Five Overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Cards, Rounded-Up

Features
By Don Woligroski
published

We were foiled in our quest to find the best vendor-provided GPU cooler for Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560. But out of the ashes sprung a round-up of cards armed with those very same solutions. Which of these five GF114-based boards is right for you?

Test System Setup And Benchmarks

In order to compare these cards, we're reactivating our overclocked Core i5-2500K-based test bed, which is guaranteed to alleviate any platform-oriented bottleneck that might otherwise inhibit the performance of any graphics card.

Since the objective is to demonstrate relative performance between graphics products based on the same GPU and with only minor operating frequency differences, we don't need to roll out our complete benchmark suite in order to gauge the finishing order. A few games and a synthetic test will suffice.

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Test Hardware
ProcessorIntel Core i5-2500K (Sandy Bridge), overclocked to 4 GHz, 6 MB shared L3 cache, power-saving settings enabled, Turbo Boost disabled.
MotherboardMSI P67A-GD65, Intel P67 Chipset
MemoryOCZ DDR3-2000, 2 x 2 GB, at 1338 MT/s, CL 9-9-9-20-1T
Hard DriveWestern Digital Caviar Black 750 GB, 7200 RPM, 32 MB cache, SATA 3Gb/sSamsung 470 Series SSD 256 GB, SATA 3Gb/s
Graphics CardsAsus GTX 560 DirectCU II TOPECS Black GTX 560Galaxy GeForce GTX 560 MDT x4MSI N560GTX Twin Frozr II OCZotac GeForce GTX 560 AMP!
Power SupplySeasonic X760 SS-760KM: ATX12V v2.3, EPS12V, 80 PLUS Gold
CPU CoolerCooler Master Hyper TX 2
System Software And Drivers
Operating SystemMicrosoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Graphics DriverGeForce: 285.62
Benchmarks
3DMark 11Version: 1.0.1.0, Benchmark Only
Battlefield 3Version 1.0.0.0, Operation Swordbreaker, Fraps Run
Aliens vs. PredatorVersion 1.0.0.0, DirectX 11 Benchmark
Metro 2033Full Game, Built-In Benchmark, "Frontline" Scene DX9, High, AAA, 4x AF, No PhysX
Don Woligroski
40 Comments Comment from the forums
  • pensivevulcan
    Kepler is around the corner, so are lower end AMD 7000 series parts, this was interesting but wouldn't one want to wait for a plethora of reasons.
    Reply
  • payneg1
    The Galaxy model comes closest with its 830/1002 MHz clocks, but Zotac's AMP! edition goes all the way to 950/1100 MHz.

    This dosent match with the above chart
    Reply
  • salad10203
    Are those temps for real? My 280 gtx has never idled under 40C.
    Reply
  • crisan_tiberiu
    so, basicaly if someone plays on a single monitor, there is no point going beyond a gtx 560 or a 6950 in today's games. (it slike in the "best gaming CPU chart", no point going beyond i5 2500k for gaming.
    Reply
  • giovanni86
    salad10203Are those temps for real? My 280 gtx has never idled under 40C.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.
    Reply
  • crisan_tiberiu
    sorry, i ment single monitor @ 1080p :P.
    Reply
  • Im surprised they got 5 OCed GPUs to run BF3 without crashing
    Reply
  • justme1977
    crisan_tiberiu
    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.


    Reply
  • wizloa
    heh, my 4870 runs at 80c regardless of idle or load
    Reply
  • FunSurfer
    I think there is an error on the Asus idle voltage: instead "0.192 V Idle" it should be 0.912
    Reply