Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti Review

Julio Franco

Posts: 9,092   +2,043
Staff member
It was only a matter of time until Nvidia added a mainstream performance graphics card to its GTX 500 series, and today we have that product. Known as the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, this new graphics card will retail for $250, placing it in direct competition with the Radeon HD 6870.

Read the full review at:
https://www.techspot.com/review/359-nvidia-geforce-gtx-560ti/

Please leave your feedback here.
 
You forgot to mention AMD's 6950, which is AMD's direct attempt to bump the GTX 560 Ti out of the spotlight. Launching at the same price point, it clearly outmatches the 560 and once again shows that AMD knows exactly what it is doing.. most of the time.

It's hard to recommend the 560 over the 6950, since they are releasing at the same price point and since the 6950 is offering better performance per pricing... and AMD is also dropping the pricing on the 6970, which makes it ever harder to recommend the card atm.
 
Well, the two points for either card is: if you want more than two displays (ie three) then you get the 6950. If you play games that utilize Physx (or CUDA) or you intend to, or would like to overclock*, then get the 560 Ti.

Likewise, if you like AMD, get the 6950. If you like Nvidia, get the 560 Ti. If none of the above matters, flip a coin.

I don't see the difficulty here in terms of how and what to recommend. =)

*An arguable point, since last time I cared to check you can still "unlock" a 6950 to be a gelded 6970.
 
this looks promising but the 6950 looks better overall and the 1GB version is $10 more plus with newer drivers the 6950 will just get faster i know the 560 will to but from a basic non overclocked stand point the 6950 is faster and the better card.
 
Princeton said:
My big factor is that SLI does and probably always will scale better.

Sli scaling is better but by how much crossfire seems to be catching up have you seen the scaling of the 6870 cards pretty nice if i do say so myself.
 
Nice review as always. Blows my mind that you are using 16 different cards in the comparisons. Is there really a market for that many different cards??
 
Princeton said:
My big factor is that SLI does and probably always will scale better.
I forgot about that one with my list of considerations earlier.

Being at around $250 ($500 for a pair), I wonder how the 560 Ti SLI'd stacks up against a single 580, out of curiosities sake. =o
 
Nice card, looks like it falls between the Radeon HD 6870 & 6950. Will be interesting to see if we can get a little pricing war going.

My big factor is that SLI does and probably always will scale better.

From the reviews I've seen AMD has made some serious improvements in CrossFire scaling on the 6800 series cards. Not sure you can actually make a blanket statement that SLI will always scale better. Here's an early review of the GTX 560 Ti running SLI, looks like the HD 6950 in CrossFire is holding up pretty well. Expect we'll see similar SLI reviews of the GTX 560 from more sites pretty soon, till then I would say the jury is still out.

GeForce GTX 560 Ti SLI Guru3D
 
I had Geforce 4 4400 Ti back in the day when I was still running a Pentium 4. It worked great right out of the box and never gave me any trouble. I'm glad that Nvidia, for whatever reason, has brought back the Ti name in a card which overclocks as well as the original Titanium cards.
 
I'm just wondering, because the 570 'replaces' the 480 some say you can have these two together in SLI, would it work the same way with a 470 and a 560? I know they have different bandwidth's and ROP's whatever but just curiousbecause I'd love to do this, already have a 470.
 
Princeton said:
My big factor is that SLI does and probably always will scale better.

That's a weird thing to say. the fact is that the 6XXX series scales every bit as well as the nvidia cards, in some games, better.
The benchmarks bare this out, and The 6000 series based customer builds I build/bench, do as well.
From the reviews I've seen AMD has made some serious improvements in CrossFire scaling on the 6800 series cards. Not sure you can actually make a blanket statement that SLI will always scale better.

...just saw this, what Mizzou said.
 
why are both AMD and nvidia not sticking to a neat convention. The 560 is meant to replace the 470? Why can't it replace the 460. So that it can be a repeat of the 460s awesome value/performance ratio.
 
TomSEA said:
Nice review as always. Blows my mind that you are using 16 different cards in the comparisons. Is there really a market for that many different cards??

Of course there is. There's the informed and uninformed markets. There's the fanboy and gamer markets. There's also the "enthusiast" and "more money than brains" market.

As usual a 3 tier bracket for each segment.

Although it's starting to get more and more confusing with all these naming schemes from both AMD and Nvidia. 560, Ti.... Really Nvidia??? Ti??? 6970 is not a 5970 replacement? Really AMD???

