Gtx 560 power requirements: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Specs

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IndexMeet Asus’s GTX 560 DirectCU II TopNew Release 275 Drivers & The TestCrysis: WarheadBattleForgeMetro 2033HAWXCivilization VBattlefield: Bad Company 2STALKER: Call of PripyatDIRT 2Mass Effect 2WolfensteinCompute PerformancePower, Temperature, & NoiseFinal Thoughts

Power, Temperature, & Noise

Last but not least as always is our look at the power consumption, temperatures, and acoustics. As there isn’t a reference GTX 560, we’re working with what we have: the ASUS GTX 560 DirectCU II Top. For the sake of completeness we’re including our results for power/temp/noise at both the Base (810MHz) and Mid (850MHz) on the ASUS card. However if ASUS is goosing the voltage a bit to hit 925MHz, then it’s likely we’re drawing a bit more power here than a card specifically targeted for those performance levels.

Looking at voltage quickly, ASUS is running the GTX 560 Top at 1.037v. This is a bit more than any other GF114/GF104 card that we’ve seen, but not by a great deal. The voltage difference between the GTX 560 Top and the reference GTX 560 Ti does mean that any power benefits of having a SM disabled are wiped out. In other words, the GTX 560 Top can offer GTX 560 Ti-like performance, but at GTX 560 Ti-like power consumption.

Idle power consumption looks very good here. The GTX 560 Ti already did well, and now the GTX 560 does even better. The difference ultimately comes down to the power savings realized by disabling a SM.

Starting with our sample card, the ASUS GTX 560, we’ve already hinted at the fact that power consumption between these heavily factory overclocked cards and the GTX 560 Ti will end up being very similar, in accordance with their similar performance. The results deliver on that concept, with the ASUS GTX 560 and the GTX 560 Ti being separated by only 7W in the ASUS GTX 560’s favor. Overclocking doesn’t have the expected ramp up in power consumption however, as even with the slightly higher clocks and higher voltage, power consumption only rises by 10W for the whole system.

As for our simulated GTX 560 Base and Mid, we can’t say too much. Based on NVIDIA’s specs and the better leakage properties of GF114, there’s no reason why a GTX 560 built for those clocks shouldn’t be able to achieve power consumption similar to (if not better than) the GTX 460 series. We’d get far better data from a suitably lower performing GTX 560 card.

One thing that is clear however is that unless power consumption on lower clocked GTX 560s was more than 20W lower, AMD’s general advantage in power consumption is unchallenged. The same can be said for the GTX 6950, which consumes nearly 18W less than the ASUS GTX 560, even though the latter is often the performance laggard.

Under FurMark the ASUS GTX 560 actually does worse than the GTX 560 Ti, likely due to the ASUS card’s lack of overcurrent protection circuitry and the realization of the full impact of operating at a higher voltage. The difference isn’t this pronounced in games, but FurMark hits all the right notes. Along this same train of thought we see our overclocked ASUS GTX 560 consuming a further 20W beyond what the card consumes under factory settings. The overclocked ASUS GTX 560 usually could beat the GTX 560 Ti, but the power consumption is a major tradeoff.

As for our simulated GTX 560 Mid and Base cards, the results are of a similar nature as our Crysis power results. Power consumption is higher than both the GTX 460 series and AMD’s Radeon HD 6800 series due to the voltages involved.

Idle temperatures are largely a function of the cooler being used. The GTX 560 Ti did exceptionally well here, and it’s nearly impossible to compete with it. At 33C the ASUS GTX 560 is among the coolest cards in our regular charts, and yet it can’t catch the GTX 560 Ti.

When looking at ASUS cards, we often see them favoring aggressive cooling over noise. We’ll get to noise in a bit, but certainly it looks like they have cooling as if not more aggressive than the reference GTX 560 Ti. At 71C the ASUS GTX 560 and the GTX 560 Ti are tied, and are both well below a number of other cards in temperature; an impressive feat given the performance we’ve seen earlier. Our simulated cards are a bit cooler, but they would probably be even better if they were at a lower voltage.

