Thursday, October 27th 2011
Colorful Shows Off The Most Powerful GeForce GTX 560 Ti PCB Featured in iGame Card
Asian graphics card vendor Colorful is at it again with its innovative board designs. This time, the company is after a GeForce GTX 560 Ti (GF114-based) graphics card that boasts of very strong power delivery, and a few mysterious expansion options. Colorful's emphasis has always been on PCB design and choice of high-grade components. This particular card, most likely called the Colorful GTX 560 Ti iGame, is no exception to that. The PCB is particularly long (as much as a GF110-based board).
The additional length is put to use by an innovative arrangement of VRM phases in two rows of four phases. This card employs high-grade chokes with driver-MOSFETs (a component that integrates up/down MOSFETs and driver IC into a single compact package). This 8-phase VRM draws power from three 6-pin power connectors, and can deliver 300W of power to help with record-seeking overclocking feats. There are consolidated voltage measurement points to help manually measure voltages.
The clock speeds of the GPU and memory out of the box are unknown at this point but one can expect them to be pretty high. The card features redundant VGA BIOS loaded into separate EEPROM chips, which can be switched between using a push-switch on the rear-panel. The GF114 GPU is backed by eight Samsung-made 0.4 ns GDDR5 memory chips that are binned to offer the highest overclocking potential.
There are two features on this PCB that are particularly intriguing. On the obverse side, there is what appears to be a mini PCIe slot. We don't know what Colorful plans to use it for, but one can speculate that Colorful could try something similar to Galaxy WHDI, and seat a wireless HD video streaming device there. Moving on to the reverse side, we find another larger slot that looks somewhat like an SO-DIMM slot. We haven't the slightest idea what it could be used for.
All this power demands high-grade cooling, and so Colorful is using a complex heatsink-based cooler. From the GPU base arise 10 heat pipes (arranged in two layers). Five of these bend into a U-shape go to the larger aluminum fin stack with fins stacked parallel to the plane of the motherboard. The other heat pipes pass through a slightly smaller fin stack (over the VRM area), with fins stacked perpendicular to the motherboard's plane. This assembly is ventilated by at least two large (80 mm or more) fans.
As usual, Colorful designs its products for the Asian and European markets.
The additional length is put to use by an innovative arrangement of VRM phases in two rows of four phases. This card employs high-grade chokes with driver-MOSFETs (a component that integrates up/down MOSFETs and driver IC into a single compact package). This 8-phase VRM draws power from three 6-pin power connectors, and can deliver 300W of power to help with record-seeking overclocking feats. There are consolidated voltage measurement points to help manually measure voltages.
There are two features on this PCB that are particularly intriguing. On the obverse side, there is what appears to be a mini PCIe slot. We don't know what Colorful plans to use it for, but one can speculate that Colorful could try something similar to Galaxy WHDI, and seat a wireless HD video streaming device there. Moving on to the reverse side, we find another larger slot that looks somewhat like an SO-DIMM slot. We haven't the slightest idea what it could be used for.
All this power demands high-grade cooling, and so Colorful is using a complex heatsink-based cooler. From the GPU base arise 10 heat pipes (arranged in two layers). Five of these bend into a U-shape go to the larger aluminum fin stack with fins stacked parallel to the plane of the motherboard. The other heat pipes pass through a slightly smaller fin stack (over the VRM area), with fins stacked perpendicular to the motherboard's plane. This assembly is ventilated by at least two large (80 mm or more) fans.
As usual, Colorful designs its products for the Asian and European markets.
42 Comments on Colorful Shows Off The Most Powerful GeForce GTX 560 Ti PCB Featured in iGame Card
Still, put some LN2 on that thing, and I'm visualizing EVGA's OC record broken ! We'll just have to wait for the GF 110 variant. Hell, they should'v used it from the beginning.
I actually prefer Gainward cards for that reason. Exploring possibilities. Just wish it were easier to get waterblocks for non-reference cards.
www.techpowerup.com/reviews/?q_reviews=evga&p=1&pp=25&order=date&category=
EVGA's offerings in the market rarely add much if anything to the table. The only premium thing about them is the price. I've rarely seen EVGA add anything innovative to the industry. Compared to other brands like ASUS, Colorful, MSI, Sparkle, etc, EVGA mostly sells stock cooled reference design cards. And when they do get creative, they slab a new sticker and that's it.
I might be wrong in what I've typed above, but from where I stand, EVGA is far from premium.
Anyone else find the near black and white photos a little ironic given the the manufacturer is named Colorful? :D
i said EVGA USED to be premium. they had 285 classifieds with digital pwms. best damn 285s. see those reviews posted before? those ACS3 cards owned. EVGA lost their workers and they now suck. you seem to be new to this business. you're also wrong about EVGA position. they still are the biggest seller of nvidia cards in the u.s. they have the best cooperation with nvidia in Cali, their cards go in GF 6 lans. EVGA IS nvidia in one way or another.
and yea, those 285s were beast
Since I joined these forums I've rarely came around an instance where someone favoured a side only because he/she is a fanboi/girl. Most of the users around here only care for how much bang for the buck does the card have. And most of these forums dwellers deal with facts, charts and numbers, solid benchmarks. Not just CAPS type "NVIDIA IS OVERPRICED" and "ATI IS SH**" !.
Being the biggest doesn't mean the best. And it sure doesn't give it the right to be titled "Premium". I never denied them the fact that they have impressive sales charts. Good business ties rarely matter for these companies. XFX had a decent thing going between them and Nvidia, that didn't stop the later from kicking them out of the boat, did it ?
SAPPHIRE Toxic 100269TXSR Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-b...
find the comment on the right bar then look at it. what does it say? 4890 beats 285... yeah all along... it didnt even beat 275. said by the guy who recently started locking amd threads he doenst like.
xfx's situation with nvidia has nothing to do with evga. EVGA has a better connection than any other company does in San Diego. its not even close. nvidia gives them hand on marketing bulletins, product management. and EVGA has to listen to them. xfx was just a strong nvidia partner. they couldnt sell like BFG so they had to jump ship.
I've read many threads on this site asking for recommendations for a build. I've read many AMD/ATI users recommend a GTX580 or a 460 back at the time. People around here know that there's nothing such as a better brand. There's only a hardware with better performance. No one denied the power of th 5970 back then. And no one here is denying the power of the new GTX 580 !
You'll have to forgive me for not looking at your link, we aren't talking about newegg, we're talking about TPU.
i wont forgive you for talking like you're in a fantasy MMO land.... please go back and look at that link. what does it say just in the right corner? 4890 is 'better' than 285. you know? right on the right comment bar of Newegg? can you make it more deceiving? said by Erocker. its much worse than writing it here. so stop it.