Galaxy’s GTX 560 Ti GC – Introducing Nvidia’s Titanium Hunter

Not long ago we reintroduced Nvidia’s “Tank”, the GTX 580, as a much leaner, meaner and faster machine – all the while improving on the thermals, power draw and noise of the reference GTX 580. Shortly thereafter, another brand-new lighter tank, the GTX 570 launched bringing with it all of the features of its big brother but at a lower price and with somewhat reduced performance. The Tank refers particularly to Nvidia’s flagship video cards which are equipped to handle any gaming situation at high resolution and with maximum details and with maximum filtering and anti-aliasing applied.

However the Tank is certainly not mainstream gaming and it is not the “sweet spot” for enthusiasts money-wise.  But there is a new kid on the block, the “Hunter”, Ti. Last July, Nvidia introduced the first Hunter, GeForce GTX 460.  To describe the capabilities of the GTX 460 when talking with gamers, Nvidia drew an analogy between a Hunter class unit from an RTS/RPG game. The Hunter combines devastating firepower with dizzying speed for success and now Nvidia is introducing a new GeForce Hunter for gamers that’s even more powerful, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti!  Yes, Ti stands for Titanium and it brings back fond memories of the old GeForce Ti series which offered excellent bang for buck back then.

Let us introduce Nvidia’s brand new reconfigured “Hunter”, the new GTX 560 Ti; the new GPU set to replace GTX 470 but priced around $250 like the GTX 460 at launch and built for 1920×1200 gaming.  Ti is going to take direct aim at especially the HD 6870 and even the HD 6950, which are etail-priced around $250 and $300 respectively.  In fact, AMD is already making preparations to counter the arrival of Nvidia’s new Hunter by introducing a 1 GB version of HD 6950 priced around $250 and already their prices on the HD 6870 appear to be dropping to around $220.

Evidently the prices in the USA on the Radeon cards are higher comparatively than they are in Europe and so our conclusions are mostly based on USA pricing.  So let’s see if the GTX 560 Ti lives up to Hunter expectations.  To do this, we bring you our expanded benchmark suite of 29 games and 3 synthetics to evaluate the performance of sixteen (16!) video card configurations.

Above we see the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC (Galaxy Clock) version pictured below the reference version.  Nvidia advertises their new high-performance GPUs as “the World’s Fastest DX11 GPUs” and we now bring you the details of our GTX 560 Ti’s performance showdown with HD 6950 and HD 6870.  We also compare performance with the reference GTX 580, the reference GTX 570 and GTX 480; the reference Diamond HD 5870 and the reference HD 6970 to see if we can verify Nvidia’s claim.

On top of that, we also added in our HD 6850, three GTX 460s; 1 GB and 768 MB versions, as well as the highly overclocked EVGA FTW GTX 460, for a total of 16 video cards to see where the new GTX 560 TI sits in terms of value for dollar as we test performance in 29 modern games.  In fact, we added 7 games to our usual benchmark suite to bring you this special evaluation of the upper midrange in video cards.

Here is the brand new reference GTX 560 TI (lower right side) and Galaxy GTX 560 GC (upper right) compared with the overclocked Galaxy GTX 460 (upper left) and highly overclocked EVGA FTW GTX 460 (lower right) released a few months ago for the same approximate prices as the new cards.  Nvidia claims that you will get about one third more performance for the same price.  You will also note that the new GTX 560 PCB at 9 inches is 3/4 inch longer than the GTX 460.

It is good to see that, like the GTX 570, the GTX 560 only requires two 6-pin PCIe connectors – unlike the GTX 580 (and the GTX 480/470) which require the 8-pin+6-pin PCIe connectors. Below we see just some of our family of 16 card configurations that we will benchmark for you.

The reason we are benching 16 video card configurations is to give you relative price to performance and we would also like to show you how top cards of two generations ago – the GTX 280 and the HD 4870 – will fare; they will also represent the GTX 275 and HD 4890 class of cards as the performance is very similar.

Of course, the cards that we will be most closely comparing is our GTX 560 Ti with the GTX 460 and AMD’s two cards in the same class/price range – the HD 6870 and the HD 6950. Clearly the GTX 560 Ti is designed to be outclassed by its bigger brother, the GTX 570, but it will be interesting to see how the performance of a $249 GTX 560 – perhaps overclocked – compares with the performance of the GTX 570 – a $320 video card released just a couple of months ago that has the performance of the formerly $500 GTX 480.

AMD’s HD 5870 was released about 16 months ago and until the HD 6970, it was their fastest single-GPU video card; the HD 6870 was only intended to replace the HD 5850 performance-wise for less money.   So what we really have is the battle of the bang-for-buck cards in the $200-$300 price range.  And of course, some versions of the GTX 460 can be got for way less money, months after their release.

Nvidia released its long awaited GeForce GTX based on its brand new Fermi DX11 GF100 architecture back in April of this year, six months later than AMD’s own DX11 Cypress video cards. This new Fermi GPU – Graphics Processing Unit – a term originally originated by Nvidia is a continuation of their strategy since their G80 which launched over three year ago to create a General Purpose Processor – co-equal with the CPU – that also renders amazing graphics. The culmination of Nvidia’s efforts with their GF100 DX11 Fermi architecture was the GTX 480 with the caveat that it runs rather hot and the cooling solutions based on the reference design are rather noisy.

Things changed very rapidly as Nvidia’s introduced a new refined GTX 400 series ‘Tank’, the Galaxy GTX 480 SuperOverclock on a mature process which we covered in this review. Shortly thereafter, enter the completely redesigned Nvidia Tank – at $499 suggested etail pricing and designed to be faster and more efficient than even the super-overclocked GTX 480s.

We saw AMD introduce their new line up, HD 68×0 series to replace HD 58×0 series in our review here. We found out that the “Barts” GPU it is based on is only a mid-range launch so far with the HD 6870 only slightly faster than the HD 5850; the best part is that it replaces it for less money. And about five weeks ago we saw AMD’s Cayman release in the form of HD 6970 and HD 6950.  Nvidia took aim at the HD 6970 with the GTX 570, and today the GTX 560 Ti takes on the HD 6870 and the HD 6950. So we ask the following questions:

Since, Nvidia’s new GTX 560 Ti now comes with a MSRP of $249, Is it worth the $30 premium over the $220 or so dollars that one would currently spend for AMD’s  HD 6870? And also, is it close in performance to the HD 6950 which runs from about  $259 for the 1 GB version to about $300 for the 2 GB version?

To properly bring you this review, we are using our reference HD 6970, HD 6950 and HD 6870 which we put through their paces this week with the very latest Candidate Release drivers which will be released to the public as WHQL in a few days, Catalyst 11-1a. We also added HD 5870, HD 6950, HD 6850, and HD 4870 using the WHQL drivers from this month (still current as of the writing of this article),  Catalyst 10-12, to give you a more complete picture of performance.

For Nvidia cards, we are using 3 versions of the GTX 570 – reference stock clocks (822/2004 MHz), Galaxy Clocks (GC – 835/2004 MHz), and what we call “super overclocked” (SOC) at the maximum core that the card can handle without raising the voltage or changing the fan profile from automatic.  Together with the GTX 560 Ti, we also test GTX 580 and GTX 570 with the latest WHQL and Candidate Release Drivers that were also released this week for the GTX 560 launch.  Using the drivers from the last set, we tested the GTX 480, the reference GTX 460 and the GTX 460-768M (675/1800 MHz), plus the GTX 460 FTW (850/2000 MHz).  We are also tossing in a GTX 280 into the mix; the approximate equivalent of the GTX 275 from the last generation to see how the new GTX 570 Ti compares.

We bench with 29 modern games and with 3 synthetic benchmarks generally using 1680×1050, 1920×1200 and/or 2560×1600 resolutions. Since we are using fast single-GPU video cards, it makes sense to test them at the highest resolutions and with the most demanding playable settings that they can handle. Since we are matching the top single-GPU video cards to each other in a performance showdown, we do not include the dual-GPU HD 5970, nor CrossFire, nor SLI configurations.

Before we do performance testing, let’s take a look at the original Fermi GF100 GTX 480 and quickly recap its new DX11 architecture and features of the original Fermi GF100 which we covered in our reviews of the GTX 480, published here, here and here. Senior Editor BFG10K reviewed GTX 470 here and here and Senior editor MrK covered GTX 465 here.

We also recently examined the performance of Galaxy’s GTX 480 SuperOverclock and we also reran GTX 480 against stock and overclocked versions of HD 5870, HD 6870 and HD 6850 here just a few weeks ago. A recent review covered the GTX 580 a few months ago. We also covered GTX 570 and the launch of the HD 69×0 series against GTX 460.  And Senior Editor Leon Hyman covered GTX 460-768M vs. HD 5830 here last week.  Now you are up to date.

