NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti: Gamer’s Weapon of Choice
Shortly after the release of its new flagship, the GeForce GTX 580, NVIDIA introduced another product that is aimed squarely at the mainstream market. Like the GeForce GTX 460 before it, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti should offer remarkable performance at a reasonable price. But how much performance can you expect from this GPU exactly?
The first GeForce GTX 500 series was announced barely a year after NVIDIA released their first DirectX 11-capable graphics chips, popularly known as the “Fermi” family of GPUs. As the high-end market has now been occupied by the GeForce GTX 580 and GTX 570, NVIDIA is already moving on to extend the reach of their second gen DirectX 11 GPU with the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. This GPU is set to replace the GTX 470 in NVIDIA’s current lineups.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti
The “Ti” suffix is reminiscent of NVIDIA’s GPUs of old, the GeForce 3 Ti and GeForce 4 Ti. It appears that NVIDIA decided to bring the suffix back to their naming scheme with the GeForce GTX 560. The “Ti” itself is short for “Titanium”. The GeForce GTX 560 is first to bear the resurrected “Ti”, will there be others that follow it?
Specification
NVIDIA GTX 580 | NVIDIA GTX 570 | NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti | NVIDIA GTX 460 1GB | |
Streaming Multiprocessors | 16 | 15 | 8 | 7 |
Stream Processors (CUDA Cores) | 512 | 480 | 384 | 336 |
Texture Units | 64 | 60 | 64 | 56 |
ROP Units | 48 | 40 | 32 | 32 |
Graphics Clock | 772 MHz | 732 MHz | 822 MHz | 675 MHz |
Shader Clock | 1544 MHz | 1464 MHz | 1644 MHz | 1350 MHz |
Memory Clock (effective) | 4008 MHz | 3800 MHz | 4008 MHz | 3600 MHz |
Memory Size | 1536 MB | 1280 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB |
Memory Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
Memory Interface | 384-bit | 320-bit | 256-bit | 256-bit |
Codename | GF110 | GF110 | GF114 | GF104 |
Fabrication Process | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm | 40 nm |
Transistor Count | 3 Billion | 3 Billion | 1.95 Billion | 1.95 Billion |
Die Size | 520 mm² | 520 mm² | – | 332 mm² |
Power Connectors | 8-pin + 6-pin | 2x 6-pin | 2x 6-pin | 2x 6-pin |
Min Recommended Power Supply | 600 Watt | 550 Watts | 500 Watts | 450 Watts |
Thermal Design Power (TDP) | 244 Watts | 219 Watts | 170 Watts | 160 Watts |
GPU Thermal Threshold | 97 °C | 97 °C | 100 °C | 104 °C |
DirectX Version | 11 | 11 | 11 | 11 |
Bus Support | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 | PCIe 2.0 x16 |
Under the codename GF114, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU is made of 1,95 bliion transistors. It has 8 Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) clusters, 64 Texture Units, 32 ROP units, and 384 Stream Processors (or CUDA Cores as NVIDIA calls them these days). The operating frequencies are 822 MHz, 1644 MHz and 4008 MHz for the core, shader, and memory respectively. The core clockspeed is especially high compared to other GeForce GTX 500 and GTX 400 series of GPU from NVIDIA.
The GF114 at a Glance
The picture above shows the diagram of the GF104 chip (GeForce GTX 460). This chip had eight Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) clusters, but by disabling one of them, NVIDIA reduced the amount of available Stream Processors and Texture Units to 336 and 56, respectively.
As for the GF114 (GeForce GTX 560 Ti), there are eight, active SM cores available. NVIDA has optimized the GF114 so that it has a better performance/ watt ratio compared to its predecessor, the GF104. Eight SM cluster means that it has 64 Texture Units and 384 Stream Processors in its disposal.
Features
The GeForce GTX 560 Ti also supports a number of NVIDIA’s proprietary graphics features, including:
- CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture)
- NVIDIA PhysX
- NVIDIA 3DVision
- NVIDIA Surround
- NVIDIA 3DVision Surround