Unfortunately FurMark doesn’t look as good as Crysis, thanks in part to AMD’s use of PowerTune on the 6900 series, and the higher power consumption due to ASUS’s overvolting making itself felt. 84C under Furmark is not at all bad as it’s not even close to any sort of critical GPU temperature, but it’s not quite chart topping. It’s also well off what we’ve seen the GTX 560 Ti do, which is 5C cooler at 79C. Further overclocking and overvolting on the ASUS GTX 560 does dive the temperature up to 89C, which means at 1.062v we’re probably applying as much voltage as we can reasonably get away with.

As for our simulated cards, both the GTX 560 Base and GTX 560 Mid are well above their GTX 460 counterparts. Part of this goes back to power consumption, but it also involves just how different their respective coolers are.

It’s rare to see a card not bottom out on our idle noise testing, and the ASUS GTX 560 doesn’t disappoint. At idle it’s whisper quiet, and it can’t be distinguished from our noise floor.

Last but not least is our look at load noise, where ASUS’s generally aggressive cooling finally becomes quantified. At 54.7dB it’s about the middle of the pack, and actually beats the Radeon HD 6870. But we’ve seen the reference GTX 560 Ti complete the same test at 8dB less – even if we could equalize the power consumption the GTX 560 Ti reference cooler seems to have an edge over ASUS’s DirectCU II cooler when it comes to noise under load. Cutting down the clocks to Base or Mid levels helps this some, but then rendering performance shrinks away from the GTX 560 Ti.

Compute Performance
Final Thoughts
IndexMeet Asus’s GTX 560 DirectCU II TopNew Release 275 Drivers & The TestCrysis: WarheadBattleForgeMetro 2033HAWXCivilization VBattlefield: Bad Company 2STALKER: Call of PripyatDIRT 2Mass Effect 2WolfensteinCompute PerformancePower, Temperature, & NoiseFinal Thoughts

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GeForce GTX 560 [in 5 benchmarks]

NVIDIA
GeForce GTX 560

Buy

• Interface PCIe 2.0 x16
• Core clock speed 810 MHz
• Max video memory 1024 MB
• Memory type GDDR5
• Memory clock speed 4000 MHz
• Maximum resolution

Summary

NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 560 sales 17 May 2011 at a recommended price of $199. This is Fermi 2. 0 architecture desktop card based on 40 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 1 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 4 GHz are supplied, and together with 256 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 128.0 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is dual slot card attached via PCIe 2.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 8.25″ (21 cm). Two 6-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 150 Watt.

It provides poor gaming and benchmark performance at

6.95%

of a leader’s which is NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

GeForce GTX
560

vs

GeForce RTX
4090

General info

Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 560: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Value for money

To calculate the index we compare the characteristics of graphics cards against their prices.

• 0
• 50
• 100

Technical specs

GeForce GTX 560’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 560’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Compatibility, dimensions and requirements

Information on GeForce GTX 560’s compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it’s interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Memory

Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 560: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory type	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory bus width	256 Bit	of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	4000 MHz	of 22400 (GeForce RTX 4080)
Memory bandwidth	128. 0 GB/s	of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260)

Video outputs and ports

Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 560. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by GeForce GTX 560. You’ll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

API support

APIs supported by GeForce GTX 560, sometimes including their particular versions.

Benchmark performance

Non-gaming benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 560. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.

Overall score

This is our combined benchmark performance rating. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 560
6.95

• Passmark
• 3DMark Fire Strike Graphics
• GeekBench 5 OpenCL
• Octane Render OctaneBench
• Unigine Heaven 4.0

Passmark

This is probably the most ubiquitous benchmark, part of Passmark PerformanceTest suite. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

Benchmark coverage: 26%

GTX 560
2713

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature seemingly made of lava. Using 1920×1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic enough graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

Benchmark coverage: 14%

GTX 560
3030

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU’s processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

Benchmark coverage: 9%

GTX 560
8094

Octane Render OctaneBench

This is a special benchmark measuring graphics card performance in OctaneRender, which is a realistic GPU rendering engine by OTOY Inc., available either as a standalone program, or as a plugin for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and many other apps. It renders four different static scenes, then compares render times with a reference GPU which is currently GeForce GTX 980. This benchmark has nothing to do with gaming and is aimed at professional 3D graphics artists.

Benchmark coverage: 4%

GTX 560
31

Unigine Heaven 4.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark, a newer version of Unigine 3.0 with relatively small differences. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. The benchmark is still sometimes used, despite its significant age, as it was released back in 2013.

