ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review

Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc
Product Name: GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Model Number: ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5
Price As Tested: $249.99 at Newegg

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by ASUS.

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is the new boom in the "mid-end" sector. It replaces the highly overclock-able GTX 460 video card and adds extra MHz and cores increasing 20-40% performance in many games. As it could be expected, brands like ASUS, GIGABYTE or MSI will pair this GPU with a special heatsink-cooler and increase factory frequencies to sell it at a higher price. Benchmark Reviews tests the ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DCII TOP. DCII means this card now comes with an improved version of the Direct CU cooler, now with 2 fans and adding dissipation area. They also tag this product as TOP because it sports a 900MHz GPU core instead of the 822MHz from the reference design and 1050MHz instead of 1000MHz from stock. Aside from that, ASUS also bundles their very own overclocking/monitoring software to modify frequency and voltage values and add some extra performance for free. Let's have a look at the ASUS ENGTX560 Ti and check if it can be a good contender against the competition, including the highly acclaimed GeForce GTX 460.

While it's difficult to say the GTX 560 Ti is good enough to replace the GTX 460 GPU, it might be because of the facts and the present conditions surrounding this launch. The GTX 460 is an excellent GPU, but the fact that all the rest of the Fermi 4x0 family was highly disappointing in terms of heat and power consumption was something that helped a lot to push the GTX 460 where it's currently positioned. It achieved great performance levels surpassing the HD5850 in many occasions, especially when enabling Tessellation and I assume something important was the superb overclocking capabilities which could render into a GPU faster than the HD 5870. SLI vs. CFX scaling performance was also a big deal, where many users preferred to buy a pair of GTX460 and put them in SLI than paying more for the GTX 480 or a CFX array of HD 5870s.

Right now the conditions are a little bit different. AMD launched their HD 6800 series and they compete very close below and ahead the GTX 460. They also had the 6900 series launched before the GTX 560 Ti, and even cared to launch the HD 6950 1GB edition the same day Nvidia announced the GTX 560 Ti. Even that, at a $249 MSRP, the GTX 560 Ti performs better that the HD 6870 which now sits at $219 and competes very close with the HD 6950 1GB Radeon video card ($270). The ENGTX 560 Ti DCII TOP model offers up a modest 9% factory overclock, but I'm guessing there's more where that came from. Benchmark Reviews takes full advantage of ASUS hardware and software upgrades, as we explore the full potential of NVIDIA's latest midrange marvel on our test bed.

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