NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 Ti w/448 Cores: GTX 570 On A Budget
by Ryan Smith on November 29, 2011 9:00 AM ESTPower, Temperature, & Noise
Last but certainly not least is our look at power, temperature, and noise. If we’ve clearly established that the GTX 560-448 has more in common with the GTX 570 than the GTX 560 Ti in gaming performance, then let’s see if the operational attributes are equally close.
| GeForce GTX 500 Series Voltages | ||||
| Ref 580 Load | Ref 570 Load | Zotac 560-448 Load | ||
| 1.037v | 1.025v | 1.000v | ||
Looking quickly at voltage, our Zotac card is set to 1.0v. This is actually 0.025v less than our reference GTX 570 and GTX 580 cards, though it’s important to note that all of these cards have a wide VID range. Realistically speaking we expect that the GTX 560-448 would have a similar to greater VID range than the GTX 570.
It’s quite interesting to find that idle system power consumption is several watts lower than it is with the GTX 570. Truth be told we don’t have a great explanation for this; there’s the obvious difference in coolers, but it’s rare to see a single fan have this kind of an impact.
Power consumption under load shows a similar benefit. With the Zotac GTX 560-448 we’re drawing 15W less than with the reference GTX 570. Given that the performance of the Zotac GTX 560-448 is so close to the GTX 570, and this actually starts looking like a cheaper GTX 570 with lower power consumption, which is not something we would have expected to find. But at the same time this means load power consumption is still nearly 30W greater than the GTX 560 Ti, is a very distinct difference for two products sharing the same name.
FurMark is thrown in for consistency, but at this point NVIDIA’s driver throttling is so extreme that FurMark is instantly beaten back when started.
When it comes to GPU temperatures, idle temperatures straddle the difference between the GTX 560 Ti and the GTX 570. The open-air cooler is usually better for lower temperatures, but at the same time GF110’s higher idle power consumption negates some of this benefit. In any case it’s still one of the coolest high-end cards at idle.
Meanwhile GPU load temperatures are at the middle of the pack. Like all GF110 products the Zotac GTX 560-448 starts getting toasty under load (even with the open-air cooler), but it’s still noticeably cooler than the GTX 570 and GTX 580. With that said the open-air cooler means that this is going to be case-dependent, so cases with poor airflow would favor the closed coolers of the GTX 570 and GTX 580.
Finally we have our look at noise. The Zotac GTX 560-448 idles just a hair louder than most of our other high-end cards, including the GTX 570. Under load however that open-air cooler really makes its mark among a crowd of closed coolers, leading to noise levels little above the GTX 560 Ti and remarkably quieter than the GTX 570. On a performance/noise spectrum this is fantastic, but the devil is in the details: you need a case with good airflow to make this happen. Otherwise the Zotac GTX 560-448 ramps up significantly once temperatures approach 90C.
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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.