The Asus GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP is one of the test samples we had on-hand for the GeForce GTX 560 launch back in May of last year, and it remains Asus’ premium GeForce GTX 560-based offering.
With a 9” x 4” PCB and 10.25” x 5” total size (including bezel and cooler), it’s the largest card in our round-up. The sturdy metallic fan shroud and metal reinforcement lip on the top edge give the card a very solid, inflexible feel.


The company's premium GTX 560 model can be found on Newegg for $219.99.

Asus flagship is overclocked compared to the reference design, sporting 925 MHz core and 1050 MHz memory frequencies. That's a notable improvement over Nvidia's 810/1002 MHz clocks, giving this card the second-highest factory overclock in today's story. The two auxiliary six-pin power connectors sit on the top of the card where we like to see them, rather than the side, where they'd add additional length.
The DirectCU II cooler employs three 6 mm flattened heat pipes to draw thermal energy away from the GPU and into the aluminum fins. It’s interesting to note that the two 3" radial fans are not identical, but rather have a different number of blades.

Two DVI ports and a single mini-HDMI output mirror Nvidia's reference model. Of course, because Nvidia's GPU only includes two independent display pipelines, you're only able to utilize a pair of digital outputs at any given time.

Asus includes a DVI-to-VGA adapter, two dual Molex-to-six-pin power adapters, a mini-HDMI-to-HDMI adapter, a driver disk, and user manual. That's a little modest given a price tag in the upper range of boards with this GPU. It might have been nice to receive a game as well.
Bundled SmartDoctor overclocking software is able to increase GPU voltage on the GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP for more aggressive overclocking. The stock 1.012 V setting can be scaled up as high as 1.112 V.

Overclocking
We went ahead and used Asus' SmartDoctor utility to increase the GF114's voltage to 1.112 V (the highest setting). Although that's a notable jump on a graphics card, it's worth mentioning that we were able to use MSI's Afterburner software to apply 1.15 V to most of the other cards in this round-up. Asus' tool has no option to alter memory voltage, although it does allow us to manually increase fan speed. For this test, we set the fans to run as fast as possible, if only as a gauge of peak overclocking potential.
At those settings, we were able to achieve a 970 MHz core and 1152 MHz memory setting with complete stability in our Battlefield 3-based benchmark. That's not a huge jump over the card’s factory overclock, but it is again quite significant compared to the 810/1002 MHz reference speeds that Nvidia originally shipped to press for its GeForce GTX 560 launch.
- GeForce GTX 560 In Nvidia's $200 Range
- Asus GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP
- ECS Black Series NBGTX560-1GPI-F GeForce GTX 560
- Galaxy 56NGH6DH4TTX GeForce GTX 560 MDT x4
- MSI N560GTX Twin Frozr II/OC
- Zotac AMP! ZT-50702-10M GeForce GTX 560
- Test System Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11 And Battlefield 3
- Benchmark Results: AvP And Metro 2033
- Overclocking And Multi-Monitor Performance
- Power, Temperature, And Noise
- Five Unique GeForce GTX 560s
This dosent match with the above chart
Your kidding right, my overclocked 580GTX at 60% fan speed idles at 32c. Cards down clock themselves which allows them to run cooler at idle temps even if it were clocked at upwards i don't think a card would get hot unless it was being used.
I have the feeling that even a i5 2500k@4ghz bottlenecks a 7970 @1080p in most newer games.
If the GPU market goes the way it does, it won't take long that even midrange cards will be bottlenecked @1080p by the cpu.
Not really. This is mostly game depended. Depends on how much stress each graphics engine push at cpu and gpu.
Games like Dragon Age 2 and SWTOR are gpu intensive. So a GTX570 (that I have) is being used at 1080p at 99% of its usage with a low performance nowadays Q6600 in SWTOR (used MSI after burner to monitor it).
But with games such Skyrim which cpu is more important than other games, a highly clocked sandybridge is required in order to play smoothly at 1080p.
One thing is certain for sure. The higher the resolution the more gpu power and less cpu power requires a game.
The 280 idles higher than the 580 to the best of my knowledge, plus it's a 65nm part and the largest gaming GPU ever created.
That's an enormous amount of fan speed for an Idle GPU. Hope you're happy having a nice loud fan at idle. I can't imagine how loud it gets under a light load.
To the article, I don't think these comparisons are really necessary. All the cards are going to have different overclocking capabilities, which is what anyone from tom's is going to check. Hell, the worst card you guys test according to this comparison might overclock the most, and be the best card for the money on someone else's comparison.
For a $30 savings the ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI is worth a look. Sure if you run the fans at 100% a higher CFM fan is going to be very loud, but no one runs their fans @ 100% either.
With Apps like MSI Afterburner and others it's incredibly easy to OC any GPU. It's a balancing act between performance, temperatures, and dDA (noise). One of the big reasons for water blocks on higher end cards, etc.
BTW - I appreciate the Article, it's enlightening and offers good info. Thanks!
Quite right! Fixed.
The GTX 560 is comparable to the 6870, though generally thought to be a little slower but with better OC headroom. The 6950 is much faster, and is comparable to the GTX 560 Ti.