GTX 560 Ti Review Introduction

Here you are, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti launch pilot review. Making use of NVIDIA's proven second generation Fermi architecture, this GPU targets a key price point which has been NVIDIA and ATI's hunting ground since 2006. The sub-$300 segment is where customers have learned to expect high-end like performance and features at compelling prices. Price-performance ratio is the king here. The performance-price sweet spot is a virtual G-spot for GPU manufacturers. Whoever hits it right, gets loads of...sales. Veterans in this segment include the GeForce 7900 GT, Radeon X1950 Pro, GeForce 8800 GT, Radeon HD 4850, GeForce GTX 260-216, GeForce GTX 460, Radeon HD 6870, and in comes the latest contender, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. The model name invokes some nostalgia as SKUs carrying the "Ti" marker were some of NVIDIA's first with programmable shaders. While the GeForce GTX 560 Ti isn't a "first" in anything as far as feature-set goes, I think "Ti" has more to do with shaping up the brand, telling buyers that the product has a little more to offer for its price, and that it's a step above the price point GTX 460 set for itself, while remaining to be a performance segment model.

Getting into the fine print of NVIDIA's offer, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is based on NVIDIA's new GF114 chip. As far as its specifications and transistor-count go, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is identical to the GF104 on which GTX 460 was based, except that it has all 384 of the CUDA cores physically present enabled, and that it uses the same secret-sauce (read: electrical enhancements) that made GF110, an evolved clone of the GF100, totally rock with power consumption figures. 384 CUDA cores apart, there's a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, 32 ROPs, branched geometry processing, and the immediate fruition of the electrical enhancements, clock speeds: 822 MHz core, 1640 MHz CUDA cores, and 1000 MHz (4.00 GHz effective) memory. As far as features go, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti doesn't come with anything we haven't seen already with the GTX 460, it's all about performance per watt/dollar in this round.

The Card

NVIDIA's GTX 560 reference design comes with a black cooler and black PCB, but board partners are free to customize all aspects of the card to their positioning and product strategy.


GeForce GTX 560 requires two slots in your system.


The card has two DVI ports and one mini-HDMI port. Unlike AMD's latest GPUs, the output logic design is not as flexible. On AMD cards vendors are free to combine six TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links), on NVIDIA, you are fixed to two DVI outputs and one HDMI/DP in addition to that. NVIDIA confirmed that you can use only two displays at the same time, so for a three monitor setup you would need two cards.

NVIDIA has included an HDMI sound device inside their GPU which does away with the requirement of connecting an external audio source to the card for HDMI audio. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.3a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit. NVIDIA also claims full support for the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 specification which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-Ray titles shipping with support for 3D output.


You may combine up to two GeForce GTX 560 cards in SLI for increased performance or improved image quality settings.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

NVIDIA's cooler uses a vapor-chamber technology heatplate to maximize heat transfer between the GPU and the rest of the heatsink. You can also see above that the heatsink cools secondary components like voltage regulation circuitry and memory chips.


The card has two 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors.


The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung, and carry the model number K4G10325FE-HC04. They are specified to run at 1250 MHz (5000 MHz GDDR5 effective).


NVIDIA has chosen an ONSemi NCP5388 for their board. While it does not support voltage control via I2C, NVIDIA's driver exposes a voltage control interface that works via VID.


NVIDIA's GeForce 114 graphics processor is made on a 40 nm process at TSMC Taiwan. It uses the same architecture as NVIDIA's GF 104 but with improvements on the transistor level to reduce power consumption.

Test System

Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used.

• All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
• All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

• 1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
• 1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
• 1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
• 1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
• 2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.