Specifications

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti was designed from the ground up to deliver exceptional tessellation performance, which is a key component of Microsoft’s DirectX 11 development platform for PC games. Tessellation allows game developers to take advantage of the GeForce GTX 560 GPU’s tessellation ability to increase the geometric complexity of models and characters to deliver far more realistic and visually rich gaming environments. You will soon see that although the clocks of Nvidia’s GTX 560 Ti are clocked higher than the reference GTX 460 version, Nvidia kept their headroom for the new GPU!  Because of that, we were also able to go much further than the reference core clock that Nvidia set for the GTX 560 Ti or the mild overclock of the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC while still remaining cool and quiet. Here is the specification chart for the GTX 560 Ti at a glance.  Right away we notice its CUDA cores are increased over the GTX 460 from 336 to 384, its clock is way up and now the new GPU supports the new HDMI 1.4a connector standard.

Needless to say, the new Fermi GF114 GTX 560 Ti brings a lot of features to the table that current Nvidia customers will appreciate, including improved CUDA’s PhysX, 2D and 3D Surround to drive up to 3 LCDs with GTX SLI and Tri-SLI, superb tessellation capabilities and a really fast GPU in comparison to their GT200 series and even their hot running GF100 series variants like GTX 465 and GTX 470 .

The GTX 560 has improved performance on a clock-per-clock basis that increase efficiency of up to 5% or more in many cases over the GTX 460. Besides that, Nvidia has increased the clock frequencies and the number of CUDA cores in the GTX 460 from 336 cores to 384 in the GTX 560 Ti and there are also more texture units and SMs all operating more efficiently. We can expect that the GTX 470 and the GTX 560 Ti will perform very similarly to each other and the newer GPU will be about 33% faster than the GTX 460.

Beauty is more than skin deep

The GTX 460 was completely re-engineered at the transistor level into the GF114 GTX 560 Ti.  Through a complete Fermi redesign on a mature process on TSMC’s 40 nm, the GTX 560 GPU achieves higher clockspeed than the GTX 460 with +21% more performance per watt and with fewer transistors. In other words, Nvidia increased the CUDA core count from 336 to 380, upped the clock speed and lowered the power requirements. This has also lead to a reduction in noise from the VGA cooling fan that was already quiet on the GTX 460.  And the dual 90 mm Galaxy VGA fans are much quieter – even near full load – than the reference version.

Of course when you put an open design like the Galaxy’s GTX 560 Ti GC together with the reference version in SLI, it should work together as in the picture below.  That way the open design will get sufficient air and the reference version can pull air from in-between the cards if you have a good side case fan.  Also, note that we like where Galaxy locates the PCIe slots instead of on the reference version.  Locating them on the end of the card defeats the purpose of having a short card.  The GTX 560 Ti is 9 inches long – more with the reference version’s PCIe connectors.  In contrast, the competing AMD HD 6870 and HD 6950 are eleven inches long.

Should you SLI your GTX 560 Ti?

SLI is supported by GTX 560 Ti and there is improved scaling. There are also recently more compelling reasons besides increased performance to consider GTX 560 Ti SLI which includes being able to experience Nvidia’s multi-display 2D/3D Surround. You will also require a less powerful PSU to run your GTX 560 Ti SLI than with powering GTX 470 SLI. Also, by using the latest GeForce 260 drivers, each card can keep its own unique clocks or they can be set asynchronously. Because of severe time constraints on this article, SLI will be examined in depth in an upcoming article as well as 3-panel 2D Surround versus Eyefinity.

New Power Monitoring Hardware – or no more Furmark!

Nvidia has added a power draw limitation system to their card beginning with the GTX 580 and also with the GTX 570 and GTX 560 Ti. When either Furmark or OCCT are detected, sensors measure the incoming current and voltage to calculate the total power draw. If the power draw exceeds a certain predetermined limit, the GTX 560 Ti will automatically downclock to avoid damage to hardware components. After the power draw drops back to safe limits, the GPU returns to normal clocks much the same as with thermal management.

Because of this, we will no longer use Furmark for showing power draw and will return to using games to illustrate real world situations. Currently, this power management only switches on when Furmark or OCCT are detected and it should not limit overclocking unless Nvidia extends this management to regular PC games. Evidently this works by having the GeForce driver detect the program and treat it as a virus.  In the case of the GTX 580 and the GTX 570, this power limiting circuitry implementation is mandatory by Nvidia’s parners.  In the case of the GTX 560 Ti, Nvidia allowed their partners to choose to include it – or not.  We asked Galaxy to share their thoughts with us:

As you may already know, the only usage for this feature is to throttle down (slow down) the card when running those so-called thermal virus software like FurMark and OCCT, and does not have any impact on real game performance and power consumption at all.

Galaxy is confident with our Twinblade Triple Copper HeatPipe cooling solution, even without the power monitoring feature, it is more than enough to cool down the card while running the most demanding applications.

We like the way they think.  Let’s flip the GTX 560 TI 0ver and check out the other side:

The Galaxy GTX 560 Ti video card comes in a suitable box which protects it in shipping, but it is not a fancy package nor are there a lot of “frills” – Galaxy concentrates on bringing you a great video card with superb support. Inside the box, you will find the driver CD, the most basic of printed instructions, the warranty information and a toll-free 24-hour telephone number where you are guaranteed to talk to someone if you have any issues for the two years that your card is warrantied.

Since the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti is also sold in retail, the box clearly states the specifications and the contents of the box (GTX 560 video card, driver CD, and quick start guide) on the outside of the box.  They actually give you more then you bargain for as they actually include the HDMI cable, not just the adaptor.

Galaxy also gives you eight excellent reasons to upgrade to their GTX 560 Ti.  There are more reasons; they just ran out of room on their box:

Check out the removable fan design that offers 10 degrees Centigrade better cooling over reference while simultaneously providing a 10 db quieter solution:

You will never have issues clearing the dust build-up:

Let’s sum up what Galaxy offers us over the reference version with their GTX 560-Ti GC:

• Galaxy proprietary design “TwinBlade” dual 90mm silent fan cooler
• 1.8x more cooling fin than reference cooler
• 10C (plus) cooler than reference cooler
• 11dB quieter than reference cooler
• 3rd generation detachable fan design

The Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC is factory overclocked with a Dual BIOS which can be a card-saver if a flash goes bad.  Galaxy included their Xtreme Tuner HD overclocking software on the driver CD or as a download on their site; you can even raise the voltage.  Best of all, with their 24 hour manned telephone support, Galaxy offers great service!

About Galaxy

Galaxy, established in 1994, is a Nvidia Add-in-Board (AIB) partner which manufactures products from the low-end GeForce 7200 series to the high-end GTX 500 series. They manufacture products based on Nvidia’s reference design as well as using their own in-house production facilities to manufacture graphic cards based on their own designs using high-end coolers from Arctic Cooling and others.

Galaxy has shipped to the US for a long time as they built video cards for many of the tier 1 brands in the market today. They realized they could create a brand for themselves and save the end customer the middleman fees. Two years ago they launched Galaxy in the US and their products are now available at Best Buy, Microcenter, Fry’s, Dell.com, Newegg, TigerDirect and many other sites. They have excellent quality and toll-free tech support with a 2 year transferable no-registration warranty.

As a total package, the new GTX 560 Ti looks (and sounds) great! It looks and feels solid. Let’s show you the results of our one week hand’s on test drive, shall we? We will put it to the test in 29 PC games and in three synthetic tests. But first, head to the next page to check out our test bed configuration.

