NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 review and full specification – Nedo-GeForce GTX 570 or Re-GeForce GTX 560Ti?

Prior to the release of a new three-dimensional architecture of accelerator, codenamed Kepler a few months and want to somehow maintain the balance within the existing line of the family of GeForce, because prices change constantly, and can form the ‘hole’ in the latest generation of accelerators. Considering that produce new nuclei (crystals) of 40 nm is disadvantageous (all are waiting for a new debugging 28 nm), can only manipulate those chips that are already on the market.

That’s between the GeForce GTX 570 (junior rescheniem a top-class) and the GTX 560 Ti (senior decision of the middle class) formed a kind of price range, where it is possible to write some other product. Given that significantly increase the frequency of the GTX 560 Ti is difficult (to ensure stability in the paper), we decided to go from top to bottom: that is to take the GTX 570, and somehow it cut, floated at the same time, and rejection of GF110 chip level. And so, Makar appeared GTX 560 Ti 448, which should be called the GTX 565 – so it would be more logical and easier to understand. Unfortunately, marketers again took the path of obfuscation citizen. A 448 – the number of stream processors. At 570 – to 480, with 560 Ti – 384. I guess people in white-collar office in Santa Clara in the U.S. really and sincerely believe that all buyers are aware of the video stream processors, and if they show the 560 Ti 448, then they will be delighted and immediately recognize that this is better than 560 Ti . These workers at NVIDIA’s time to change not only the collar, but brains too. In addition, experience has shown that new-old cut-down 570 outstanding performance is much closer to a full 570, than 560 Ti. And so is only on this fact should give the name GTX 565. However, experts from NVIDIA says that time is not a new product in the line, but just kind of ‘hybridization’ limited edition, the name given to the change figures – such as illogical. I wonder where were these fans of logic, when the same ‘pruning» GF100, what will the GTX 470, boldly gave the name GTX 465? – And they prophesied about the limited edition GTX 465. Why are those enlightened minds hopelessly gone?

Okay, the name is given, nothing changed. But the details of a new product, as usual, will tell Alex Beryl.

Part 1: Theory and architecture

This fall, came out quite a lot of games, preferring to powerful PCs with fast video cards of last generation. Although now mainly produce multi-platform projects, but the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and Batman: Arkham City look at the PC a little better than on consoles, and not necessarily only because of for a higher resolution rendering and textures. For example, projects and Battlefield 3 Batman: Arkham City utmost possible use of modern graphics API is the latest version – DirectX 11.

Same Battlefield 3 in its PC version is probably the best graphics available on the market games. This project uses a tessellation of the geometric objects such as mountains and landscape that adds to their detail, and simulation of global illumination algorithms horizon-based ambient occlusion (HBAO) gives a more realistic shadows. Both of these algorithms are also used in Batman: Arkham City. In addition, in the last game and we also mention the very active use of physical effects, NVIDIA PhysX, accelerated on the GPU, such as volumetric smoke, particle systems, etc.

In order to enjoy these games, in addition to previously released games like Crysis 2, users need powerful and functional video card with DirectX 11 support. And by repeatedly reminded of our articles Statistics Steam Hardware Survey , more than 80% of the players still do not have a video card capable of maximum settings in modern games with DirectX 11 support. It is only natural that NVIDIA hopes that they will want to update their systems as soon as possible.

But what do manufacturers of graphics chips during the Christmas sales, when to release new GPU due to delays in the development of industrial production methods, they simply can not physically? Each year, all companies try to produce as much profitable new products this fall, so that users can make yourself a Christmas gift, pour a bit of money to producers. But this fall, it was impossible, since all limit the ability of TSMC to produce chips at the new 28 nm process. That is why the announcement of new generations of GPU from NVIDIA and AMD are no and no.

And NVIDIA has decided to take advantage of a proven option for the release of the modified product based on ‘old» GPU, but with very favorable characteristics – GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores. Marketing goal for this model are gaming enthusiasts who plan to upgrade their systems in order to enjoy a lot of these games, published this autumn, which were mentioned above.

But high-end video card series GeForce GTX 500 is one of the most suitable for such video games. It’s no secret that today’s PCs is much more productive and capable of much more than the current generation of consoles. And some game developers are preparing for the PC version of their special projects, which differ for the better quality graphics. Besides graphics, the PC version, there are other benefits, including multiplayer mode for 64 players in all of that Battlefield 3.