Benchmark coverage: 1%

GTX 560
525

Mining hashrates

Cryptocurrency mining performance of GeForce GTX 560. Usually measured in megahashes per second.

Game benchmarks

Let’s see how good GeForce GTX 560 is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Relative perfomance

Overall GeForce GTX 560 performance compared to nearest competitors among desktop video cards.

AMD Radeon HD 6990
111.08

AMD Radeon R7 260
106.47

AMD Radeon HD 6970
104.03

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
100

AMD Radeon RX 550
99.57

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465
98.85

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 768MB
97.41

AMD equivalent

We believe that the nearest equivalent to GeForce GTX 560 from AMD is Radeon RX 550, which is nearly equal in speed and is lower by 2 positions in our rating.

Radeon RX
550

Compare

Here are some closest AMD rivals to GeForce GTX 560:

AMD Radeon HD 6990
111.08

AMD Radeon R7 260
106.47

AMD Radeon HD 6970
104.03

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
100

AMD Radeon RX 550
99.57

AMD Radeon HD 6950
97.27

AMD Radeon HD 6850 X2
93.38

Similar GPUs

Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.

GeForce GTX
465

Compare

Radeon HD
6950

Compare

Radeon R7
260

Compare

GeForce GTX
650 Ti

Compare

Radeon HD
6850 X2

Compare

FireStream
9370

Compare

Recommended processors

These processors are most commonly used with GeForce GTX 560 according to our statistics.

Core i5
2400

3.4%

Core i5
3470

2.3%

Core i3
2100

2.1%

Core i5
2500

1.9%

Core i3
2120

1.8%

Athlon II
X4 640

1.7%

Core i5
2310

1.4%

Core i5
2500K

1. 4%

Core i5
2300

1.3%

Core i3
3220

1.3%

User rating

Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.

Questions and comments

Here you can ask a question about GeForce GTX 560, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Review and testing of the video card ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP GECID.com. Page 1

::>Video cards
>2011
> ASUS ENGTX560 DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5

09-19-2011

Page 1
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One page

ASUS video cards from the DirectCU II line quite deservedly have a reputation for high-quality products with high functionality and excellent overclocking potential. However, the cost of these graphics adapters, as a rule, is significantly higher compared to similar solutions from competitors. Our test lab has already seen several ASUS video accelerators based on the latest generation of AMD and NVIDIA graphics processors with the DirectCU II prefix in the name, and all of them made a really good impression on us, which fully justified the cost of these products.

Today we are reviewing another solution from the DirectCU II line based on the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560, which occupies an intermediate position between relatively expensive products based on the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and mass video cards based on the GeForce GTX 550 Ti — ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP .

All prices for ASUS ENGTX560 DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5

Just like the older video card that recently visited our test lab, the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP video accelerator has the TOP prefix in the name, indicating the presence factory overclock. In the case of ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP, the graphics core was overclocked by the manufacturer to 925 MHz, and the video memory operates at an effective frequency of 4200 MHz; reference frequencies, we recall, are 810 MHz and 4008 MHz for the core and memory, respectively. In addition, the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP graphics card, compared to the «reference» solution, has a unique printed circuit board design and an improved cooling system based on «direct contact» technology. How successful the alternative version of the GeForce GTX 560 from ASUS turned out to be, we will tell you a little lower, but for now we will traditionally start our acquaintance with the product packaging.

The video card comes in a medium sized colorful box. Its design and appearance are quite familiar to those who are familiar with ASUS graphics accelerators. On the front side of the package, the manufacturer lists some of the characteristics and main technologies supported by the video card. But special attention is drawn to the inscription «Overclocked 925 MHz», which informs potential buyers that the product inside has a significant factory overclock.

The reverse side of the package is a little more informative — here, in addition to brief characteristics of the video card in 11 languages ​​(including Russian), there is a brief description of ASUS proprietary technologies that were used to create the video card:

• The DirectCU II cooling system, according to the manufacturer, should be able to cool the video card 20% more efficiently than the «reference» turbine developed by NVIDIA engineers;

• The use of a high-quality element base, according to the manufacturer, allows not only to obtain a longer service life and less heating of the printed circuit board elements, but also to increase the performance level by 15%;

• The proprietary Voltage Tweak technology allows you to adjust the voltage supplied to the graphics core, and thus allows you to achieve better results in the process of overclocking the video card.

