ASUS GTX560 DirectCU II review

Aaah yeah, Boom Schack-A-Lack GTX 560 Ti review number four is here ya'll... time to check out another AIB review on the GeForce GTX 560 Ti series. In this article we'll take the ASUS GTX560 DirectCU II edition for a spin. In the reference review you guys learned that NVIDIA has nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to the baseline performance of the GTX 560 Ti, the overclock potential however was really impressive.

And AIB/AIC partners will realize that very much, you'll spot products clocked at core frequencies of 900 MHz and some of them will even brute force attack that upper threshold higher.

The ASUS GTX560 DirectCU II or SKU name ENGTX560 TI-DCII tested today indeed comes all customized and factory overclocked; with quality grade components and a robust build the dark PCB of the GTX560 DirectCU II will carry a GPU clocked at 900 MHz and its memory at 4200 MHz, both thus a nice chunk faster than reference.

To top things off, ASUS put the DirectCU II cooler into effect on this card -- a full-cover design with three flattened copper heatpipes touching the GPU core which then carry the heat towards large aluminum fins and two sturdy fans. The fans have been developed specifically for the DirectCU 2 cooler. And that shows, as you'll notice later on in the results, we measure peak load temperatures at roughly 60 Degrees C. As a result of that excellent cooling we can actually overclock this card (without voltage tweaking whatsoever) to roughly 950 MHz, and that my friends equals value.

As always, have a quick peek and then head onwards into the review...

Features and specification

Aah yes, yet another GPU to review! So today I wanted to keep things nice and simple. The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is in fact the GF114 GPU, it is tweaked a little to allow higher clock speeds with presumably a lower power draw. The GeForce GTX 560 has 384 shader processor cores, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide memory interface that connects to four 64-bit controllers each with 256MB memory tied to them, so that's 1 GB of memory for the product released today.

The new GPU has holstered a rather high GPU clock speed, with 822 MHz core, 1644 MHz on the shader cores, and 4000 MHz (GDDR5 effective datarate) memory, churning out a very decent 128 GB/s in memory bandwidth.

Now, most of all this sounds familiar eh? Yeah... remember the GF104 being used in the GeForce GTX 460 series? The new GF114 is in fact the basis of that IC, yet now with all shader processors enabled.

For the bigger part of the specifications the two feel similar when it comes to shader processor count, memory bus and clock frequencies, the GTX 560 definitely will be a good chunk faster and, as you'll learn, a heck of an overclocker.

Reference specifications:

Graphics card	GeForce GTX 460 768MB	GeForce GTX 460 1024MB	GeForce GTX 560 1024MB	MSI GTX 560 Twin Frozer II
Graphics Processing Clusters	2	2	2	2
Streaming Multiprocessors	7	7	8	8
Shader processor	336	336	384	384
Texture Units	56	56	64	64
ROPs	24	32	32	32
Core Clock	675 MHz	675 MHz	822 MHz	880 MHz
Shader Clock	1350 MHz	1350 MHz	1644 MHz	1760 MHz
Memory Data rate	3600 MHz	3600 MHz	4008 MHz	4200 MHz
Graphics Memory	768MB GDDR5	1024MB GDDR5	1024MB GDDR5	1024MB GDDR5
Memory interface	192-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Memory bandwidth	86 GB/s	115 GB/s	128 GB/S	134 GB/s
Fab node	40nm	40nm	40nm	40nm
TDP	150 Watts	160 Watts	170 Watts	180 Watts

If you look closely at the SM (Streaming Multiprocessor) partitions, then you can see and calculate that the 336 shader processor based GF104 on the GeForce GTX 460 has in fact seven SM partitions. 7 are enabled = 336 Shader processors. The GF114 GPU has 384 shader processors, and has that last available SM cluster enabled.

Okay, so the GeForce GTX 560 Ti is still based on a 40nm fabrication node, still has 1.95 billion transistors and thus looks and feels like the GTX 460, yet now with 48 shader processors and accompanying PolyMorph Engine added, an extra 8 texture units and sure, much faster clock frequencies. So is the GF114 in fact a GF104? Yep, it sure is.

All cards derived from and based on this GPU will be based on a dual or even triple-slot cooling design based on what the AIB/AIC partners prefer and come with two dual-link DVI and a mini-HDMI connector. HDMI will again pass sound through, including bit streaming support for Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master. Being a mid-range product, only 2-way SLI will be allowed and thus you'll only see a single SLI finger/connector on the PCB. Okay, the next stop will be an extensive photo-shoot of today's product.

Alright, let's have a peek at the ASUS GTX560 DirectCU II or SKU name ENGTX560 TI-DCII model, above you can see the card we tested with its bundle. 822 MHz is the default reference clock frequency used on the core, this card clocks in at 900 MHz. Based on a 2:1 ratio the shader processors are clocked at double that, 1800 MHz.

Included in the bundle are the regulars like PCIe power converters, driver CD, manual and a mini display port converter.

The 1GB 256-bit gDDR5 memory is clocked at an effective data-rate of 4200 MHz. The design is stylish alright, we like that. Black PCB, which is roughly 10-inches in length. This card will eat up two PCI slots(dual-slot). Sitting on top of it is the DirectCU II cooler which has two fans blowing air over a heatpipe based cooler (3 thick pipes). A very sturdy design. The three copper heatpipes have direct contact with the GPU allowing them to transfer heat away real fast.

Two 6-pin PEG power connectors are required for this board. Power consumption is rated at a 170W TDP for the reference design 1024MB model, the TDP as we measure it is in fact a fraction higher due to the factory overclock. The power-connectors have been seated along the top side.