ASUS ENGTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review Index
- 1 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP: Presentation
- 2 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Features
- 3 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP OpenGL performances
- 4 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Direct3D performances
- 5 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Gaming performances
- 6 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP DirectCompute performances
- 7 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Power consumption and overclocking
- 8 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Conclusion
1 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP: Presentation
1.1 – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Overview
The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is NVIDIA new gaming card based on the GF114 GPU. The GTX 560 Ti is the worthy successor of the GeForce GTX 460, a card wellknown for its overclocking capabilities.
GTX 560 Ti… Ti stands for Titanium, a low density (lightweight) and very resistant metal. For NVIDIA, the GTX 560 Ti has the same properties: small card for impressive performances.
Okay let’s see the features of this new card. The GF114 GPU is available with a reference clock of 822MHz. The GPU is made up of 8 SM (streaming multiprocessor or compute unit in OpenCL world), each SM having 48 CUDA cores, 4 dispatch units, 8 texture units and special function units. The GF114 features a total of 384 SP (CUDA cores) clocked at 1644MHz (twice the GPU core clock) and 64 texture units.
Unlike the GF104 GPU (GTX 460) which has only 7 SM (one SM has been disabled for power consumption reasons), the GF114 comes with all SMs enabled. This is possible thanks to serious optimizations at the transistor level. Thanks to these tweaks, NVIDIA has been able to significantly increase clock speeds while reducing electrical leakage.
The GTX 560 Ti embarks 1024MB of GDDR5 (four 64-bit memory controller for a total of 256-bit) graphics memory clocked at 4008MHz effective speed (or 2004MHz DDR speed like in GPU Caps Viewer or 1002MHz real speed like in GPU-Z, see here for more details about memory speeds).
NVIDIA has designed a reference board for the GTX 560 Ti with overclocking in mind. There is a robust 4-phase VRM for the GPU amd memory and the PCB is equiped with two 6-pin power connectors allowing a maximal power consumption of 3x75W = 225W (see here for more details: [TIPS] Maximum Power Consumption of Graphics Card Connectors).
The GTX 560 Ti has a TDP (thermal desing power, see here for more details) of 170W (at reference clocks).
Like the GTX 580, the GTX 560 Ti has the same power monitoring hardware (see here: GeForce GTX 580 Power Monitoring Details). But on the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, the power monitoring hardware is optional and graphics cards makers are free to implement it or not. Very nice as we’ll see it later… 😉
NVIDIA’s new baby will replace the GTX 470 and is positioned directly against the Radeon HD 6870 and even the Radeon HD 6950.
The GTX 560 Ti is a Direct3D 11 and OpenGL 4.1 capable graphics card. The card also supports OpenCL 1.1, the standard GPU computing API as well as CUDA, PhysX and DirectCompute.
1.2 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Overview
ASUS’s ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP is a factory-overclocked GTX 560 Ti. The GF114 GPU is overclocked at 900MHz and these extra +78MHz / +10% (ref: 822MHz) clearly show the overclocking headroom of NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti. The 384 CUDA cores are clocked at 1800MHz and the 1024MB of GDDR5 memory are clocked at 4200MHz effective speed (ref: 4008MHz).
ASUS’s ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP comes with a customized PCB and VGA cooler. The cooling system, the DirectCU II or DCII, features 2 fans (one in NVIDIA reference cooler) and three copper heatpipes directly in contact with the GPU core:
All fundamental components of the power circuitry (chokes, capacitors and MOSFETs) have been chosen for overclocking:
The GTX 560 Ti reference board has a TDP of 170W at reference clocks. According to my tests, ASUS GTX 560 Ti DCII TOP has a TDP of around 190W due to the GPU clocked at 900MHz.
And guess what my friends? There’s no FurMark detection on ASUS’s GTX 560 Ti. You can burn the GF114 without limitation and this is a good news for GPU overclockrs!
How is it possible?
As I said in the GTX 560 Ti overview, the power monitoring hardware is optional and graphics cards are free to implement it or not. From my tests, ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP does not implement the power monitoring hardware or has a customized power monitoring circuitry! This is a very great news for the overclocking community.
Here are some low resolution pictures of the GTX 560 Ti DCII TOP (high resolution pictures can be found here: ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Gallery (12 pictures total)):
This is a really nice card, well designed and I like the dark side of this GTX 560 Ti.
