Or...buy a standard GTX 560 and overclock it to the same level, netting you the same performance for £50-£60 less than this card and £70-£80 less than a GTX 570. ;) It worked for me!
Impressive performance! I think it's difficult to ignore the price drops of some AMD 6970s though. For just under £10 more you can get one and the overclock that.
Originally Posted by Acanuck Impressive performance! I think it's difficult to ignore the price drops of some AMD 6970s though. For just under £10 more you can get one and the overclock that.
It seems to be the best in a range of cards born redundant. I think it was a big mistake to put a card in at this level, it's nothing special and there are plenty of alternatives at the same price or less that wouldn't leave you wishing you had bought a 560.
Still not a fan of the white PCB either, think it will age as well as old beige boxes :)
Considering that it's possible to overclock a 560 to similar performance levels yourself, the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not you consider the price premium on the pre-oc'd card worth it for the confidence you get from a factory overclocked card with a 2 year warranty.
Originally Posted by Deders Power draw is great, overclocked and halfway between a 4601GB and a 560TI?
The GTX 560 Ti 1GB we used in the graphs was also an overclocked example. We've indicated this by listing it as being equipped with a custom cooler - the same is true for our GTX 550 Ti results - for some reason Nvidia hasn't sent us reference samples so we've had to wait for third party cards.
Unfortunately ours had and had small bumps in the GPU voltage too, hence the higher power draw - the latter we couldn't iron out at the time of testing as voltage adjustment wasn't supported.
In the conclusion you rightly note that this card beats the 6970 in three of the four games tested (No surprise in that b*stard nVidia biased favouring Dirt 2... why it's included I don't know).
However, when it comes to Arma ll..."this hugely demanding game at its most challenging settings" ...the game you use because it is the most graphically testing of the four and the Ltd OC loses out to the 6970 ....absolutely NO mention! Did that result just pass you by?
I'd far rather buy the 2GB Gainward Phantom 560 for £230 and overclock that a little, with 2GB, its a far more future proof bet than this, Battlefield 3 is just around the corner, and i bet that will benefit from more than 1GB at 1920x1080 or higher.
Given the competition and the fact that comparable performing cards (such as the HD6950 & normal GTX560 TI's) can be head for MUCH less this card is a complete waste of time.
How can a performance conclusion be based on only 4 games? Especially given the games chosen and the relatively short test time (60 seconds in BFBC2 does not give a true representation of gaming performance).
I'd also argue the other way round, buy a 570 and OC that (or buy an OC'd 570) for just 40pounds more. (or buy a "simpler" 560 and OC that for a bigger save.
Still a fantastic result for a 560, and an impresive cooler performance, but the Price-point could prove to make this card a difficult sell.
^ what Xir said. Though the argument can be made that significant OC's like the ones KFA2 has done might be very difficult without their custom power design. Also note that this beast uses less power (it's more efficient?) and the heat issue is almost non-existent. Both of those are big benefits as well. So ... it's a matter of value.
Don't like KFA2 a a company, they only offer a 1 year warranty, opposed to the 2 years that seems to have become a standard (thought I read somewhere that 2 years was a minimum requirement by law on consumer electronics?). Wouldn't touch KFA2's cards with someone else's bargepole.
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ReplyThe frozr was tested at 1920x1200 and now this one you have changed to 1920x1080, makes it hard to compare the two.
Bit-Tech decided that due to most monitors being 1920x1080 compared to (the in my opinion much better) 1920x1200, they would test at 1080p instead.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/253396
What he said ^
It seems to be the best in a range of cards born redundant. I think it was a big mistake to put a card in at this level, it's nothing special and there are plenty of alternatives at the same price or less that wouldn't leave you wishing you had bought a 560.
Still not a fan of the white PCB either, think it will age as well as old beige boxes :)
Performance, power draw, cooling... I'm quite impressed. Now if only I still had time to play games... ;)
Memory frequency boosted from 4.4 to 4.2 ghz?
Nice review anyway
The GTX 560 Ti 1GB we used in the graphs was also an overclocked example. We've indicated this by listing it as being equipped with a custom cooler - the same is true for our GTX 550 Ti results - for some reason Nvidia hasn't sent us reference samples so we've had to wait for third party cards.
However, when it comes to Arma ll..."this hugely demanding game at its most challenging settings" ...the game you use because it is the most graphically testing of the four and the Ltd OC loses out to the 6970 ....absolutely NO mention! Did that result just pass you by?
That smacks of bias.
(And still not OC'ed that 590 yet?)
I'd far rather buy the 2GB Gainward Phantom 560 for £230 and overclock that a little, with 2GB, its a far more future proof bet than this, Battlefield 3 is just around the corner, and i bet that will benefit from more than 1GB at 1920x1080 or higher.
Given the competition and the fact that comparable performing cards (such as the HD6950 & normal GTX560 TI's) can be head for MUCH less this card is a complete waste of time.
How can a performance conclusion be based on only 4 games? Especially given the games chosen and the relatively short test time (60 seconds in BFBC2 does not give a true representation of gaming performance).
Still a fantastic result for a 560, and an impresive cooler performance, but the Price-point could prove to make this card a difficult sell.
Still think I'd go with a standard 560 ...
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