I could go on...
 
Mizzou said:
From the reviews I've seen AMD has made some serious improvements in CrossFire scaling on the 6800 series cards. Not sure you can actually make a blanket statement that SLI will always scale better. Here's an early review of the GTX 560 Ti running SLI, looks like the HD 6950 in CrossFire is holding up pretty well. Expect we'll see similar SLI reviews of the GTX 560 from more sites pretty soon, till then I would say the jury is still out.

GeForce GTX 560 Ti SLI Guru3D

Thanks for the link, seems like what I was expecting...
 
Good review Steve, the 560 performs nicely and with the aggressively repriced AMD cards I'd say us gamers are pretty much covered.
 
Nice review.

Now the dust has settled...it looks like the status quo has been resumed. Both AMD and Nvidia will now price according to relative performance. The only flies in the proverbial ointment are:
1. Will the 1Gb version of the HD 6950 unlock to pseudo HD 6970. If yes, then the HD 6950 is probably a no-brainer from a purely performance standpoint- although the majority of users won't ever flash their BIOS it becomes a selling point none the less.
2. If it does, then I think "failed unlocker" HD 6950's could cannibilize the HD 6870 market to an extent (albeit at the hands of increased HD 6950 sales). There are already a disproportionate amount of HD 6950's in the reselling markets.
3. Pricing and the prevalence of factory OC'ed GTX 560 cards. I wouldn't think it beyond the realms of possibility that stock clocked cards could end up as the exception rather than the rule, nor would I rule out a vendor raising clocks across the board (as EVGA did with the GTX 460 1Gb).

So we now have massive segmentation in the mainstream market for the majority of 2011 and both AMD and Nvidia's full model lineups in the marketplace (uber-enthusuast dual cards excepted), it now falls upon the respective software teams to make the most of the hardware. With some eagerly awaited new game releases due soon, good drivers on game launch day are going to translate into card sales.And of course, sets the table nicely for the end of the year when both manufacturers should be launching cards based upon the process node they were designed for -as opposed to 32nm designs that required compromise and built on the 40nm process.

Driver teams start your engines!...
 
You forgot to mention AMD's 6950, which is AMD's direct attempt to bump the GTX 560 Ti out of the spotlight. Launching at the same price point, it clearly outmatches the 560 and once again shows that AMD knows exactly what it is doing.. most of the time.

It's hard to recommend the 560 over the 6950, since they are releasing at the same price point and since the 6950 is offering better performance per pricing... and AMD is also dropping the pricing on the 6970, which makes it ever harder to recommend the card atm.

Did you just skim over the review and then decide to comment?

"With that, the Radeon HD 6950 1GB can be had for a mere $10 extra. Before the change the GeForce GTX 560 Ti was ~17% cheaper and just 6% slower. Now the price difference is negligible and the performance difference remains small for the most part."

Nice review as always. Blows my mind that you are using 16 different cards in the comparisons. Is there really a market for that many different cards??

No there is not. Many are previous generation cards that are no longer for sale. It provides the reader with an idea of how much more performance they stand to gain if they upgrade.
 
Am I reading correctly????? Did my dreams come true????????

Have I not seen any fanboy comments our there?

Back to topic, since price difference is not existant at this point and one is a bit slower than the other I would go with the 6950. At least I dont intend to overclock something that costs a couple hundred bucks just to get a bit of an edge, would rather have my life warranty intact =P Good review as usual.
 
I bought two of these cards from Newegg this morning (one for each box since my motherboards don't support SLI). Based on the reviews I've skimmed through it looks like a good product for the money. I'll confirm this once I've installed the cards and put them through their paces.
 
I bought two of these cards from Newegg this morning (one for each box since my motherboards don't support SLI). Based on the reviews I've skimmed through it looks like a good product for the money. I'll confirm this once I've installed the cards and put them through their paces.

Let us know how you get on with these, and grats on the new cards ;)
 
Kibaruk said:
Am I reading correctly????? Did my dreams come true????????

Have I not seen any fanboy comments our there?

Back to topic, since price difference is not existant at this point and one is a bit slower than the other I would go with the 6950. At least I dont intend to overclock something that costs a couple hundred bucks just to get a bit of an edge, would rather have my life warranty intact =P Good review as usual.

Most companies cover overclocking now as long as you don't alter voltages.
 
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