ASUS GTX 560 Ti DCII TOP comes with two LEDs on the back side of the PCB, near the power connectors that show if the card is properly fed or not: green: ok, orange (or red, I don’t know exactly): there’s a problem:
The bundle is reduced to the bare minimum (no geeky stuff) so no need to talk about it!
To end up this first part, here is the size of the GTX 560 Ti compared to the GeForce GTX 580 (here EVGA’s GTX 580 Superclocked):
ASUS ENGTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review Index
- 1 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP: Presentation
- 2 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Features
- 3 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP OpenGL performances
- 4 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Direct3D performances
- 5 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Gaming performances
- 6 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP DirectCompute performances
- 7 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Power consumption and overclocking
- 8 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Conclusion
this thing is some beast..beating a GTX470 with only 8SM..they musta done some hella performance tweaks with the GF114
I think i’ll wait for a 660 then 😀
I wonder if my PSU could handle 2 of these…
At the moment it’s handling pretty well my 2 palit gtx 460 1gb which have a very similar tdp.
My PSU is a CORSAIR AX750 Gold 12cm PLUG (87+)
@Zibri: I’m sure that the AX750 can handle (without problem) two GTX 560 Ti highly stressed…
For comparison… with same settings my 2 GTX 460 score 1511 points and 60 FPS in unigine heaven.
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, tessellation: normal, shaders: high, 4X MSAA, 16X anisotropic filtering.
TAKE OF THE COVER, FANS AND COOLER AND PICTURE IT PLEASE.
WANT TO SEE ITS DIFFERENCES TO REFERENCE LAYOUT.
JeGX pourquoi ne pas avoir monter les voltages ?
interdiction du fabricant , pas le temps pour peaufinner l’oc de la bête ?
dommage car la 560 ti à l’air d’etre la reine en overcloking … ou pas ?
I don’t think NVIDIA have used ‘Titatnium’ since GeForce 4?
@komar: juste pour une question de temps. Effectivement en augmentant la tension d’alim du GPU on devrait gagner quelques Hz de plus. J’essaierai de faire un test plus tard.
J’ai vu la review techpowerup de la bête ne te dérange pas .
Jetais juste curieux de savoir cb elle prenait en aircooling
Merci quand même JEGx
Greetings .
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I have to say I am quite impressed by the 560. The performance was expected, but still it’s nice to see it’s there.
noise?
@Michael: at idle, the card is extremely quiet. Under FurMark the cooler is noisy but is supportable (nothing to see with GTX 480 stock VGA cooler!). And I talk for an open case testbed…
Underwhelmed. You’ll get a 6950 for the same price using 20-30W less and has more performance. FAIL!
@DrBalthar: don’t forget the secret weapon of the GTX 560 Ti: overclocking. I will publish an article shortly 😉
Overclocking will just make it hotter and eat more power with marginal gain doubt it can cover the performance gap. Nvidia has piss poor Flop/Watt with the whole Fermi line.
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Very nice review, I was focussing my search on this reviewed card and the 6950 variant.
There are a lot of reviews of normal 560ti and 6950 based cards, but not so much of the asus direct CU versions.
I like the way you discuss things, they are righ spot on as what i was looking for.
Still not sure which card to pick, the 560Ti or the 6950 based on ASUS Direct CU II design, they are allmost the same price, but have both pros and cons.
I like playing BC2 for instance, the nvidia cards are better in this game, but what about future releases…those choices…:)
I got a 6950 hell of problems and the card was having problems with fable 3, i returned the card next day got a EVGA 560 ti next day and now is running any game over 50 fps. i will say this second ATI i buy and they all failed me.
A 6950 for the same price as a ENGTX 560 ti top CII?????? No way!!! At lease 700 bucks differance! I don’t know who ur supplier is, but no way. And I must agree with “6950 falls” ATI cards in general are very buggy and unstable, my last 3 ATI’s had constant issues, ranging from overclocking probs, to HDMI problems to even crossfire problems, ATI is just too much hassel in general. Although they are good value for money, and good performers, stick to the tried and tested man!! NVIDIA.
I just put together a nice system got it all running but the vidoe card wont display on the moniter and my motherboard has no on board video..I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.What I built was MB Asus Sabertooth X58 LGA 1366 R, PSU Antec TPQ-1200 1200W RT, CPU Intel Core 17 950 3.06G 45N R, MEM 4Gx3 KHX 1866C9D3K3 12GX R, HDD 1.5 WD WD15EARX 64M%… Any Info anyone can give would be great.