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7 920 reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 3.8 GHz); Turbo is off.
• Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
• 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 1800 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC 1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
• Galaxy GTX 560, 1 GB custom cooler and clocks, Galaxy Clocks 835/2004 MHz and overclocked to 965/2004 MHz, supplied by Galaxy under NDA.
• GeForce GTX 560, 1 GB reference design and clocks (822/2004 MHz and overclocked to 925/2004 MHz) supplied by Nvidia under NDA.
• GeForce GTX 580, 1.5 GB reference design and clocks (772/2004 MHz), supplied by Nvidia
• GeForce GTX 480, 1.5 GB reference design and clocks (700/1401 MHz), supplied by Nvidia
• GeForce GTX 570, 1.2 GB reference design and clocks (732/1900 MHz), supplied by Nvidia and further overclocked to 815/2000 MHz.
• EVGA GTX 460 FTW; 1 GB, overclocked version (850/2000 MHz) supplied by Nvidia/EVGA
• Galaxy GTX 460 SOC; 1GB overclocked version at reference clocks (675/1800 MHz), supplied by Galaxy
• Galaxy GTX 460- 768 MB overclocked version at reference clocks (675/1800 MHz), supplied by Galaxy
• BFG GTX 280 – 1GB, reference clocks (602/1107 MHz)
• ATI Radeon HD 6970 (2GB, reference clocks, 880/1370 MHz) supplied by AMD
• ATI Radeon HD 6950 (2GB, reference clocks, 800/1250 MHz) supplied by AMD
• ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1GB, overclocked clocks, 850/1200 MHz) by Diamond
• ATi Radeon HD 6870 (1GB, reference clocks, 900/1050 MHz) supplied by AMD
• ATi Radeon HD 6850 (1GB, reference clocks, 775/900 MHz) supplied by AMD
• ATi Radeon HD 4870 (1GB reference clocks, 750/950 MHz) by MSI.
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers
• Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
• Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 11.1a Release Candidate for all Radeons except for HD 4870, HD 6850 and HD 5870; for those 3 cards, Catalyst 10-12 was used; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard” where available; surface performance optimizations are off
• NVIDIA GeForce release candidate 266.56 for GTX 560 Ti; WHQL 266.58 used for GTX 580, GTX 570 and GTX 460. WHQL 263.09 drivers used for GTX 480/GTX 560-OC/GTX 560-768M and GTX 280. High Quality
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• DirectX July/November 2010
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• vsync is forced off in the control panel.
• Varying AA enabled as noted in games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3 and Batman: Arkham Asylum; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

• Vantage
• 3DMark11

• F.E.A.R.
• X3:Terran Conflict
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
• Wolfenstein
• Call of Duty 4
• Unreal Tournament 3
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Left4Dead
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
• Mafia II

• Call of Juarez
• Crysis
• Crysis Warhead
• Lost Planet
• Far Cry 2
• World in Conflict Soviet Assault
• Just Cause 2
• H.A.W.X.
• Resident Evil 5
• Borderlands
• Alien vs. Predator
• Battleforge
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat

• Dirt 2
• Metro 2033
• F1 2010
• Lost Planet 2
• H.A.W.X. 2
• Heaven 2

A note on testing with the drivers.  All of the “competing cards” – GTX 570 Ti, GTX 570, GTX 580 and GTX 460 were run with the very latest drivers (266.5x) released this week.  The HD 6970, HD 6950, and HD 6970 were also run with the very latest drivers available to the press as “release candidate” Catalyst 11-1a which shall be available to the public as WHQL in a couple of days.  The other cards were run with the very last set of drivers available  – GeForce 263.09/260.09 and Catalyst 10-12.  Although both brand new sets gained decent performance improvement, the other drivers will provide a good context for judging the overall performance of the GTX 560 Ti and were included at the request of ABT forum members.  Our reader’s input is always valued and considered.

Vantage

Vantage is Futuremark’s DX10 test. It is really useful for tracking changes in a single system – especially driver changes. There are two mini-game tests, Jane Nash and Calico and also two CPU tests, but we are still focusing on the graphics performance. Here is a scene from Vantage’s second mini-game.

Let’s go right to the graphs and first check the basic tests with the default benchmark scores:

We note the rankings. Unfortunately, they are completely meaningless when they are presented this way.

For our purposes, Vantage is a meaningless test with meaningless numbers although the do attempt to compare one video card’s performance to another using two short time demos.  Let’s move on to the latest Futuremark benchmark, 3DMark11 which is DX11 only.

3DMark11

3DMark11 is Futuremark’s brand new DX11-only benchmark.  We are keeping track of the overall (meaningless) score and the framerates of the 4 graphics tests.  First the basic tests results.

We note the rankings. Unfortunately, scores are completely meaningless when they are presented in this way.  The next set of tests actually measures frame rates of four short time demos.

We see an interesting lineup. Unfortunately for our purposes, 3D Mark11 is just as meaningless as Vantage in a weak attempt to compare one video card’s performance to another – even in the same system. Let’s move on to PC games and to real world situations and we will create our “snapshot” of current performance of our single-GPU video cards to see where our new GTX 560 Ti fits in.

F.E.A.R.

F.E.A.R. – First Encounter Armed Assault – is a DX9c game by Monolith Productions that was originally released in October 2005 by Vivendi Universal Production. Later, there were two expansions with the latest, Perseus Mandate, released in 2007. Although the game engine is aging, it still has some of the most spectacular effects of any game. F.E.A.R. showcases a powerful particle system, complete with sparks and smoke for collisions as well as featuring bullet marks and other effects including “soft shadows”.This is highlighted by the built-in performance test, although it was never updated.

This performance test will tell you how F.E.A.R. will run, but both of its expansions are progressively more demanding on your PC graphics and will run slower than the demo. We always run at least two sets of tests with all in-game features at ‘maximum’. F.E.A.R. uses the Jupiter Extended Technology engine from Touchdown Entertainment. We test this game with the most demanding settings. We use fully maxed details with 4xAA/16xAF; soft shadows ‘off’, as they do not play well with AA.

Let’s start first at 2560×1600:

None of our cards have issues with this game at the highest settings and resolution although the GTX 560-Ti is bested by the HD 6870.  Let’s now check out 1920×1200 resolution with the same maxed-out settings:

Even the stock GTX 560 Ti has no trouble matching the HD 6870 but loses to the HD 6950.  The GTX 580 is strongest in this DX9 game. There is not much difference in practically playing F.E.A.R. between the fastest and the slowest video cards as the minimums are already sufficiently high.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3:Terran Conflict (X3:TC) is another beautiful stand-alone benchmark that runs multiple tests and will really strain a lot of video cards. X3:TC is a space trading and combat simulator from Egosoft and is the most recent of their X-series of computer games. X3:TC is a standalone expansion of X3: Reunion, based in the same universe and on the same engine. It complements the story of previous games in the X-Universe and especially continues the events after the end of X3: Reunion. Compared to Reunion, Terran Conflict features a larger universe, more ships, and of course, new missions. The X-Universe is huge. The Terran faction was added with their own set of technology including powerful ships and stations. Many new weapons systems were developed for the expansion and it has generally received good reviews. It has a rather steep learning curve.

First we note the results at 2560×1600 with completely maxed out settings plus 8xAA:

Now we test at 1920×1200:

This time all of our video cards run close to each other in a fairly tight grouping except for the more budget-oriented HD 6850 and stock GTX 460 cards. However, all of our video cards perform well and all of them experience similar minimum framerates and a similar playing experience.  The GTx 560 Ti manages to pull away from its competition including the HD 6950.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is an objective-driven, class-based first person shooter set in the Quake universe. It was developed by id Software and Splash Damage and published by Activision. Quake Wars pits the combined human armies of the Global Defense Force against the technologically superior Strogg, an alien race who has come to earth to use humans for spare parts and food. It allows you to play a part, probably best as an online multi-player experience, in the battles waged around the world in mankind’s desperate war to survive.

Quake Wars is an OpenGL game based on id’s Doom3 game engine with the addition of their MegaTexture technology. It also supports some of the latest 3D effects seen in today’s games, including soft particles, although it is somewhat dated and less demanding on video cards than many DX10 games. id’s MegaTexture technology is designed to provide very large maps without having to reuse the same textures over and over again.

For our benchmark we chose the flyby, Salvage Demo. It is one of the most graphically demanding of all the flybys and it is very repeatable and reliable in its results. It is fairly close to what you will experience in-game. All of our settings are set to ‘maximum’ and we also apply 4xAA or 8xAA plus 16xAF in game. First we test at 2560×1600 resolution with all settings fully maxed in-game plus 4xAA/16xAF:

All four card offer a similar excellent experience with the GTX 580 again beating the competition. Let’s crank up the anti-aliasing from 4x to 8x while we test at 1920×1200 resolution.

All of our video cards except for the GTX 280 and stock GTX 460s have no trouble handling this game fully maxed out once the resolution is dropped to 1920×1200. The GTX 580 really stands out as the quickest among the very best in this game followed by the HD 5870 which matches the GTX 480 and beats the GTX 570.  However, the HD 6870 and the HD 6950 are faster than the GTX 560 Ti.

Wolfenstein

Wolfenstein is a science fiction first-person shooter video game mostly co-developed by Raven and id Software and published by Activision. It is the sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and uses the id Tech 4 engine. The game was released in 2009.

Our timedemo benchmark was created by ABT’s own Senior Editor and lead reviewer, BFG10K. It is very accurate and totally repeatable.  First we test at 2560×1600 with completely maxed out in-game settings.

Now we test at 1920×1200 with maxed out settings.

It looks like driver issues are to blame for Nvidia’s poor relative performance in this OpenGL game compared to the competing Radeons.  It needs to be optimized to run well on GeForce hardware.

Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) is a first person shooter running on a custom engine. It has nice graphics but the engine is somewhat dated compared to others and it runs well on modern PCs. It is the first CoD installment to take place in a modern setting instead of in World War II. It differs from the previous Call of Duty games by having a more film-like plot that uses intermixed story lines from two perspectives; that of a USMC sergeant and a British SAS sergeant. There is also a variety of short missions where players control other characters in flashback sequences to advance the story. Call of Duty 4’s move to modern warfare introduced a variety of modern conventional weapons and technologies including plastic explosives.

There are currently about 20 multiplayer maps in CoD4. It is very popular and there is a new expansion for it. CoD Modern Warfare 2 was also released with updated visuals but it is also not very demanding on graphics cards. For multiplayer, CoD4 includes five preset classes and introduces the Perks system. Perks are special abilities which allow users to further customize their character to suit their personal style.

Our timedemo benchmark was created by ABT’s own Senior Editor and lead reviewer, BFG10K. It is very accurate and totally repeatable.

Here is CoD4, first at 2560×1600 resolution with all in-game settings completely maxed out plus 4xAA:

Let’s next test at 1920×1200.

We see results similar to Unreal Tournament 3 where a popular multiplayer game is very playable even on midrange graphics cards from the last generation and it plays very smoothly with this generation’s top video cards. We also see GTX 560 Ti beat HD 6870 and go toe to toe with the HD 6950.

Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3)

Unreal Tournament 3 (UT3) is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series. UT3 is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game by Epic Games. Unreal Tournament 3 provides a good balance between image quality and performance, rendering complex scenes well even on lower-end PCs. Of course, on high-end graphics cards you can really turn up the detail. UT3 is primarily an online multiplayer title offering several game modes and it also includes an offline single-player game with a campaign. For our tests, we used the very latest game patch for Unreal Tournament 3. The game doesn’t have a built-in benchmarking tool, so we used FRAPS and did a fly-by of a chosen level. Here we note that performance numbers reported are a bit higher than compared to in-game. The map we use is called “Containment” and it is one of the most demanding of the fly-bys.

Our tests were run at resolutions of 2560 x 1600 and 1920 x 1200 with UT3’s in-game graphics options set to their maximum values. One drawback of the way the UT3 engine is designed is that there is no support for anti-aliasing built in. We forced 4xAA for 2560×1600 and 8xAA for 1920×1200 in each vendor’s control panel; 8xQ for Nvidia to match AMD Graphics’ 8xMSAA settings. We record a demo in the game and a set number of frames are saved in a file for playback. When playing back the demo, the game engine then renders the frames as quickly as possible, which is why you will often see it playing it back more quickly than you would actually play the game. Here is Containment Demo, first at 2560×1600 with 4xAA forced in each vendor’s control panel:

Now at 1920 x 1200 and with 8xAA (8xQ in Nvidia’s Control Panel) forced (not 4xAA as the chart mistakenly reads):

There is absolutely no problem playing this game fully maxed-out with any of our graphics configurations except for the 768MB GTX 460 when 8xQ is forced in the control panel. The HD 5870 catches and passes even the GTX 480 at 1920×1200 although the GTX 580 puts in the best showing at 2560×1600 and the GTX 570 and the GTX 480 trade blows with each other in a pretty even match up.  The GTX 560 Ti has no trouble handling the HD 6870.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (Game of the Year Edition) Batman: Arkham Asylum is an action-adventure/stealth video game based on DC Comics’ Batman. Arkham Asylum is based directly on the long-running comic book’s Dark Knight character. The Joker devised an elaborate plot from inside Arkham Asylum that Batman is personally forced to put a stop to. The game’s primary characters are superbly voiced.

The game is played as an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective action-adventure game with a primary focus on Batman’s combat abilities, stealth, detective skills and complete with an arsenal of gadgets that can be used in both combat and as exploring in “detective mode”.The game uses a “Freeflow” combat system as well as the ability to use Batarangs and the Bat-Claw. The player also has access to progressively stronger counter attacks as well as a special attack that can quickly take down a single foe. Stealth tactics includes silent takedowns by sneaking up on foes including dropping and/or gliding from overhead perches.

Batman: Arkham Asylum uses a highly modified version of the Unreal Engine 3. It does not support AA natively but must be added in and supported by the game’s developer. Unfortunately we cannot compare Batman: Arkham Asylum using our GeForce exactly against the Radeon with PhysX on; so all of our testing is with it off. We are using the Game of the Year Edition of Batman: Arkham Asylum which supports in-game AA settings for both Radeon and GeForce cards.

We begin testing at 2560×1600 with details maxed and with 8xAA applied in the game’s setting control panel (8xQ for Nvidia).

In each case, except for our GTX 280 and GTX 460-768MB cards, the rest are able to offer similar playing experiences as the minimums are sufficiently high even at 2560×1600 with details maxed and with 8xAA applied. 1920×1200 can only be faster.

Now all of our cards can play Batman at 1920×1200 with 8xAA. The GTX 580 is fastest and the GTX 560 Ti generally beats the HD 6870 .

Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead (L4D) is a 2008 co-op first-person shooter that was developed by Turtle Rock Studios and purchased by Valve Corporation during its development. Left 4 Dead uses Valve’s proprietary Source engine . L4D is set in the aftermath of a worldwide pandemic which pits its four protagonists against hordes of the infected zombies. There are four game modes: a single-player mode in which your allies are controlled by AI; a four-player, co-op campaign mode; an eight-player online versus mode; and a four-player survival mode. In all modes, an artificial intelligence (AI), dubbed the “Director”, controls pacing and spawns, to create a more dynamic experience with increased replay value. It is best as a multiplayer game with humans.

There is no built-in benchmark, so we created our own custom time demo which is very repeatable. The game is updated regularly by Steam and we chose the highest detail settings and 8xAA. We will save our comments until after we present all three charts. First we test at 2560×1600 resolution:

On to our next chart at 1920×1200:

.All of our video cards can play this game fully maxed out plus 8xAA, even the stock GTX 460 at 2560×1600.  The GTX 580 stands out, however, the GTX 560 Ti in all flavors is beaten even by the HD 6870.

Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) is a sandbox-style action-adventure video game released by Rockstar in late 2008. It is the sixth game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Two episodic expansion packs have since been released since then as late as April of this year. The game is set in a redesigned rendition of Liberty City, a fictional city based heavily on modern day New York City. It follows Niko Bellic, a war veteran from Eastern Europe. He comes to the United States in search of the American Dream and enters a world of organized crime, gangs and corruption. GTA IV is mostly composed of elements from driving games and third-person shooters which features free-roaming gameplay. It features an online multiplayer mode, the first of the GTA series to do so.

Here are the settings that we used. The GTX 480, the GTX 570 and the GTX 580 by virtue of having more than one GB vRAM, can use even higher settings than the 1GB video cards (which are pictured below running nearly out of resources). Our GTX 460-768MB was not tested as it could not run the settings that we ran the rest of our cards at.

First we test at 2560×1600 resolution.

Now we test at 1920×1200.

Our GTX 580 leads and the GTX 560 Ti nearly catches the HD 6970. AMD’s Radeons are significantly slower at the settings that we have chosen although their playability according to the demo results are OK.  This benchmark appears to be at the very least, CPU-limited.

Serious Sam Second Encounter HD (2010) Serious Sam is the title of a series of first-person shooters created by the Croatian development team Croteam. It follows the adventures of its hero Sam “Serious” Stone and his fight against the forces of the extraterrestrial overlord Mental who seeks to destroy humanity. Its gameplay is a throwback to early first-person shooters like Quake and Doom with the twist of being set in wide-open environments with large groups of enemies attacking at any time, and there are many hidden areas and treasures to find and puzzles to solve. Serious Sam features cooperative gameplay and allows for split screen action supporting up to 4 players.

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter was remade as “HD” using Serious Engine 3. It was released on April, 2010 for PC. Besides updated visuals, new game modes including “Co-op Tournament” and “Survival” for single player, were introduced in this remake. Serious Sam 3 is currently in development by Croteam and is expected to debut at E3, 2011. We use the basic 3 “ultra” presets for benching Serious Sam: The Second Encounter HD. There is possible further fine-tuning which will make the game even more demanding, but we chose the “ultra” presets with only one higher GPU setting, to allow for testing beyond 1920×1080. We test first at 2560×1600 resolution:

And finally at 1920×1200 with the same ultra presets:

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter HD on the Serious 3 engine is quite demanding and yet all of our top configurations play it satisfactorily using the game’s built-in “ultra” presets. Although the GTX 560 Ti trades blows with the HD 6870, the HD 6950 is a bit faster and the stock GTX 580 simply blasts past them all. However, even the HD 6850 puts in a good showing and it is sufficient to play this game at 1920×1200 although the GTX 280 and the GTX 460-768MB would be struggling.