In addition to the probable success of a purely market-based, issue a new graphics card for NVIDIA beneficial for another reason. In addition, it is just potentially good model, it also will clean the accumulated stocks of GPU models GF110, gradually freeing storage for the launch of the new graphics solutions, expected in early 2012. That is, everything must remain in the win.

But the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores – a so-called ‘limited edition’ and a graphics card with that name will be sold only in a few countries: Russia, USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Scandinavian countries. For the whole world they are simply not enough. NVIDIA partners to produce the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores are well-known companies: Zotac, Inno3D, EVGA, Palit, Gainward, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI. Under their own brand names they have released this model to market directly to the Christmas sales.

The theoretical part of the survey was very similar to previous materials, as applied to the GeForce GTX 560 448 Cores Ti GPU has already been described in detail in the base paper . On the whole, this is almost the same long-known GF100 with small improvements, computing architecture which, under the title «Fermi», announced in the fall of 2009. And before you read the material will be helpful to look at other articles on our site, dedicated to solutions from NVIDIA – GeForce GTX 400/500 (GF1xx):

[11.09.10] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti: slightly weaker than the GeForce GTX 570/580, but cheaper
[11.09.10] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580: the new king of 3D-graphics at sunset 2010
[7.12.10] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460: the spread of the new architecture GF1xx to medium price range
[27.3.10] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480: architecture of the new graphics processor from within
[19.01.10] A new graphics architecture that NVIDIA GF100

Graphic accelerator GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores

Codename: GF110;
Technology of production of 40 nm;
More than 3 million transistors;
Unified architecture with an array of processors for streaming processing of various types of data: vertices, pixels, etc.;
Hardware support for DirectX 11 API, including Shader Model Shader Model 5.0, geometry (geometry) and computing (compute) shaders and tessellation;
320-bit memory bus, five independent controllers, 64-bits each, with the support of memory GDDR5;
Core frequency 732 MHz;
Double frequency ALU 1464 MHz;
14 streaming multiprocessors, including 448 scalar ALU for floating point calculations (supporting calculations in integer format, floating point, with FP32-and FP64-up in the standard IEEE 754-2008);
56 texture address and filtering support for FP16-and FP32-component textures, trilinear and anisotropic filtering for all texture formats
5 wide blocks ROP by 40 pixels, with support for antialiasing up to 32 samples per pixel, including FP16-in or FP32-frame buffer. Each unit consists of an array of configurable ALU and is responsible for generating and comparing Z, MSAA, blending;
Record up to 8 frame buffers simultaneously (MRT);
Integrated support for RAMDAC, two ports, Dual Link DVI, and HDMI and DisplayPort.

Reference specifications of GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores

Core frequency 732 MHz;
Frequency of unified processors: 1464 MHz;
Unified processors: 448;
The number of texture units – 56 blending units – 40;
Effective memory frequency 3800 (950 × 4) MHz;
Memory Type GDDR5, 320-bit memory bus;
Memory Size 1280 MB;
Memory bandwidth 152 GB / s;
Maximum theoretical fill rate 29.3 gigapixel per second;
Theoretical texture sampling rate: 41.0 gigatexel per second;
Two connectors Dual Link DVI-I, a Mini HDMI, supports the conclusion at resolutions up to 2560 × 1600;
Dual SLI-connector;
Bus PCI Express 2.0;
Supports HDCP, HDMI, DisplayPort;
Power consumption 210 W (two 6-pin connectors);
Dual-slot performance;
Recommended price in Russia – 8699 rubles.

It must be remembered that the GeForce GTX 560 448 Cores Ti does not replace the market of any of the early models of the company, it’s just a limited edition card released under the Christmas sales, and has characteristics somewhere between GTX 560 and GTX 570 Ti. Since it is almost a copy of the latter, and the energy consumption it is practically the same – just a little bit lower. We emphasize that although the video card and has on-board SLI connectors, but in a couple of ‘ordinary» GTX 560 Ti it can not be activated because the new GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores has a different number of stream processors and different memory capacity.

Choosing a name for this model seems not quite logical. That at the time of the GTX 480 and GTX 470 has been released yet and the GTX 465, based on the same GPU and about pursuing the same goal – the realization of defective chips GF100. And that title perfectly reflects the situation in the line of solutions and its performance – between the GTX 470 and GTX 460 (talking about the model with 768 MB of memory).

