Tom's Graphics Card Guide: 32 Mid-Range Cards Benchmarked

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Temperature Measurements

Temperature at Idle and Load

If you put a lot of food into your stomach, you have a lot of food to digest as well. When a graphics card draws a lot of power, it generates more heat. We'll address the noise levels that result from keeping these cards cool on the next page. But when it comes to operating temps, one card left us with an upset tummy: Gigabyte's Windforce GTX 560 Ti heated up to 90°C and then shut itself off. We took the card apart to check whether the cooler or the thermal compound might have suffered during shipping, and we applied new thermal paste using Antec’s Nano. This helped push the temperature down a bit, and it slowed the rate at which the temperature increased. Nevertheless, the system crashed again under full load. This issue prevents us from approving the Windforce card, which up until this point was the most impressive performer in our roundup.

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Igor Wallossek
117 Comments Comment from the forums
  • yukijin
    This confirms that the 560 ti belongs in TH best graphics cards for the money ( they werent recommomended the past 2 months)
    Reply
  • Inf3rn0_44
    560ti is an amazing card for the money
    Reply
  • KrazerSK
    arent the 6950s in this price range also? there are 2gb ones going for $250
    Reply
  • whysobluepandabear
    You have a 560 Ti eVGA Superclock for $215~ after rebate on Newegg. Then you have the 6870 from a few various brands for about $169~ after rebate.


    Is the TI worth another 40+ dollars?
    Reply
  • dco
    In every benchmark its the souped up overclocked versions of the GTX 560 Ti that are on top.

    The standard Geforce GTX 560 Ti is still getting beaten by the standard Radeon 6950
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    The GeForce GTX 550Ti wiould be a bargin if nvidia put the price below 100 dollars in which it should be considering it's performance doesn't justify the extra 30 or 40 dollars.
    Reply
  • Zero_
    Yup, considering its performance, the GTX550Ti should have replaced the GTS450 price point, which was $110. Since the GTX550Ti was included here, I would have liked to see where the cheaper HD5770/6770 would have placed, probably higher than the GTX550Ti.

    Also, can you guys do a story on how some classic cards match up to modern games? Stuff like 8800GTX's and 2900XT's which used to cost an arm and leg back in the day. Would be cool to see how the fare today.
    Reply
  • fictionforthetame
    No aftermarket 6950? Those 560ti cards that are topping the benchmarks are a good $40-$60 more expensive than a stock 6950 here in Oz. I think you should have included an OC'd 6950 (like the Gigabyte) which is still $20 cheaper than those ti's to make this a bit more interesting.
    Reply
  • Lobodomy
    Gah, just as I was about to go to bed an interesting review come out... I'll keep it open to read first thing in the morning!
    Reply
  • scrumworks
    Geforces dominate benchmarks because we have used 10 variants of overclocked 560Ti cards against stock clocked few Radeons (6950) here and there. And also, we don't show which drivers and control panel settings we have used because that would reveal our trickery. Why is Tom always hating AMD/ATI?
    Reply