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Mafia II

Mafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game which is the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech and is published by 2K Games and was released last year. Mafia II is set from 1943 to 1951 in Empire Bay which is a fictional city based mostly on San Francisco and New York City along with some influences from Chicago and also Detroit. Mafia II is a gritty drama which chronicles the rise of World War II veteran Vito Scaletta who joins the Falcone Crime Family and becomes a ‘made’ man. There are 15 chapters in the game and over two hours of game engine generated cutscenes.

Mafia II makes extensive use of Nvidia’s PhysX whose full effects are seen smoothly only by playing on a PhysX-enabled GeForce and preferably with a second video card dedicated to it. For this article, we used the full retail game with Mafia II’s built-in benchmark with the highest settings for 2560×1600 and 1920×1200 – without PhysX – and this time we will reserve comment until after both charts. First we test at 2560×1600.

Now at 1920×1200:

The GTX 580 is the fastest followed by the HD 6970.  However, the GTX 560 Ti falls slightly behind even the HD 6870. As a note, enabling AA and high PhysX together will bring a GTX 580 to its knees even at 1920×1200 although medium PhysX settings are quite playable.

(Update: Please note that the GTX 480 was run on the last driver set and the extreme disparity at 2560×1600 was due an incorrect resolution setting.  The new charts (above) are now correct.)

If you want to run Mafia II with AA and high PhysX settings on, consider getting a dedicated PhysX card. This covers our DX9 games; let’s move on to DX10 and DX11 games.

Call of Juarez

Call of Juarez is one of the very earliest DX10 games. It is loosely based on Spaghetti Westerns that became popular in the early 1970s. Call of Juarez features its Chrome Engine using Shader Model 4 with DirectX 10. Our benchmark is built into Call of Juarez. It runs a simple flyby of a level that is created to showcase its DX10 effects. It offers good repeatability and it is a good stress test for DX10 features in graphics cards, although it is not quite the same as actual gameplay because the game logic and AI are stripped out of this demo.

Performing Call of Juarez benchmark is easy. You are presented with a simple menu to choose resolution, anti-aliasing, and two choices of shadow quality options. We set the shadow quality on “high” and the shadow map resolution to the maximum, 2048×2048. At the end of the run, the demo presents you with the minimum, maximum, and average frame rate, along with the option to quit or run the benchmark again. We always ran the benchmark at least a second time and recorded that generally higher score. Here are Call of Juarez DX10 benchmark results, first at 1920×1200; there is no 2560×1600 run available:

Now we test at 1680×1050:

The GTX 580 takes the lead over the GTX 570 which edges the GTX 480. The overclocked GTX 460 matches the HD 5870 and the GTX 280 is really showing its age.  The GTX 560 Ti nearly catches the HD 6970 while convincingly beating the HD 6870 and the HD 6950.

Lost Planet

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is a Capcom port of an Xbox 360 game. It takes place on the icy planet of E.D.N. III which is filled with monsters, pirates, big guns, and huge bosses. This frozen world highlights high dynamic range lighting (HDR) as the snow-white environment reflects blinding sunlight as DX10 particle systems toss snow and ice all around.

The game looks great in both DirectX 9 and 10 and there isn’t really much of a difference between the two versions except perhaps shadows. Unfortunately, the DX10 version doesn’t look that much better when you’re actually playing the game and it still runs slower than the DX9 version. We use the in-game performance test from the retail copy of Lost Planet and updated through Steam to the latest version for our runs. This run isn’t completely scripted as the creatures act a little differently each time you run it, requiring multiple runs. Lost Planet’s Snow and Cave demos are run continuously by the performance test and blend into each other.

Here are our benchmark results with the more demanding benchmark, Snow. All settings are fully maxed out in-game including 2x or 4xAA/16xAF. Let’s start with 1920×1200 resolution with 2xAA.

Now at 1680×1050 and with 4xAA:

The HD 5870 is edged by the GTX 480 which in turn is beaten by the GTX 570 while the GTX 580 convincingly takes the crown. However, the HD 6870 is faster than our GTX 560 Ti.

CRYSIS

Next we move on to Crysis, a science fiction first person shooter by Crytek. It remains one of the most demanding games for any PC and it is also still one of the most beautiful games released to date. Crysis is based in a fictional near-future where an alien spacecraft is discovered buried on an island near the coast of Korea. The single-player campaign has you assume the role of USA Delta Force, ‘Nomad’ who is armed with futuristic weapons and equipment.

Crysis uses DirectX10 for graphics rendering. A standalone but related game, Crysis Warhead was released the following year. CryEngine2 is the game engine used to power Crysis and Warhead and it is an extended version of the CryEngine that also powers Far Cry. As well as supporting Shader Model 2.0, 3.0, and DirectX10’s 4.0, CryEngine2 is also multi-threaded to take advantage of dual core SMP-aware systems and Crytek has developed their own proprietary physics system, called CryPhysics. However, it is noted that actually playing this game is a bit slower than the demo implies. All of our settings are set to the in-game maximum’s “very high” including 2xAA for 2560×1600 and for 1920×1200 and we force 16xAF in the control panels.

Here is Crysis’ Island Demo benchmark, first at 1920×1200 resolution:

Although the HD 5870 passes the GTX 480, the GTX 580 moves right past it. The GTX 570 is a bit faster than our GTX 480 and the GTX 560 is just edged by the HD 6870.  Next we test at 1680×1050.

The GTX 480 is edged out by the GTX 570 although the HD 5870 is faster. However the GTX 580 is even faster still.  This time the GTX 560 Ti is a bit faster than the HD 6870. All of our top cards can now play Crysis at 1920×1200 if you are willing to compromise with anti-aliasing and/or lower a couple of detail settings.  The GTX 280 again brings up the rear.

Crysis Warhead

Crysis Warhead is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by the Hungarian studio Crytek and published by Electronic Arts. Crysis Warhead is a stand-alone expansion to Crysis that was released in 2008.  It is optimized slightly better than the original Crysis.

We test first at 1920×1200 with 2xAA/16xAF with maxed-out in-game “Enthusiast” (very high) settings:

And now the same settings at 1680×1050:

The GTX 560 is slightly faster than the HD 6870.

FarCry 2

Far Cry 2 uses the name of the original Far Cry but it is not connected to the first game as it brings you a new setting and a new story. Ubisoft created it based on their Dunia Engine. The game setting takes place in an unnamed African country, during an uprising between two rival warring factions. Your mission is to kill “The Jackal”; the Nietzsche-quoting mercenary that arms both sides of the conflict that you are dropped into.

The Far Cry 2 game world is loaded in the background and on the fly to create a completely seamless open world. The Dunia game engine provides good visuals that scale well. The Far Cry 2 design team actually went to Africa to give added realism to this game. One thing to especially note is Far Cry 2’s very realistic fire propagation by their engine that is a far cry from the scripted fire and explosions that we are used to seeing. First we test Far Cry 2 benchmark at 2560×1600 with AI enabled and we use the Ranch Long benchmark with ultra settings plus 4xAA.

Our extreme settings are too much for the Radeons and GTX 460s which stumble in the minimums. Let’s move on down to 1920×1200 resolution and increase our AA to 8x.

The GTX 580 and the GTX 480 run away from the Radeons and the overclocked GTX 580 is clearly the fastest of the very best. Here we see a clean sweep by the GTX 580 in Far Cry 2 while the GTX 570 trades performance blows with the GTX 480.  The GTX 560 Ti even beats the fastest Radeon, HD 6970 in this game.

World in Conflict Soviet Assault

World In Conflict is set in an alternate history Earth where the Cold War did not end and Russia invaded the USA in 1989 and the remaining Americans decided to strike back. World in Conflict (WiC) is a real-time tactical/strategy video game developed by Massive Entertainment and released in 2007.  The expansion, Soviet Assault, was released in 2009.  Although it is generally considered a real-time strategy (RTS) game, World in Conflict includes gameplay typical of real-time tactical (RTT) games. WiC is filled with real vehicles from both the Russian and the American military. There are also tactical aids, including calling in massive bombing raids, access to chemical warfare, nuclear weapons, and far more.

Here is yet another amazing and very customizable and detailed DX10 benchmark that is available in-game or as a stand-alone. We use the full retail game’s in-game benchmark as it offers more settings than the demo and is updated by patches.  The particle effects and explosions in World in Conflict Soviet Assault are truly spectacular! Every setting is fully maxed out.

We start our benching at 2560×1600:

Now we test at 1920×1200

The GTX 560 Ti has no trouble passing the HD 6950 at 1920×1200, nevermind the HD 6870; at 2560×1600, the HD 6950 edges the Ti.

Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 is a 2010 sandbox-style action video game by Swedish developer Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive and is the sequel to the 2006 video game, Just Cause. Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0 which an updated version of the engine used in the original and there are impressive visuals as it is made just for DX10. It is set on the fictional tropical island of Panau in Southeast Asia. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist who aims to overthrow the evil dictator “Baby” Panay and also to confront his former boss, rogue agent Tom Sheldon.

The game play is similar to that of its predecessor in that the player is free to roam the huge open world without a need to focus on the storyline. The Just Cause 2 AI has been rewritten to use a planning system which enables the in-game enemies to do more and there is also more vertical game play as well as a manual aiming system that allows the player to target enemy NPC’s specific limbs. Just Cause 2 also includes an adaptive difficulty system which scales as the player progresses. There are also new weapons in Just Cause 2 which include launching laser-controlled rockets as well as several new vehicles including a Boeing 737. Just Cause 2 even includes dual-grappling hooks which give players the ability to tether unlimited objects to each other including the tethering of enemies to vehicles and to each other which works very well as one of your goals is to cause maximum chaos. It is a lot of fun!

Here are the maximum settings available to a GeForce card; the bottom two, the Bokeh Filter and GPU water simulation, are unavailable to Radeons and they are left off on all runs to give solid apples-to-apples comparisons for all of our tested video cards and we used the Dark Tower benchmark built into the retail game. First the benches at 2560×1600 with 2xAA:

The HD 5870 beats the GTX 480 which in turn edges out the GTX 570 but the GTX 580 is solidly faster than any of them.  Here the HD 6870 beats the GTX 560 Ti. Now let’s look at the performance at 1920×1200 but now with 8xAA:

The GTX 580 scores an impressive win over the reference GTX 480 with the GTX 570 close behind and the GTX 560 Ti sits in between the HD 6950 and HD 6970.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is an air combat video game developed published by Ubisoft. It was released in United States on March 6, 2009. You have the opportunity to fly 54 aircraft over real world locations and cities in somewhat realistic environments that are created with satellite data. This game is a more of a take on flying than a real simulation and it has received mixed reviews.

The game story takes place during the time of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. H.A.W.X. is set in the year 2014 where private military companies have replaced government-run military in many countries. The player is placed into the cockpit as an elite ex-military pilot who is recruited by one of these corporations to work for them as a mercenary. You later return to the US Air Force with a team as you try to prevent a full scale terrorist attack on the United States which was started by your former employer.

H.A.W.X. runs on DX10.1 faster and with more detail than on the DX10 pathway. All of our video cards can take advantage of DX10.1. Let’s check out H.A.W.X. with our top cards at 2560×1600 with fully maxed out in-game settings and 8xAA:

The GTX 580 jets away from the Radeons and cleanly beats the GTX 570 and the GTX 480. GTX 280 barely gets off the ground and struggles with the DX10 pathway while all of the other cards run much faster on the DX10.1 pathway. The GTX 560 Ti edges the HD 6870 and is beaten by the HD 6950. Here are our results at 1920×1200 resolution:

Although all of our four top cards give a similar playing experience in this game with maxed out settings and 8xAA, the new GTX 580 is clearly the top gun followed by the GTX 570 and the GTX 480 while the GTX 560 Ti beats the HD 6950.

Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 is a survival horror third-person shooter developed and published by Capcom that has become the best selling single title in the series. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil series and it was released for Windows in September 2009. Resident Evil 5 revolves around two investigators pulled into a bio-terrorist threat in a fictional town in Africa. Resident Evil 5 features online co-op play over the internet and also takes advantage of NVIDIA’s new GeForce 3D Vision technology. The PC version comes with exclusive content the consoles do not have.

The developer’s emphasis is in optimizing high frame rates but they have implemented HDR, tone mapping, depth of field and motion blur into the game. Re5’s custom game engine, ‘MT Framework’, already supports DX10 to benefit from less memory usage and faster loading. Resident Evil 5 gives you choice as to DX10 or Dx 9 and we naturally ran the DX10 pathway.

There are two benchmarks built-into Resident Evil 5. We chose the variable benchmark as it is best suited for testing video cards. Here it is at 2560×1600 resolution with maxed out in-game setting plus 8xAA:

Here are the results at 1920×1200 resolution:

Although the HD 5870 comes close to the stock GTX 480 at the highest resolution, the GTX 580 simply powers past all of its competition. However, all of our video cards turn in respectable performances and their overall playability is similar at 1920×1200. The GTX 480 is a bit faster than the GTX 570 at our highest resolution and then the situation reverses at 1920×1200.  The GTX 560 Ti is edged out by the HD 6870 at 2560×1600 but rebounds strongly to beat the HD 6950 at 1920×1200.  The GTX 560 Ti is challenged by the highest resolutions and is clearly intended for 1920×1200.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat became a new DX11 benchmark for us after GSC Game World released a another story expansion to the original Shadows of Chernobyl. It is the third game in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. All of these games have non-linear storylines which feature role-playing game elements. In both games, the player assumes the identity of a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.; an illegal artifact scavenger in “The Zone” which encompasses about 30 square kilometers. It is the location of an alternate reality story surrounding the Chernobyl Power Plant after another (fictitious) explosion. S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat features “a living breathing world” with highly developed NPC creature AI.

Call of Pripyat utilizes the XRAY 1.6 Engine, allowing advanced modern graphical features through the use of DirectX 11 to be fully intregrated. Call of Pripyat is also compatible with DirectX 8, 9, 10 and 10.1. It uses the X-ray 1.6 Engine one outstanding feature being the inclusion of real-time GPU tesselation– a Shader model 3.0 & 4.0 graphics engine featuring HDR, parallax and normal mapping, soft shadows, motion blur, weather effects and day-to-night cycles. As with other engines using deferred shading, the original DX9c X-ray Engine does not support anti-aliasing with dynamic lighting enabled, although the DX10 and DX 11 versions do.

We are using the stand-alone “official” benchmark by Clear Sky’s creators. Call of Pripyat is top-notch and worthy to be part of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R’s universe with even more awesome DX11 effects which help to create and enhance their game’s already incredible atmosphere. As with Clear Sky before it, DX10 and now DX11 comes with steep hardware requirements and this new game still really needs multi-GPU to run at its maximum settings.

We picked the most stressful test out of the four, “Sun shafts”. It brings the heaviest penalty due to its extreme use of shaders to create DX10/DX10.1 and DX11 effects. We ran this benchmark fully maxed out in DX11.0 with “ultra” settings plus 4xAA, including applying edge-detect MSAA which chokes performance even further. Here we present our maxed out DX11 settings for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Call of Pripyat DX11 benchmark with 2xAA at 1920×1200:

Now we move on to 1680×1050 with 2xAA:

The GTX 580 makes a clean sweep of these benches although we would still lower settings at 1920×1200 to have a completely smooth playing experience. We see the GTX 560 Ti’s performance sit between the HD 6870 and the HD 6950.

BattleForge

BattleForge is an online PC game developed by EA Phenomic and published by Electronic Arts. The full game was released in March 2009. BattleForge is a card-based RTS that revolves around acquiring and winning by means of micro-transactions for buying new cards. By May, 2009, BattleForge became a Play 4 Free game with fewer cards than the retail version.

BattleForge supports Directx 11 with full support for hardware tesselation. It is very impressive visually and quite demanding on any system. First we test with our cards at 1920×1200 using the BattleForge built-in benchmark with all of its settings completely maxed out and with 4xAA:

Now we test at 1680×1050 and with 4xAA.

The GTX 580 is again fastest in BattleForge followed by the GTX 570 and then by the GTX 480 and then distantly by the HD 5870.  The GTX 560 Ti at its stock clocks is faster than AMD’s HD 6970 in this benchmark at our tested resolutions.

Borderlands

Borderlands is a science fiction first-person shooter with RPG elements that was developed by Gearbox Software for Windows in 2009.

Borderlands is a brand new benchmark for us and it proves to be quite demanding at fully maxed out in-game settings even without AA.  We use the benchmark that is built into the game and note that it is a very demanding map.  First we test at 2560×1600 with fully maxed-out in-game settings.

Now we test at 1920×1200.

The GTX 580 is the fastest and we see the GTX 560 Ti take a strong lead even over the HD 6970.

Aliens vs Predator Aliens vs. Predator, known to fans as Aliens versus Predator 3 or AVP3 is a video game developed by Rebellion Developments, and published by Sega in February 2010. It is the sixth game of the Aliens versus Predator game series. There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race or faction (the Predators, the Aliens and the Colonial Marines), that form one main storyline although they differ in objectives depending on your choice of campaign.