So in this case, the name like GTX 565 would be more logical, since this model is located just between the GTX 570 and GTX 560 Ti. And one could give her another suffix, such as the GTX 570 LE (which would mean just the «limited edition»). But the card for some reason decided to call long: «GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores,’ although they GTX 560 Ti is based on a completely different GPU. NVIDIA justifies his decision by saying that this is not a new product line of GTX 500, and ‘limited’ edition of the product with special characteristics.

In contrast to conventional GTX 560 Ti, «limited’ model has a 320-bit memory bus with a disabled 64-bit controller and the appropriate amount of memory equal to 1280 MB, as well as its almost complete copy – GeForce GTX 570. This volume is enough in most cases, except in very rare superheavy modes with the highest resolution and FSAA.
GPU architecture

Despite the fact that the new card has fewer stream processors than the GeForce GTX 570, it is based on all the same chip GF110, which is the most productive among graphic processors NVIDIA, and so declared by the video card is very attractive to many users, preparing to upgrade the graphics subsystem – For gaming enthusiasts a choice of GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores can be very profitable.

After all, the new card uses the same chip GPU, known by the most powerful solution from NVIDIA, and its difference – a few drops in the number of active stream processors, which is reflected in its name. Here is the same memory interface remains the same as that of the GTX 570 – 320-bit bus and 1280 MB of memory type GDDR5. That is, in many cases, the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores from the rate should be very close to the GTX 570.

Recall that in comparison with the GF100, GF110 improved has been redesigned to reduce leaks and optimize power consumption chip. In all other respects, this GPU uses the same streaming multiprocessors (Streaming Multiprocessor) and the same configuration multiprocessors. Is not that off a streaming multiprocessor, and two (inactive blocks allocated to the color chart):

GF110 has four cluster hardware GPC, sixteen multiprocessors SM and six 64-bit memory controller connected to the cache in the second level and have eight ROP units each, and a whole has 512 stream processors, multiprocessors collected at 16 to 32 pieces in each . The chip model GTX 560 Ti 448 the number of artificially limited to 14 multiprocessors and 448 units ALU, and the active texture units remained 56.

As the elder sister, this model is off one of the six 64-bit memory controllers and 8 blocks corresponding thereto ROP, interlocked with the L2 cache and memory controller. And GF110 in this embodiment has a 640 KB unified cache second level and 40 blocks ROP, as opposed to 768 KB and 48 blocks in the full chip GF110.

Since cutting the number of execution units is no big, but their clock speed has not changed over the GTX 570, GTX 560 performance that Ti 448 Cores should be about 10-15% higher than the ‘regular» GTX 560 Ti , but the GTX 570 should outperform the model of ‘limited edition’ by 5%. That is, today introduced video speed is likely to be closer to the GTX 570, GTX 560 than for Ti.

On the performance of texture gives the usual new GTX 560 Ti, and in some cases may even small losses – but only in synthetic benchmarks. But where there is more important than the speed of computation and memory bandwidth, as well as fillrate, then improved GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores will be closer to the GTX 570. This is not to mention applications using tessellation – a parallelized processing of geometry used in all modern solutions NVIDIA, in the case of GF110 is much more efficient than in GF114. Indeed, in this model GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores geometric primitives are processed simultaneously by 14 engines PolyMorph, as opposed to eight units in the GF114 GTX 560 Ti.

We will check all our assumptions in the practical sections of the material – a synthetic and gaming tests, but now you can be sure that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores provide an opportunity to play at maximum settings in almost all games. For example, a relatively fresh game Batman: Arkham City presented model GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores show 42 frames per second with enabled PhysX effects and high graphics settings (data of NVIDIA):

You can now say that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores has been very successful model. It is cheaper than GTX 570, but not enough in what it gives, and, according to the theoretical figures, the ‘limited’ model should provide an excellent level of performance for relatively little money. Its main characteristics significantly greater than typical models GTX 560 Ti, and on these figures it is more comparable with the older GTX 570, and therefore very attractive to buyers. But, alluding to the limited sales of GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores, NVIDIA offers everyone rush to buy this model. And then snatched.

So, in the first part of this article, we investigated the theoretical features of the new solutions – the third model based video chip GF110. And the next part of the paper is devoted to the practical part of the research in synthetic tests, in which we compare the performance of the new solutions GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores at other company’s solutions, as well as competing with her video production company AMD.