NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560: The Top To Bottom Factory Overclock
by Ryan Smith on May 17, 2011 9:00 AM ESTFinal Thoughts
Ideally I like to end all of my video card reviews with some decisive, concrete thoughts and a well-founded opinion about a video card. This is not going to be happening today.
NVIDIA’s decision to forgo a reference card for their new $200 champion is a bit odd – the fact that we’re not going to seeing many (if any) reference clocked cards is all the odder. It’s hard to make a solid recommendation when there are so many slightly different products that will be composing the GTX 560 lineup. Based on what we know about pricing and performance though, we can take a stab at it.
The message from NVIDIA is clear: while the GeForce GTX 560 is meant to be their new $200 card, they don’t intend for the reference clocked (810MHz/4004MHz) card to be that $200 product. Instead factory overclocked cards will flesh out the GTX 560 lineup, and it will be the cards with small factory overclocks that will fill the $200 role. Based on the MSRPs and configurations we’ve been given, our best guess is that the average $200 GTX 560 will be a “mid-grade” card at around 850MHz for the core and 4100MHz (data rate) for the memory. It’s from here where we’re going to draw our conclusions about the GTX 560, at least as far as we can.
As has been the case with most of the GTX 500 series and Radeon HD 6000 series launches, when the cards are close, it’s only close on average. In this case the GTX 560 Mid is similar in performance to the Radeon HD 6870 on average, but this is because the two are constantly swapping for first place, and the difference between the two is quite dramatic at times. On average the GTX 560 Mid is ahead of the 6870 by just enough to justify its $200 price tag relative to the 6870’s price, but the final choice is still heavily game dependent. Just because the GTX 560 Mid performs $20 better doesn’t make it the better card if you’re going to be playing games like Crysis or STALKER, where the 6870 has a definite lead. But if it’s going to be games like Civilization V or HAWX, then the GTX 560 Mid is the clearcut winner.
If you had to buy a card for around $200 with no knowledge of the games it will be used with, the GTX 560 Mid is a safe bet, but only just. Otherwise our usual advice applies: it’s the games, stupid. The GTX 560 won’t recapture the market-redefining launch that was the GTX 460 series, but it’s a solid entry in the 500 series and a suitable successor to the GTX 460 1GB.
Now if that’s our advice for a “mid-grade” GTX 560, how about a “high-grade” card such as the ASUS GTX 560 DirectCU II Top, with its much larger factory overclock. In terms of performance the ASUS GTX 560 Top looked very good, and while it’s a smidge slower than the GTX 560 Ti, it’s basically good enough to be its equal. From what we’ve seen, with a 925Mhz+ factory overclock a GTX 560 can erase the GTX 560’s deficit versus the GTX 560 Ti.
The one hitch with this is that while these factory overclocks bring the GTX 560 closer to the GTX 560 Ti in performance, the GTX 560 Ti is approaching the GTX 560 in price. For the $220 MSRP of the ASUS GTX 560, you could get one of a few different reference or near-reference clocked GTX 560 Tis. This doesn’t make the ASUS GTX 560 a poor choice, but it does mean there’s an even wider array of cards to work through around $220.
I like the ASUS GTX 560 for its build quality, but for its GTX 560 Ti-like performance I have to compare it to the original reference card. The reference GTX 560 Ti was simply a ridiculously good card when it came to balancing noise and performance. The ASUS GTX 560 can match the GTX 560 Ti’s performance, but in traditional ASUS fashion not its acoustic properties. So long as aftermarket overclocking is not a factor, I could only recommend the ASUS GTX 560 DirectCU II Top so long as it’s cheaper than a reference GTX 560 Ti.
Wrapping things up, given the factory overclocks we’re seeing it makes the prospects of a good aftermarket overclock on the mid-grade cards a very good possibility. It’s unlikely that the GTX 560 will match the GTX 460 in raw overclock potential, but as long as manufacturers aren’t aggressively binning 950MHz+ chips to their top cards, the door is left open for getting quite a bit more performance out of the GTX 560.
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Ryan Smith - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - link
We always include MIRs in our pricing, given their prevalence. With MIRs, there are no fewer than 6 6870s at Newegg below $180 (and a 7th at $183).C'DaleRider - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link
"I don't know where you guys are getting this information, but the Radeon HD 6870 IS NOT at $180."Actually, I don't know where YOU are getting your misinformed information.
Right now, on Newegg, 6870's are as low as $162 after rebate, $182 before rebate. (An XFX card, btw.)
Take a look......
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...
Now, maybe you'll get your facts correct before posting drivel.