Alien vs Predators DX11 benchmark is a stand alone bench that as the name says is only for DX11 cards.  It is more demanding than actually playing the game generally.  First we bench at 1920×1200 with maxed out settings plus 2xAA.

The GTX 580 is the fastest card leaving the GTX 480 to trade blows with the GTX 570 while the GTX 560 Ti sits in between the HD 6950 and the HD 6970. Now we test at 1680×1050 and 2xAA .

We see the GTX 580 take a solid performance lead followed by the GTX 570 and the GTX 480 separated by one tenth of a frame rate. The GTX 560 Ti sits almost exactly in between the HD 6870 and the HD 6950 in terms of performance in this game benchmark.

DiRT 2

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is a racing game that was released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. It includes many new race-events, including stadium events as your RV travels from one event to another in many real-world environments across four continents. Dirt 2 includes five different event types even allowing you to compete at new locations. It also includes a new multiplayer mode.

Dirt 2 is powered by an updated version of the EGO engine which was featured in Race Driver: Grid. This updated EGO engine also features an updated physics engine. We are using the Dirt 2 full retail game built-in benchmark at the highest “ultra” DX11 setting with 8xAA applied. First we test at 2560×1600:

The GTX 580 pulls ahead and passes the second place GTX 570 and third place GTX 480 in a not so tight race. The GTX 560 Ti is just edged by the HD 6950.  What about 1920×1200?

The GTX 580 gets the DiRT 2 checkered flag on the DX11 pathway as the GTXes pull further away from the Radeons at 1920×1200. However, even the lowest priced $240 HD 6870 can play this game satisfactorily at the highest resolutions and we see the GTX 570 pull ahead of the GTX 480.  The GTX 560 Ti again sits in between the performance level of the HD 6970 and the HD 6950 in this game.

Metro 2033
Metro 2033 is the “Crysis” of 2010. It is a very demanding game on any PC with the very latest DX11 visuals. Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror, and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel “Metro 2033” by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010. The game utilizes multi-platform 4A Engine and there is some doubt if the games engine is related to the original XRay engine used in S.T.A.L.K.E.R..

The Metro 2033 story takes place mostly in post-apocalyptic Moscow’s metro system but occasionally the player has to go above ground on some missions and to search for valuables. Metro 2033‘s locations reflect the dark atmosphere of real metro tunnels but in a much more dangerous and lethal manner. Strange phenomena and noises are frequent, and mostly the player has to rely only on their flashlight to find their way around in otherwise total darkness. Even more deadly is the surface as it is severely irradiated and a gas mask must be worn at all times due to the toxic air.

THQ has released an official benchmark for Metro 2033 that is available when Steam updates the game and it includes a quality benchmark that provides minimum/maximum/average framerates, and you can adjust many graphics settings including PhysX, AA, DOF and tessellation, and the number of runs. Our presets are set to maximum (very high) with 1xAA and no PhysX nor DOF enabled.

Here is our first chart at 1920×1200 as 2560×1600 proves too demanding without turning off most of the visuals that make this game really impressive.  However, actually playing the game, one can tolerate minimums into the 20s without noticing severe lag.

We test at very High settings with AA and DOF off except as noted. Now at 1680×1050:

All of our cards struggle with Metro 2033 with the aggressive settings that we used except for the GTX 580. Our GTX 570 is faster than the GTX 480 and they both lead the HD 5870. GTX 560 Ti sits between the HD 6950 and the HD 6870 while the HD 6850 and stock GTX 460s brings up the rear which is not unusual considering their low prices.

F1 2010

F1 2010 is a racing game based on the 2010 season of the Formula One world championship and the sequel to the 2009 video game in the same series.  It was released in September 2010  by Codemasters. The new EGO 1.5 engine, powers it. The weather system is one of the best seen in a racing game and requires the player to adjust to changing track conditions.

First we test at 2560×1600 using ultra settings with the built-in benchmark.

Now we test at 1920×1200.

Here the Radeons have the advantage.  The GTX 580 trades blows with the HD 6970 while the rest of the Radeons dominate in their price range and take the checkered flag.

Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2 is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition and is also made by Capcom. The events take place ten years after the first game and on the same, now thawed, EDN III. The PC version was released on October 12, 2010 and it runs on the MT-Framework 2.0 engine; an updated version of the engine used in several Capcom games. Campaign mode can have up to 4 players working together over the Internet. Lost Planet 2 allows players to create and customize their own characters which will allow them to unlock more things after leveling up and downloading content.

We are using the stand alone benchmark in DX11 with maximum settings. We also have the full retail game with the identical benchmark that we shall use the next time. As the game is quite demanding, we first test at 2560×1600 resolution with no AA.

Just as in the original game, none of our cards can play Lost Planet 2 at 2560×1600 at the highest settings and AA although the GTX 580 comes closest. However, we do see the GTX 570 again passing the GTX 480 while the GTX 560 Ti gets very close to the HD 6970’s performance. Let’s lower the resolution to 1920×1200, add 4xAA, and test again with all of our DX11 cards.

In this more tessellation-heavy DX11 game, the HD 6870 catches the HD 5870 (finally)! That is quite an accomplishment, however, even the overclocked GTX 460 can beat any of the Radeons by a significant margin. The GTX 580 is impressive and the GTX 570 again beats the GTX 480 and at 1920×1200, the GTX 560 Ti beats the HD 6970.

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2

Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. 2 is an air combat video game developed by Ubisoft for PC. It will be released last month. We are using the built-in benchmark from the full retail game. The way tessellation is implemented shows AMD graphics cards are perhaps unnaturally slow compared to other DX11 titles. Unfortunately, AMD is still working on a driver-based solution in time for the final release of the game that they claim improves performance without sacrificing image quality. When we get that new driver, we shall update our results here and also in a short performance H.A.W.X. 2 performance analysis.

H.A.W.X. 2 runs on DX11 faster and with more detail than on the DX10 pathway. Here the emphasis is on terrain tessellation which looks outstanding in DX11 and “flat” in DX10. Let’s check out H.A.W.X. 2 with our video cards at 2560×1600 with fully maxed out in-game settings and with 8xAA:

And now we test at 1920×1200 resolution:

We see the GTX 580 flying away from all the competition with the GTX 480 ahead of the GTX 570. However, even with unoptimized drivers, the three Radeons can play this game maxed out at 1920×1200. We also see that the HD 6870, although generally slower than the HD 5870, is much faster in this tessellation-heavy game.  The GTX 560 Ti rules the skies in its price range and above as it outflys the HD 6970 by a significant margin.

Heaven 2.0 Unigine

Finally we come to our last benchmark, Heaven 2.1, on the Unigine engine. It uses DX11 and heavy tessellation which will strain any graphics card. At least two DX11 games based on Unigine are expected to be released next year. We use the setting for “extreme tessellation” and high shaders and we also set AF to 16x. We will tell you right now that this test chokes the GTX 580 at the highest settings and resolution so we do not run it at 2560×1600.

Here is Heaven 2.1 benchmark with maxed settings, extreme tessellation and 2xAA at 1920×1200:

In this case, we see that the Cypress architecture is bottlenecked by its tessellator as the lower-performing HD 6870 with a tweaked tessellator is faster than the generally faster HD 5870. The GTX 580 is clearly the fastest at extreme tessellation and the GTX 570 is a frame faster than the GTX 480.  The GTX 560 Ti is faster than the HD 6950 and slower than the HD 6970.

And now we test at 1920×1200:

This is a synthetic benchmark and we will withhold judgment until we play PC games using the Unigine engine. However, the GTX 580 again scores highest with the GTX 570 faster than the GTX 480.  The GTX 560 Ti beats the HD 6970 in this tessellation-heavy benchmark.

Overclocking

This editor has his own set of criteria for overclocking the Galaxy and the reference GTX 560 Ti. We do not alter the fan speed from the factory set automatic profile nor do we increase the voltage. Even so, we found the GTX 560 Ti to be just a bit cooler-running than our GTX 460 and maybe slightly quieter on the newer card; much quieter with the Galaxy GC version. We also noticed that the GTX 560 seemed to be slightly quieter than the HD 6950 and about the same loudness as the HD 6870 at idle; the 6870 has a slightly louder spin-up although we could not measure it nor quantify the audible difference. Enter the Galaxy Xtreme Tuner overclocking tool and notice the overclocked settings that we achieved with GTX 560 Ti:

GTX 560 Ti Reference >> the new OC:

822/2004 MHz > 925/2004 MHz

GTX 560 Ti Galaxy Clocks >> the new OC:

835/2004 MHz > 965/2004 MHz

An overclock of +13 MHz on the Galaxy Clock (GC) core brought us a little performance increase.  An overclock of +143 MHz over reference brought us solid performance increases in all but two cases in which we suspect driver issues, although the GTX 560 never quite caught the GTX 570.  Since the reference version overclocked to 925 Mhz and the Galaxy GC version overclocked to 965 MHz, we can certainly attribute at least part of the better overclock to the custom dual-fan cooling solution.  And the core certainly was 10C cooler on the Galaxy card at full load.

