the 675MHz that the card supposedly launched at (though even at launch, cards running at anything under 7xx MHz was pretty rare).Parhel - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
Ha! I just bought a stock 460 1GB two weeks ago. Terribly cheap cooler, so the thing only OC's to about 750Mhz before it throttles and I have to reboot. But I only paid $130, so I'm thrilled with the card. I'm on 2560x1600 screen, otherwise the 768MB card would have been the better value.overzealot - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
I remember the Geforce 2 Ti, back in 2001.It wasn't the highest end offering then, either - but it sure was a great cost/performance offer.
It's so bad!
Belard - Thursday, January 27, 2011 - link
The GF2ti was really a die-shrink GF2Pro at 50Mhz faster GPU clock, nothing more. In the real world, it was cheaper than the GF2Pro and was a new CHIP process/series they used for the GF3-TI series. Still, the GF2ti was a pretty good deal in its day at about $125 or so... far cheaper than the $300 GT2-Ultra which just lost its crown to the GF3 series.A little history lesson.
All GF400mx /4000mx series are GF2 technology built on a smaller process, nothing more. Sadily, even now, you can STILL buy NEW GF2mx and GF4000MX cards. The 4000MX is a Frankenstein card. Nvidia took a very slow GF2mx GPU and stuck in DX8...
Check out the stats on Wikipedia - (Basic mid-range cards $200~250)
GF2ti (2001 - 10 years ago) = Fillrate = 00.2 GT/s Bandwidth = 006.4 GB/s DX7
GF4 4200 TI (2002 favorite) = Fillrate = 00.2 GT/s Bandwidth = 008.0 GB/s DX8
GF 6600GT (2004 favorite) = Fillrate = 04.0 GT/s Bandwidth = 014.0 GB/s DX9
GF GTX 260 (2008 favorite) = Fillrate = 41.4 GT/s Bandwidth = 112.0 GB/s DX10
GF GTX 560 (2011 Today) = Fillrate = 52.6 GT/s Bandwidth = 128.2 GB/s DX11
*While the fillrate of GF2 & GF4 are the same, GF2 is a DX7 card, so the GF4 might do the DX7 benchmark at 0.3~.4.
Wow, bandwidth wise, the 560 is 20x faster than the old GF2. Graphic Texture Fillrate is way beyond what those old GF2~4 cards could handle.
Hence, playing Crysis on 560 in 1280x1024 could be around 65fps, on a GF6600, it would be under 10fps with LOW details and maybe 1 frame every 6~10 seconds on the GF2... :)
Lepton87 - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
This card hardly even caught up to my over-a-year-old Radeon 5870. I don't know why this card looks comparatively slow in anandtech's reviews whilst on other tech sites it is about on par with 6950 and thus ever-so-slightly faster then 560Ti.http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_...
so far I find those charts the most informative when it comes to relative performance between cards. It looks like anandtech's blend of games somewhat favor NV hardware.
SolMiester - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
This is a mid range card that in some benchies surpasses your high previous generation card, at a cheaper price, is quieter and smaller to boot. What more do you want?MeanBruce - Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - link
The Asus 560 looks really amazing, guess it's faster than my brand new Asus 6870 directcu, but that's ok I knew the 560 was coming out, and wanted the Asus 6870 for it's beautiful triple heatpipe and gorgeous backplate heatsink the way it looks thru the window of the Corsair Obsidian 650D. Yup it's not out yet, April but man thru that window with my new Corsair AX850! I'm just buying parts for a window! Oh man the sweetness, that view while I work with Microsoft Word. The 6870 came with dual full sized DisplayPorts fantastic, but the Asus 560 comes with just a mini-HDMI. What is that all about? I didn't even know they came in mini. Maybe AMD will release the 7000 series early this year die shrink and all, 7870 for Christmas ahhh life is good.