EVGA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win: The Raw Power Of Two GPUs
by Ryan Smith on November 4, 2011 11:00 PM ESTDIRT 2, Mass Effect 2, Wolfenstein, & Compute Performance
DIRT 2 is another title modern cards can power on through. Even at 2560 the 2Win gets better than 100fps, turning in another large lead over the GTX 580.
Mass Effect 2 is a rather interesting test because it above all else appears to be texture bound rather than shader bound, which is a very fortunate scenario for the GTX 560 Ti, as it has nearly as much texture throughput as the GTX 580. As a result the 2Win with its two GPUs does exceptionally well here. At 2560 it offers 92fps, and more importantly it surpasses a GTX 580 by a hair over 50%. This is the exception rather than the rule of course, but it’s also a prime example of why dual-GPU cards can be a threat to high performance single-GPU cards like the GTX 580.
Wrapping up our gaming benchmarks is Wolfenstein multiplayer. The game is CPU limited at much beyond 120fps, and even at 2560 the 2Win nearly hits that mark.
Our final benchmark is the Civilization V leader texture compression benchmark, a compute performance benchmark measuring the ability of a DirectCompute program to decompress textures. While not a game in and of itself, it does a good job highlighting the 2Win’s biggest weakness: it’s only as good as SLI is. Texture compression isn’t something that can be split among GPUs, and as a result the 2Win is suddenly no better than a regular GTX 560 Ti. At these performance levels it isn’t an issue, but it’s not the only game using this kind of system. Rage is similar in application and in SLI limitations, which becomes an issue because Rage’s CUDA accelerated texture decoder really needs a GTX 570 or better.
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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.