Reviews - ASUS (NVIDIA) GeForce GTX 560 graphics-card review

[HEXUS]

NVIDIA assaults the £150 market with the GeForce GTX 560.

Read more.

[kalniel]

Given that 5870s are now £150 it'd be interesting to see how they do against the GTX 560, I expect they'd blow it out the water.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Scan and OcUK have had the MSI HD6870 1GB HAWK for around £148 to £155 for weeks now.

You can get an HD5870 1GB for around £150 as kalniel has mentioned.

This custom HD5870 1GB looks very good for around £160:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-g...2x-dvi-hdmi-dp

[andyb123]

I don't know where Hexus get their pricing from, you can get factory OC 560ti's for £180 and I paid £150 for my stock 560ti (which has nicely overclocked to 950 with a little fettling)

[Tunnah]

would it be possible to get SLI numbers for this ? i find at this price point it's the perfect card to go to SLI as they become a power combination for a great price

[Jimbo75]

I'm not sure why Starcraft II was included all of a sudden? Looking at the aggregate scores of past reviews should be enough to see that the benchmark choice was somewhat kind to the Nvidia cards already without adding yet another game in favour of the green team.

560 ti > 6950? You won't see that anywhere else, and now this cut down "TOP" is supposed to be faster too? Sites like Toms and Anand had it slightly slower than the 6870 let alone faster than the 6950.

550 ti > 6790? Not on the huge majority of websites it isn't.

gtx 460 > 6850? Although close the consensus is the 6850 is the faster card, but not here.

It was fine before but adding in SC2 is just another way of making the Nvidia cards look a lot better than they are. Not impressed, especially given that huge 560 Banner at the top of the main page today as well.

[Tarinder]

I don't know where Hexus get their pricing from, you can get factory OC 560ti's for £180 and I paid £150 for my stock 560ti (which has nicely overclocked to 950 with a little fettling)

Can you let me know where you got the £150 560 Ti from? I checked eBuyer and Scan before the review and both were showing an average price closer to £200. A £180 price was quoted for the GTX 560 Ti, which is still close to the mark.

[Tarinder]

Given that 5870s are now £150 it'd be interesting to see how they do against the GTX 560, I expect they'd blow it out the water.

Yup, makes sense to include an HD 5870. Had very little time to work on this review, unfortunately, but will update it with the 5870's results.

[Tarinder]

would it be possible to get SLI numbers for this ? i find at this price point it's the perfect card to go to SLI as they become a power combination for a great price

Sure, will do so early next week.

[shaithis]

I'm not sure why Starcraft II was included all of a sudden? Looking at the aggregate scores of past reviews should be enough to see that the benchmark choice was somewhat kind to the Nvidia cards already without adding yet another game in favour of the green team.

The real questions over the SC2 scores are: Are they correct? and if so, why is the 560 so much slower then the 460 in that game?

Do any games favor AMD? Perhaps a shortlist of games very favorable to either NV or AMD could be added to all future tests so that people can see the "worst possible scenario"

[Jimbo75]

The real questions over the SC2 scores are: Are they correct? and if so, why is the 560 so much slower then the 460 in that game?

Yeah it's a strange game, it very much favours Nvidia hardware with AA, but as you say it doesn't seem to scale much with their hardware either.

Do any games favor AMD? Perhaps a shortlist of games very favorable to either NV or AMD could be added to all future tests so that people can see the "worst possible scenario"

AvP does ever so slightly. Normally F1 2010 is a big win for AMD but that doesn't seem to happen here, could just be bad settings or maybe Nv is putting a lot of effort into drivers.

I'm just a bit disappointed to see SC2 being added to the benchmark suite, everybody knows that will just shift the "final fps count" results towards Nvidia in a big way that is rarely indicative of the true performance over most games. In a suite of 6 games that one game can make quite the difference, over 20 or so benchmarks maybe not so much.

We should be wary of results that are abnormal and like I said in my earlier post, most of the larger tech-sites are getting the opposite results from Hexus regarding those card match-ups.

[andyb123]

Can you let me know where you got the £150 560 Ti from? I checked eBuyer and Scan before the review and both were showing an average price closer to £200. A £180 price was quoted for the GTX 560 Ti, which is still close to the mark.

strange how you always quote the Scan price when they are usually one of the most expensive places to buy most items unless it's on "todayonly" "special" pricing which then equates to the same price as everywhere else has it

I got mine in a local PC bits shop, however a quick google shows that alot of Factory OC models can be had for £180 so why you'd pay £180 for a stock model I have no idea

[kalniel]

strange how you always quote the Scan price when they are usually one of the most expensive places to buy most items unless it's on "todayonly" "special" pricing which then equates to the same price as everywhere else has it

I got mine in a local PC bits shop, however a quick google shows that alot of Factory OC models can be had for £180 so why you'd pay £180 for a stock model I have no idea

So where is your link to a stock one for less? I think using scan's price is probably a lot more relevant than some magical local shop deal than the rest of us can't use.

I also don't agree that Scan are one of the most expensive - scan do sponsor some parts of these forums if you hadn't already guessed which might be why they get a link (or might not be), but they're within the same ballpark as the best etailers.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ebuyer does an HD6870 1GB for under £130 and you can get the HD5870 for under £140 from Scan when it is on offer too.

[andyb123]

So where is your link to a stock one for less? I think using scan's price is probably a lot more relevant than some magical local shop deal than the rest of us can't use.

I also don't agree that Scan are one of the most expensive - scan do sponsor some parts of these forums if you hadn't already guessed which might be why they get a link (or might not be), but they're within the same ballpark as the best etailers.

fair play, I had assumed that as twin fan OC models were available online for £180 (£183-184 inc delivery from dabs to be precise) and I'd bought mine in a shop for £150 that £180 for a stock model was rediculous

a quick "google shopping" does also seem to show 560ti's at £150-160 but the first one I clicked on showed it was £150 ex vat... I guess the answer is, shop around for a good deal!

even the link attached to this article shows scan selling a 560 (non-ti) for £186... why would anyone pay more for a non-ti