Five Overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Cards, Rounded-Up

[cleeve]

We were foiled in our quest to find the best vendor-provided GPU cooler for Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560. But out of the ashes sprung a round-up of cards armed with those very same solutions. Which of these five GF114-based boards is right for you?

Five Overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Cards, Rounded-Up : Read more

 

[pensivevulcan]

Kepler is around the corner, so are lower end AMD 7000 series parts, this was interesting but wouldn't one want to wait for a plethora of reasons.

 

[payneg1]

The Galaxy model comes closest with its 830/1002 MHz clocks, but Zotac's AMP! edition goes all the way to 950/1100 MHz.

This dosent match with the above chart

 

[salad10203]

Are those temps for real? My 280 gtx has never idled under 40C.

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

so, basicaly if someone plays on a single monitor, there is no point going beyond a gtx 560 or a 6950 in today's games. (it slike in the "best gaming CPU chart", no point going beyond i5 2500k for gaming.

 

[giovanni86]

[citation][nom]salad10203[/nom]Are those temps for real? My 280 gtx has never idled under 40C.[/citation]
Your kidding right, my overclocked 580GTX at 60% fan speed idles at 32c. Cards down clock themselves which allows them to run cooler at idle temps even if it were clocked at upwards i don't think a card would get hot unless it was being used.

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

sorry, i ment single monitor @ 1080p .

 

[Guest]

Im surprised they got 5 OCed GPUs to run BF3 without crashing

 

[justme1977]

[citation][nom]crisan_tiberiu[/nom..... (it slike in the "best gaming CPU chart", no point going beyond i5 2500k for gaming.[/citation]

I have the feeling that even a i5 2500k@4ghz bottlenecks a 7970 @1080p in most newer games.
If the GPU market goes the way it does, it won't take long that even midrange cards will be bottlenecked @1080p by the cpu.

 

[wizloa]

heh, my 4870 runs at 80c regardless of idle or load

 

[FunSurfer]

I think there is an error on the Asus idle voltage: instead "0.192 V Idle" it should be 0.912

 

[Memnarchon]

[citation][nom]justme1977[/nom][citation][nom]crisan_tiberiu[/nom..... (it slike in the "best gaming CPU chart", no point going beyond i5 2500k for gaming.[/citation]I have the feeling that even a i5 2500k@4ghz bottlenecks a 7970 @1080p in most newer games. If the GPU market goes the way it does, it won't take long that even midrange cards will be bottlenecked @1080p by the cpu.[/citation]

Not really. This is mostly game depended. Depends on how much stress each graphics engine push at cpu and gpu.
Games like Dragon Age 2 and SWTOR are gpu intensive. So a GTX570 (that I have) is being used at 1080p at 99% of its usage with a low performance nowadays Q6600 in SWTOR (used MSI after burner to monitor it).
But with games such Skyrim which cpu is more important than other games, a highly clocked sandybridge is required in order to play smoothly at 1080p.
One thing is certain for sure. The higher the resolution the more gpu power and less cpu power requires a game.

 

[nevertell]

Hey, I have a gtx 460 and I play with tesselation and DX11 enabled in metro 2033 @1080p. It has some drops to 25 and lower, but that's never in the middle of a firefight.

 

[silverblue]

[citation][nom]giovanni86[/nom]Your kidding right, my overclocked 580GTX at 60% fan speed idles at 32c. Cards down clock themselves which allows them to run cooler at idle temps even if it were clocked at upwards i don't think a card would get hot unless it was being used.[/citation]
The 280 idles higher than the 580 to the best of my knowledge, plus it's a 65nm part and the largest gaming GPU ever created.

 

[GhosT94]

would you please add Crysis 2 to all GPU benchmarks

 

[stingstang]

[citation][nom]silverblue[/nom]The 280 idles higher than the 580 to the best of my knowledge, plus it's a 65nm part and the largest gaming GPU ever created.[/citation]
That's an enormous amount of fan speed for an Idle GPU. Hope you're happy having a nice loud fan at idle. I can't imagine how loud it gets under a light load.

To the article, I don't think these comparisons are really necessary. All the cards are going to have different overclocking capabilities, which is what anyone from tom's is going to check. Hell, the worst card you guys test according to this comparison might overclock the most, and be the best card for the money on someone else's comparison.

 

[Onus]

Any subjective comments about the Asus cooler's noise? I'm wondering if the different fans reduce harmonic whine, or some similar effect of having two identical fans in close proximity. I have this cooler on my GTX560Ti, and I never hear it.

 

[jaquith]

Hmm...Missing something here...Where's any EVGA??? See -> http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=50001402%2040000048%20600094002%20600158457&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=REVIEWS&PageSize=20 EVGA on GTX 570/580 (-AR lines) also includes Lifetime Warranties. IMO EVGA and ASUS are the best choices for nVidia GPUs.

For a $30 savings the ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI is worth a look. Sure if you run the fans at 100% a higher CFM fan is going to be very loud, but no one runs their fans @ 100% either.

With Apps like MSI Afterburner and others it's incredibly easy to OC any GPU. It's a balancing act between performance, temperatures, and dDA (noise). One of the big reasons for water blocks on higher end cards, etc.

 

[jaquith]

Duh me, typo dBA...coffee hasn't kicked in yet.

BTW - I appreciate the Article, it's enlightening and offers good info. Thanks!

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]payneg1[/nom]The Galaxy model comes closest with its 830/1002 MHz clocks, but Zotac's AMP! edition goes all the way to 950/1100 MHz.This dosent match with the above chart[/citation]

Quite right! Fixed.

 

[wolfram23]

so, basicaly if someone plays on a single monitor, there is no point going beyond a gtx 560 or a 6950 in today's games. (it slike in the "best gaming CPU chart", no point going beyond i5 2500k for gaming.

The GTX 560 is comparable to the 6870, though generally thought to be a little slower but with better OC headroom. The 6950 is much faster, and is comparable to the GTX 560 Ti.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]salad10203[/nom]Are those temps for real? My 280 gtx has never idled under 40C.[/citation]

As the chart says, we're reporting the delta (difference) between room temperature and the GPU.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]jaquith[/nom]Hmm...Missing something here...Where's any EVGA???[/citation]

We asked them if they'd like to participate but they never sent a test sample.

 

[Darslid]

I'm confused how are we running BF3 in Ultra here but the article with the GTX 560 Ti - 448 is only run on high. Even a comment in that article say that those cards can't run BF3 in Ultra but the less expesnive cards can?! I'd love to get some clarity around this because i'm debating whether the 448 core version is worth the price...

 

[pacioli]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]We asked them if they'd like to participate but they never sent a test sample.[/citation]

That is very frustrating. EVGA never sends anything in to be tested. Is there some sort of friction between TomsH and EVGA?

An EVGA with the lifetime warranty is my first choice when buying a GPU. They always seem to bench well against the other manufacturers in the end but it'd be nice if I didn't have to search all over creation to find those benches.