EVGA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win: The Raw Power Of Two GPUs
by Ryan Smith on November 4, 2011 11:00 PM ESTHAWX, Civ V, Battlefield BC2, & STALKER
HAWX, in spite of its high framerates on modern cards , is still rather GPU limited. As a result of that limitation and superb SLI scaling the 2Win manages to generate 165fps even at 2560. In fact it’s second only to the GTX 570 SLI, and is a solid 30% ahead of the GTX 580.
NVIDIA has continued to work on their Civilization V performance since the last time we’ve taken a look at the high end, and as a result SLI scaling is looking really good. The 2Win nearly doubles the performance of a GTX 560 Ti, and even the GTX 580 has to take a backseat by 33%. Thanks to these further driver improvements the 2Win is capable of cracking 60fps, even at 2560.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is another title that scales well with SLI, further vaulting it over the GTX 580. At 74.5fps at 2560 it’s not only an extremely smooth experience, but 36% ahead of a GTX 580. At the same time this is another title where the Radeons give us a strong showing, leading to the 6950 CF passing the 2Win. Meanwhile our Waterfall benchmark shakes things up slightly, but not for the better for the 2Win. All of our results have a much narrower spread, and as a result the 2Win gives up much of its advantage.
STALKER is our other VRAM-hungry benchmark. The 2Win still beats a single GTX 580 by 17%, but it loses to the 6950 CF and GTX 570 by more than usual. Both of these setups have additional VRAM (2GB and 1.25GB respectively), allowing them to get the best of the 2Win.
The significance of this situation is that with the STALKER benchmark approaching 2 years old, it’s in many ways a taste of things to come. We’re not done with the subject of VRAM, but it’s clear we’re already seeing situations where the 2Win is being held back by a lack of VRAM.
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DarkUltra - Sunday, November 6, 2011 - link
- "On the other hand if you don’t share EVGA’s confidence in SLI, then very little has changed. If you believe that new games will have teething issues with SLI, that microstutter will continue to exist, and that not every game will scale well with SLI, then the 2Win is a poor choice in light of the more consistent performance of the GTX 580"What? Why not check frametimes in the games you benchmarks? It is easy, just enable the option in FRAPS and import the data in a spreadsheet. If high framerate comes in lumps, there is no perceived improvement.
A focus on this will make SLI and Crossfire even better, please do that in your next review :)
For now readers can check
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21516
Ryan Smith - Sunday, November 6, 2011 - link
At this point it's not really a concern about our existing games. All of them are well developed on the driver side. The concern is with the future: will Batman microstutter? Will Serious Sam have SLI support with good scaling the day it launches? These are questions that can't be answered in the present, which is why it's largely a question of faith in NVIDIA's capabilities.s44 - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
Is it possible to include a subjective microstutter report with these reviews?dj christian - Thursday, November 10, 2011 - link
Even though i am a long timereader of Anand since ten years back I really had to register to make this post..Actually Ryan i think you missed his point. Look at HardOCP:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/08/asus_rog...
With diagrams you see exactly what drops and framespikes given over a period of time. It's so much clearer than showing simple staples which actually says nothing, especially at the highest resolutions which can be a bit tricky to get a grip on.
For the next review of a graphic card i really hope you post diagrams along with the simple benchmarks which gives the reader a much bigger overview of such things.
romany8806 - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
I know the first couple of pages of the article mention the redundancy of the SLI nub and the fact that this card needs an SLI-certified mobo, but I think these points should really rate a mention in the conclusion. Vram issues aside, for me these two failings almost completely invalidate this card as a useful option.I thought the point of dual-GPU cards was to allow:
1. quad-SLI/quad-Xfire OR
2. dual-GPU performance on less accommodating/feature-rich motherboards.
The only viable application I can think of for this card (and I'm clutching at straws here) is on SLI-certified mATX boards in small enclosures where it is undesirable to use both slots for airflow reasons. Not sure I'd pay a 30% premium over 2 560 Ti boards for that.
Good article, but readers who skim to the final page might be missing out on pertinent information.
Black1969ta - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
It requires an SLI Mobo, but can't be SLI'ed to another 560Ti 2WINIt pulls more power than 560Ti's in SLI.
Excuses or not this review is pretty worthless without another 560Ti SLI boards to a dual GPU 560Ti Board.
With the SLI Mobo certification requirement, and the lack of ability to add another 2WIN to get Quad GPU's with only two PCIe slots.
And then Add in the $50+ Premium over 2 cards I fail to see the logic of this pricing and/or design.
Without test results I fail to believe that I couldn't take two 560Ti Cards and SLI them with a modest OC and not get the same or better results.
Black1969ta - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
Ok I stand corrected, on the Game graphs I see the 560Ti SLI tested, but the 2WIN isn't $50 better which I suspected.FAIL EVGA!!!!!
Gonemad - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
I've always seen these dual-gpu cards as hit or miss, or more like an enthusiast part, really.If you just ignore the heat, the noise, the power consumption, then they become appealing, or even compete with 2 sli/cf cards.
I still like powerful single-slot, single gpus cards better. No SLI issues, no CF issues, it just works, (or not). Should you ever need to upgrade, yay, you have a 2nd slot waiting, and hope you can still find your GPU for sale in compatible forms, then you go back in the SLI saddle.
These cards compromise, one thing or another. Either you risk your PSU, or the builder has to tone down each gpu.
I still would stick to a single 580, with the prospect in 1 year or 2, to buy a 2nd one, with a discount. I don't know, really.
s44 - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
Given that this is the most if not only significant PC-hardware-relevant release in years (pushes hardware while being critically popular *and* selling well), I hope you add it to the bench suite sooner rather than later.Ryan Smith - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
The whole suite is getting redone for our SNB-E testbed.