L. - Thursday, May 19, 2011 - link
Don't feed teh trollz ;)Stas - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link
Idk, I paid $160 for my Sapphire HD6870 with dual fans 2 months ago o.Oaraczynski - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - link
...would those 'in the know' know whether games like the witcher2 and skyrim would be better off with the nvidia or amd line?TheJian - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link
Witcher 2 doesn't use Aurora engine, all new now so wait for it to be put in some sites benchmarking. Same with skyrim, it uses a new Creation engine, and also 100% dynamic lighting with lots of snow and cliffs (which this engine is designed for).Sorry. Not much worth extrapolating other than we have no idea who will win later :) If we're being honest anyway. I suppose a quick google might get a hit on the devs opinions.
Sunsmasher - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - link
Your comments about confusing naming are very valid.I've long ago come to the conclusion that the confusing naming issue is a deliberate strategy by Nvidia.
They WANT to create confusion to make it more difficult for less sophisticated buyers
to compare cards head to head and Nvidia can thereby pick up a few more sales than they would otherwise.
The proof that this is deliberate is the fact that they Keep Doing It.
Otherwise, they would have very straightforward, very easily compared naming conventions:
Higher numbers = more power, GT not as powerful as GTX, etc.
An unfortunate state of affairs, but not about to change even with writers often complaining about it.
Fortunately, there are resources on the web that compare cards head to head.
TheJian - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link
They're not trying to confuse you. They're just trying to sell every chip they can. A lot of dies have defects etc that cause them to release a plethora of cards at different speeds, features disabled (possibly due to defects in dies) etc. Die shrinks cause problems too. Sometimes they save enough in power/heat to warrant a new release # or model. Take the GTX 260. The core216 came out, fixed heat issues and was a good 10% faster. People would want to identify the faster/cooler cards and not get screwed. I hate Motherboard makers not listing the REV prominently on the box, or in ads. It's tough to buy online when I'm after a specific rev. This is more a tech issue than a company deliberately ticking us off.If you don't mind paying MUCH higher prices, they can go ahead an toss all defective dies and get back to 3 product lines with easily seen performance advantages between the 3. AMD, Intel, Nvidia, etc they all have this problem. Of course progress would really slow down if they take this route. A person going into the store and seeing a 6750 card, might find a 5850 sitting next to it for $200 and wonder what the heck is going on...LOL. I could almost say the same about the 6850. That 6850 should blow away a 5850, I mean its a whole 1000 higher right? Confusing yes? But that 5850 beats the 6850 by about 10% in everything. There are a lot of these examples. Heck this time NV let the manufacturers decide everything (clock/memory/ref design).
In an age of small margins, just about everything in your PC being a commodity, and shareholders demanding every last dollar they can get from company X, you should just get used to tons of products not performing too differently. Really, I can make up my mind in one night of reading reviews on 3-4 websites. By the end of the night I can decide how to spend my money and be fairly certain I'm not making a big mistake. But yeah, if you're not willing to do some homework, get ready to buy something that's completely disappointing on occasion. But you're already here, no worries :) We have hardware review sites, because stores shelves and floor reps at fry's don't help us at all... :) I pity marketing dept's trying to work with all these dies/re-launches/binning etc that probably cause them nightmares...LOL Could they do better here and there? Probably. Would I like to try to make us all happy? HECK NO. :) I take that back, I wouldn't mind taking a crack at intel naming. :)
sysdawg - Tuesday, May 17, 2011 - link
Ryan,Thanks for your reviews. On page 3 you write "on the ATI side we’re using the Catalyst 11.5a hotfix"...but is that the case for all the AMD cards? The same page lists three drivers being used: Catalyst 10.10e, 11.4, and 11.5a. And for the Nvidia cards, you also list three drivers: 262.99, 270.51 beta, and 275.20 beta. If you could help, I'd specifically like to know which drivers were used for the GTX 580 and the Radeon 6970. And since I'm going to be running at 2560x1600, it would also help to know which drivers were used for those 2 cards in your March 24 review (of the GTX 590), since that review included that resolution. My thinking is that if the drivers are reasonably current for both cards, then it is closer to being 'apples to apples'.
Thanks in advance, and thank you again for your reviews.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link
Cat 10.10e: Radeon 3xxx/4xxx.Cat 11.4: Radeon 5xxx/6850/6970
Cat 11.5: Radeon 6870/6950
262.99: GeForce 2xx
270.51: GeForce 4xx, 580/570/550
275.20: GeForce GTX 560 Ti, GTX 460, GTX 560
As for the March 24th review of the GTX 590, all the high end cards were on 266/267 drivers or the Catalyst 10.4 preview drivers respectively. Those were the newest drivers at the time of that publication.
And I apologize for the somewhat chaotic nature of the driver selection. We benchmark many different cards, redoing them for every single driver revision simply isn't practical. The relevant cards will be updated for any given article, and many (if not all) of the cards are updated if there's a major driver release that significantly impacts performance.