The system requirements for the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP graphics card are listed on one side of the package. Note that the power supply in such a system must have a power of at least 550 W, and also be capable of delivering from 38 A over a 12 V line.

In addition to the video card itself, we found in the package:

• CD with drivers and utilities;

• DVI-to-VGA adapter;

• Mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter;

• Two adapters from two 4-pin peripheral power connectors to one 6-pin video card power connector.

Pretty standard package for the latest generation video cards, but given that we have one of the most expensive solutions based on the GeForce GTX 560, I would like to see in addition to the standard package at least a bridge for connecting a pair of such video cards in SLI mode. However, given that most motherboards supporting this technology are supplied with such a connector, the poor delivery set still cannot be called a critical drawback.

To output images from the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP video card, it has two DVI-I interfaces and one mini-HDMI port. And given the presence of two adapters included with the video card, the user should not have any problems connecting a monitor, plasma panel or projector to the video card.

The printed circuit board is made on a black textolite and has the same design and arrangement of elements as the PCB of the older ASUS GeForce GTX 560 model with the Titanium (Ti) prefix in the name. Recall that high-quality solid-state and tantalum capacitors, as well as chokes with ferrite cores, were used in its production. This solution will reduce the heat dissipation of power circuits, improve the overclocking potential of the video card and extend its service life.

The video card power converter is made according to a 6 + 1-phase scheme using the SHE ASP0907 PWM controller, and in order to ensure stable power supply to the video card, in addition to the PCI-E connector, two 6-pin connectors are used, which are located on the side at the end fees.

Two tiny LEDs on the back of the board will alert the user if the graphics card is not getting enough power to run smoothly. If everything is in order with the power, the indicators turn green.

Other than the aforementioned LEDs and a few tantalum capacitors, the reverse side of the board is almost devoid of elements. The presence of a connector for connecting an SLI bridge allows you to combine two video cards on a GeForce GTX 560 graphics processor for joint work. In the GeForce GTX 560 version, it has 336 universal shader pipelines (or CUDA cores in NVIDIA terminology) and 32 ROPs. We repeat that the operating frequencies of the accelerator components were initially increased by the manufacturer and amounted to 925 MHz for core, 1850 MHz for shader and 4200 MHz for memory. Data exchange between the graphics core and memory is carried out via a 256-bit bus. The rest of the characteristics are shown in the screenshot above.

Memory with a total capacity of 1 GB is assembled using eight chips of 128 MB each. Chips manufactured by SAMSUNG are marked K4G10325FE-HC04 and according to the documentation have an access time of 0.4 ns, which theoretically allows them to operate at an effective frequency of 5000 MHz. Given that the initially effective memory frequency (even with factory overclocking) is 4200 MHz, you can try to speed up the memory using manual overclocking and get a good performance boost.

The cooling system of the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP video card based on the «direct contact» technology, as well as the printed circuit board, repeats that of the older model. In fact, the only difference between the «titanium» and the «regular» version of the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 is the version of the graphics core used.

The cooler consists of a massive aluminum heatsink pierced by three copper heat pipes and a plastic shroud with two built-in 80mm PWM fans.

An additional heatsink mounted on the power cells will not be superfluous at all, given the significant factory overclocking. But the memory chips, unfortunately, have no contact with either the main radiator or the additional one, which can limit their overclocking potential.

The heatpipes are not soldered to the aluminum heatsink fins, and this slightly reduces the overall heat transfer efficiency. However, given that the same cooling system showed high efficiency in cooling the more powerful and «hot» graphics processor NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti, the situation should repeat itself with the younger model. To verify this, we ran our standard set of tests using the FurMark utility.

In automatic mode, with a continuous maximum load, the temperature of the graphics core did not exceed 72 degrees. At the same time, the fan worked at 51% of its power, producing an average noise level. Such a good result confirms our assumption that the cooling system used not only does an excellent job of cooling the GeForce GTX 560 GPU, but also has some margin of safety, which we will try to use during manual overclocking of the ASUS GeForce GTX 560 DirectCU II TOP.