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Graphics Card Reviews >
Régis Jehl
Translator: Jack Sims
Test date: January 13, 2012
The card at a glance

For our tests, we used the Asus GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores DirectCUII. It stands out for its large cooling system which takes up no fewer than three PCI slots (triple decker) and uses two fans. The fans proved to be particularly effective both in 3D activity and at idle. There's a slight whirring sound (36 dB (A)) during idle.

The rest of the card is more standard with two DVI outs, an HDMI 1.4 and a Display Port.

The Nvidia extras

Nvidia cards, of course, have the advantage of being compatible with other Nvidia brand technologies. 3D Vision first of all for your 3D gaming. To enjoy it, you’ll need to get yourself a 3D screen as well as the 3D Vision kit that includes the obligatory glasses.

Next comes PhysX support for more elaborate graphics effects in any compatible games.

3D Surround Gaming is Nvidia’s version of ATI Eyefinity. It allows you to do your gaming across 3 screens simultaneously. The drivers allow you to fuse the screens you have to give a higher res display area.

3D Surround and 3D Vision can be combined. You do however need at least two GeForce GTX 570s for a three-screen 3D set up, as well as the 3D Vision kit. Only for a handful of wealthy nutters then!

Finally Nvidia also highlights the acceleration of processing for various pieces of software that allow you to use the graphics card for this. While your average Joe rarely uses this type of application, the enterprise market does, with 3D rendering, photo retouching and so on.


The GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores is in fact, in spite of its name, a slightly cut down version of the GeForce GTX 570. The graphics chip, the quantity of memory and the running clocks are all identical on both models and only the number of processing units changes. The 560 Ti 448 Cores is, then, a good way for Nvidia to get rid of some stock before the arrival of the new GeForce generation.

Size, noise and heat

For this new model, there isn’t really an Nvidia reference model. Each manufacturer (Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and so on) uses a separate cooling system and we can’t therefore make any pronouncements on how loud each card is. As the card is a slightly cut down GTX 570 however (fewer GPU cores), it's naturally exactly the same size (26.5 cm long). Two PCI-E connectors, one 8-pin and one 6-pin, supply the electricity.

Energy consumption

With fewer processing units to power, energy consumption is also naturally slightly lower. At idle, we dropped below the 100 Watt barrier on our test configuration and in intense 3D activity, we recorded it at 397 Watts, which is 24 less than on the GTX 570. Generally speaking these results are comparable to those for the AMD Radeon HD 6970.

Gaming performance

No surprises when it comes to gaming where the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores falls somewhere between the GTX 560 Ti and the GTX 570. In comparison to the GTX 570 the average deficit is a little over 4%, which is a very small difference when you compare the price of the two cards. Remember, the final rating of the product isn’t affected by price.

Tt gtx 560ti448

General performance average
Click on the image to see all our readings
and compare this model with others
 
In comparison to the competition on our battery of tests, this GeForce comes out slightly on top of the AMD Radeon HD 6970. Nevertheless, as always, the performance difference can vary in favour of one card or the other depending on the game you’re running.

At the end of the day here, Nvidia is giving us the nth rollout of its Fermi architecture and you'll therefore be getting a card that's at ease in video gaming. Nevertheless, the difference with the GeForce GTX 570 is so small that it is difficult to tell the two apart. Keep an eye on pricing when you buy and don’t lose sight of the fact that the Radeon HD 6970 offers a similar level of performance for the same price.

Consult the performance index table

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Pluses

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Good gaming performance

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Cooler effective and quiet in 2D

-

DirectX 11 compatibility

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3D Vision and 3D Surround

-

Acceleration of processing for CUDA compatible applications

Minuses

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Energy consumption is still relatively high

4
This is an excellent graphics card designed for gamers who want all their graphics options pushed high. As always, you’ll need to keep an eye on price changes and judge what’s best value at the moment of purchase, especially as the performance difference in comparison to its direct competitor is quite slim.

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