NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti w/448 Cores: GTX 570 On A Budget
by Ryan Smith on November 29, 2011 9:00 AM ESTThe Test, Crysis, BattleForge, & Metro 2033
Yesterday NVIDIA launched their first 290 series beta driver - this was intended to be the launch driver for the GTX 560-448, but QA kept it held up longer than expected. In lieu of that we are using 285.62, the WHQL 285 series driver for the GTX 560-448.
For our look at performance we’ll be taking a look at our Zotac card both at NVIDIA’s stock speeds and at Zotac’s factory overclock. For power/temp/noise we’ll only be looking at Zotac’s card – the lack of a reference design means that temperatures and noise can’t be extrapolated for other partners’ cards.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz |
| Motherboard: | Asus Rampage II Extreme |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | OCZ Summit (120GB) |
| Memory: | Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3x2GB (7-7-7-20) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 6870 AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 6950 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores Limited Edition |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA GeForce Driver 285.62 AMD Catalyst 11.11a |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
As this is not a new architecture, we’ll keep the commentary thinner than usual. The near-GTX 570 specifications mean there aren’t any surprises with game performance.
Starting as always with Crysis, at 2560 we can see that while GF100 cards perform decently at 2560, it’s really only the GTX 580 that stands a chance in any shader-heavy game. The GTX 560-448 in that respect is a lot like the GTX 560 Ti: it’s best suited for 1920 and below.
At 1920 and 1680 the GTX 560-448 is well ahead of its GF114-based namesake. As with the specs and architecture, the GTX 560-448 has more in common with the GTX 570 than it does the GTX 560 Ti. The end result is that the GTX 560-448 is just shy of 50fps at 1920, only a few percent off of the GTX 570. With Zotac’s overclock that closes the gap exactly, delivering the same 51.1fps performance. This goes to show just how close the GTX 560-448 and GTX 570 really are. NVIDIA may not want to call it a GTX 570 LE, but that’s really what it is.
Meanwhile compared to AMD’s lineup things are a little less rosy. The GTX 570 at launch was closer to competition for the Radeon HD 6970, but here the GTX 570 and GTX 560-448 are tied by or beaten by AMD’s cheaper 6950.
Looking at the minimum framerates we see the same trends. The GTX 560-448 is well above the GTX 560 Ti – by 13% at 1920 – but the 6950 is once again the victor.
Moving on to BattleForge, we see the emergence of AMD and NVIDIA switching places based on the game being tested. BattleForge favors NVIDIA cards, and as a result the GTX 560-448 does quite well here, tying AMD’s more expensive 6970 at 1920. Zotac’s overclock further improves thing, but as BattleForge likes memory bandwidth, it can’t overcome the GTX 570’s 5% memory bandwidth advantage.
With Metro 2033 we see AMD and NVIDIA swap positions again, this time leaving AMD’s lineup with the very slight edge. This puts the 6950 ahead of the GTX 560-448 at 1920, even with Zotac’s overclock. Practically speaking however you’re not going to break 40fps on a single card without a GTX 580.
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venomblade - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Is it a type-o how the 560 ti 448 has a mem clock of 900mhz and yet you say it has an effective speed of 3800mhz? Shouldn't it be 3600mhz?Ryan Smith - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 - link
Heh, it turns out doing math on a plane is harder than I thought. Thanks for that. Fixed.JonnyDough - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Good strategy to be getting rid of bad chips and appearing to dominate a bit more of the high end market, even if it is the same product. Still, they are not necessarily better cards than what AMD offers, and remember how late Fermi was coming to the game. AMD will soon have the 7000 series, which everyone but the NVidia camp and its followers are awaiting. =)Finally - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Anand doesn't offer any Price/Performance comparisons. If they did, the HD6850 and HD6870 haven been clogging the first 2 places for several months now...JonnyDough - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
"NVIDIA is purposely introducing namespace collisions, and while they have their reasons I don’t believe them to be good enough"Its really no surprise, Nvidia has been f'n up names since Matrox was around. Whoever keeps naming their cards should have been fired in 1997.
If you were to post one only one comment here with the ability to rate it to 1000 that said "Nvidia sucks at naming their video cards" it would be rated up to 1001. Their confusing naming schemes are one big reason I buy AMD's video cards. At least with AMD I can keep track of what I am buying. I don't even bother keeping up with Nvidia cards for this very reason. You would think that a simple numbering system based on performance would suffice, and additional letters for things that specialty cards support. For instance, if only specific rare cards could do CUDA processing, then add a "C" moniker. This isn't hard Nvidia. Fix it with your next generation, or keep losing customers because of your stupidity.
silverblue - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Yes, but AMD aren't perfect either; the 6770 and 5770 spring to mind.NVIDIA reminds me of Intel albeit not so bad; with Intel you have to research whether the chip you're looking at even supports VT-d.
Finally - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I don't care much for names, although I found their re-re-re-branding of the 8800GT atrocious... Well, I just tend to go for the GPU maker that offer me the most bang for the buck - and none of these cards have cost me more than 150€... my last 3 cards where 7600GT, HD4850 and now it's an HD6870. German hardware review page always offers a Performance/€ comparison table and that's where I look before I go shopping.Finally - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
...and their name is computerbase dot deBurticus - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Good for Nvidia to be able to utilized slightly flawed chips... but what's the consumer value here? The price point @ $300 puts it next or very close to GTX 570. Why not just get one of those? The 560 TI's are finally getting down to the $200 range.... maybe if the 448 core version was $250 instead of $300.Matrices - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Agreed. The pricing is off the mark. 570s are $330 to $350 and 560 Tis can be had for $200 to $220 with minor rebates.The $290-$300 price point of this thing is skewed too far in the wrong direction.