Five Overclocked GeForce GTX 560 Ti Cards, Compared

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

We gave the GeForce GTX 560 Ti a thorough evaluation at launch. But Nvidia was perhaps most excited about some of its partners were doing with GF114. And so, we set out to find customized boards. Our search lead to five factory-overclocked alternatives.

Sparkle Calibre X560

Another company that knows how much this editor loves short product names, Sparkle Computer’s Calibre X560 is the highest-frequency card in today’s lineup.

High frequencies require extra cooling, and Sparkle went full-force with its choice of Arctic Cooling’s Twin Turbo Pro twin-fan, four-heat pipe design.

Multi-fit coolers like this require an extra slot of space beneath the sink to cool on-card components, extending the Calibre X560 to a three-slot design. Forward-facing PCIe power connectors can be difficult to reach in some cases, while heat pipes that extend beyond the outer edge of the card extend its mounting width to 5.4”.

A 1000 MHz GPU clock is matched by Gigabyte’s two-slot card, but the GDDR5-4800 memory data rate will be unique in today’s performance charts.

Premium products typically include premium packaging, and Sparkle even enhances the kit’s value with a six-foot HDMI cable. A VGA and two PCIe power adapters are also provided, but we wouldn’t recommend using more than one power adapter with most power supplies.

While third-party utilities work to further overclock Sparkle cards, the company hasn’t provided us a recent version of its own utility.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
53 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Please add in the results idle noise level. For me, noise is one of the most important thing when considering a graphics card. I bought a Galaxy GTX 460 last year with the funny cooler and it sounded like a jet engine even when idle. I ended up replacing it with a Thermalright Shaman cooler, the 140mm fan is much more pleasant to the ears.
    Reply
  • Annisman
    Thanks for the review, any news on any *new* 2GB models of the GTX 560 ? The only one currently available is the Palit version, which shares the same design as the Palit sonic edition card that was reviewed. Would love to see a Gigabyte SOC 2GB card...
    Reply
  • ScoobyJooby-Jew
    These are some pretty sweet cards. Could you put up the numbers for a reference spec GTX 470. That would be interesting to see how they compare performance wise. The OC'ed cards have pretty similar bandwith to the 470. The big powerful 320 bit card vs the smaller more efficient 256 bit card.
    Reply
  • ScoobyJooby-Jew
    There should have been a please in the previous post, and a question mark. -1 for bad grammar. -1 for bad manners.
    Reply
  • mattmock
    I am not sure that even dual GTX 580s qualify as a status symbol. They sit in your computer and no one ever sees them.
    Reply
  • nebun
    MattMockI am not sure that even dual GTX 580s qualify as a status symbol. They sit in your computer and no one ever sees them.you don't need to see it...you only need to feel it...wait, it's still in the case...lol
    Reply
  • gti88
    Well, one still need to overclock to play Crysis. But who cares, when Crysis 2 is in the wild?
    Reply
  • iam2thecrowe
    Why dont your roundups ever contain reference to other cards???? Please, reference to other cards. If the most overclocked card costs nearly as much as a gtx570, you need to show the speed difference of similarly priced cards
    Reply
  • utengineer
    iam2thecroweWhy dont your roundups ever contain reference to other cards???? Please, reference to other cards. If the most overclocked card costs nearly as much as a gtx570, you need to show the speed difference of similarly priced cardsThis was not the intent of the article. This article was intended to see which 560Ti was the best bang for your buck. I am sure there will be future articles that compare different cards and their price points.
    Reply
  • hardcore_gamer
    gti88Well, one still need to overclock to play Crysis. But who cares, when Crysis 2 is in the wild?Even a 8800GT can play Crysis 2.We have to change our spam to " can it play Crysis 1 ? "
    Reply