Zotac’s PCB measures 9" x 4.5", which increases to about 9.5" x 5" when you include the bezel. This card costs $220 on Newegg, which is comparable to Asus' DirectCU II/TOP.


Zotac’s AMP! moniker is used to designate its highest-end overclocking effort, and its 950 MHz core and 1100 MHz memory clocks are 160 and 98 MHz higher than Nvidia's reference spec, making them then most aggressive in our round-up.
Both six-pin auxiliary power connectors face the outside edge of the card, which could create space issues in enclosures without much room between add-in boards and hard drive trays.

Two 3” fans blow through a plastic shroud to keep the GPU cool. A trio of 8 mm heat pipes pulls heat away from the graphics processor and speeds up transfer to the aluminum cooling fins on the right edge of the card.

As with three of the competing cards seen already, Zotac's AMP! edition board gives you access to two dual-link DVI ports and a single mini-HDMI connector.

The bundle includes a mini-HDMI-to-HDMI adapter, DVI-to-VGA adapter, two dual Molex-to-six-pin power adapters, a driver disk, user manual, and Zotac Boost software bundle. This is the only card other than MSI’s to come with a game: a download voucher for Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood.
Overclocking
With a very high stock 1.15 V voltage setting, we didn't see the need to push power any further. Nevertheless, we were still able to overclock this card's core to 990 MHz and its memory to 1250 MHz, both of which are solid results.

- 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.