Power Usage

Power usage is important for many people as a very hot running GPU is not only not “green”, it throws warm air into your room that your air conditioner must work extra hard to compensate for. Of course, for those of us like this editor who lives where it is cooler than warmer, a small space-heater in ones PC is a plus. We have seen that the GTX 460’s TDP specification, which is 170 W, is quite reasonable and only requires 6-pin+6-pin PCIe connectors.  The reference GTX 560 Ti will exhaust most of the hot air outside of your case; the Galaxy GC version requires that you have decent case cooling.

We are unable to provide you with a solid apples to apples comparison with Furmark by running GTX 560 to compare with any other GTX 500 series card. This new reference card has added a power draw limitation system although Galaxy has not implemented it. Three sensors measure the inrush current and voltage on all 12 V lines (PCI-E slot, 6-pin, 8-pin) to calculate power. As soon as the power draw exceeds a predefined limit, the card will automatically clock down much the same as it does when a safe temperature is exceeded. As with temperatures, this limiter will restore clocks as soon as the overcurrent has ended. We are uncertain how this new safety feature will affect extreme overclockers but we are glad that Galaxy does not use it. We will emphasize however, that the reference GTX 560 Ti is slightly cooler than the reference GTX 460 and is also quieter as a bonus. When the GTX 560 Ti spins up under load, it is quieter than a HD 5870 or HD 6870 and noticeably quieter than a HD 6950. We can confirm also that our GTX 280 (BFG reference design) and HD 4870 (open design, by MSI) is noticeably louder than either of the GTX 560s at every fan speed.

Price to Performance

It is pretty clear from our 29 games and two synthetic tests that the GTX 560 is a potent GPU to put against AMD’s new Barts and Cayman video cards – the HD 6870 and HD 6950 which are the replacements for the current HD 5850 and HD 5870 video cards. The new GTX 560 Ti – at this snapshot in time – has the clear distinction of being the fastest video card in its class – the fastest single DX11 GPU video card in its unique class; and at a suggested retail price of $249, sets it just above the average price of the HD 6870 which is likely to drop further.  We also see the GTX 560 Ti trade blows with the HD 6950 2 GB version and the overclocked version often beats it.  Considering that the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC will etail from $249 to $259, it will cause AMD to respond or risk losing further market share.  And they have already responded with a lower-priced HD 6950-1GB version.

Considering the awesome, cool and quiet cooler of the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC and the overall slightly better performance in newer games, it is a no-brainer to go for Galaxy’s new GTX 560 Ti GC solution if you are considering buying a GTX 470 or a reference GTX 560 Ti.

We also expect that some of its success will depend on market pricing and also what AMD does with their Radeon pricing which appears to be dropping as AMD responds to this new card. But if you want a fast single GPU with an awesome cool and quiet VGA cooler, the new Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC gives you your cake and allows you to eat it also with better than GTX 470 performance at a much lower price than it was introduced at nearly 10 months ago!  Nvidia has brought you GTX 470 performance to GTX 460 (launch) prices.

Please note that although the GTX 470 is being replaced by the GTX 560, the GTX 460 is still current in Nvidia’s line-up. They are pleased with its sales at their new discounted pricing which puts it well below the $200 range and keeps a potent video card in their line up until later GTX 500 series video cards replace it.

Conclusion

This has been quite an enjoyable – if physically exhausting – one week, hand’s on experience for us in comparing our brand-new, under-NDA, Galaxy GTX 560 Ti versus our other 15 video card configurations and we look forward to evaluating further new products from AMD and Nvidia.

We wish that we had more than the 7 days that we were allowed to benchmark the GTX 560 Ti so as to give you our first impressions. Fortunately, we have been gaming for months with our other test cards, so that we can provide you with a reliable comparison. We feel priviliged to bring you our very first benchmarks and performance testing of Nvidia’s amazing value GTX 560 Ti.

We like the new Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC quite a lot and it has exceeded this editor’s own expectations. Soon we will cover AMD’s continued launch of their HD 6000 series Antilles dual-GPU with which they expect to take on GTX 580. In the meantime, feel free to comment below, ask questions or have a detailed discussion in our ABT forum. If you have any requests on what you would like for us to focus on for further testing or for any other information, please join our ABT forum or leave a comment.

Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC

Pros and Cons:

Pros:

• The Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC is much faster than its competition, HD 6870 and is slightly faster than HD 6950 in the latest DX11 games; Nvidia has brought $300 performance into a $250 package.
• There is further room for overclocking and good scalibility.
• New architecture brings support for GPU computing and a level of performance way beyond the last generation.
• DX11 and great support for tessellation, PhysX and CUDA, 3D gaming, and 2D/3D Surround (with SLI) bring realism to gaming
• Galaxy’s 3rd generation detachable fans and highly efficient cooler is great for achieving and keeping your OC by keeping your GPU cool. It is one dual-fan awesome cooler that tames GTX 560’s thermals very quietly, even at full load.
• Power draw limiter is left off the Galaxy models.  There is no need for it and it may benefit overclocking without it.
• If you are considering SLI (for performance, 3D or Suround), 2 x GTX 560 Ti is a very potent performance solution.

Cons:

• Price and uncertainty about AMD’s new HD 6950-1GB. The market will decide.
• The dual fans on the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC are difficult to avoid handling during installation; there is worry about possible breakage if they are handled roughly.

That’s it. For about the same price or slightly more than a reference HD 6870 or an overclocked version; a bit less than a HD 6950-1 GB, you get all the features that Nvidia video cards have to offer in a very solidly-built, cool and quiet-running GTX 560 Ti! Add to this all the benefits of a premium Galaxy card with their excellent customer service and 2-year warranty, their superb quiet cooling solutions, and we feel that Nvidia/Galaxy have a real winner in their GTX 560 Ti GC to offer us and we are pleased to award them our ABT Great Value award!  Great Value as Nvidia has succeeded in bringing the performance of the $350 GTX 470 into a $250 package that is much cooler running and quieter to boot!  Add on top of that Galaxy’s amazing cooling fans and great support and you cannot go wrong with the GTX 560 Ti GC for 1920×1200 gaming.

We do not know what the future will bring, but this amazing card brings a great value to the Fermi family of GTX “hunters” in Nvidia’s lineup. Look for it at an etailer this week. This editor believes that Nvidia brings a very remarkable full-featured DX11 GPU lineup to the market that will find good acceptance among customers and their fans alike. Fermi architecture is impressive and flexible and it does translate to performance in gaming – although with a bit of a price premium.

We have also seen Nvidia’s drivers improve and their multi-GPU SLI scaling for newer games is very impressive. We also like the direction they are heading in with their simplified installations of the GeForce 260 drivers.

If you currently game on a 8800 GTX, 8800 GTS, or 9800 GT class of card on up to HD 4870 and GTX 280, you will do yourself a big favor by upgrading. The move to a GTX 560 will give you better visuals on the DX11 pathway and you are no doubt thinking of GTX 560 Ti SLI if you want to get even higher performance or want to use Suround’s three-panel display (which we are going to explore in a future article versus Eyefinity).

If the many exclusive features of the new GTX 560 Ti appeal to you and you are gaming at 1920×1080 or above, you cannot go wrong with a Galaxy GTX 580 Ti GC. In this editor’s experience, it is also great choice if you are considering overclocking further as scaling is superb and the cooling is up to the task.

The competition is hot as the prices on both the HD 6870 and the HD 6950 have softened and they offer their own set of features including a cheaper way to experience 3-panel multi-display with Eyefinity. And AMD is also bringing out their Antilles-based highest performing dual-GPU video card out shortly. Stay tuned, there is a lot coming from us at ABT.

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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«1. Introduction2. Test Configuration3. Vantage4. 3DMark115. F.E.A.R.6. X3 - Terran Conflict7. ET:QW8. Wolfenstein9. CoD410. UnrealTournament311. Batman GotY12. Left 4 Dead13. Grand Theft Auto IV14. Serious Sam (2010)15. Mafia II16. Call of Juarez17. Lost Planet18. Crysis19. Crysis Warhead20. Far Cry 221. World in Conflict22. Just Cause 223. H.A.W.X.24. Resident Evil 525. Call of Pripyat26. BattleForge27. Borderlands28. AvP29. Dirt 230. Metro 203331. F1 201032. Lost Planet 233. H.A.W.X. 234. Heaven 2.035. Performance Summary & Overclocked Results36. Conclusion37. View All»