GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 core review

Final Words & Conclusion

Reviewing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 core really is reviewing the GeForce GTX 570. The card is marginally slower than it's bigger brother with the one shader processor module disabled. The mutual clock frequencies make the two products perform very close to each other.

It's an interesting move from NVIDIA really, personally I just love the 570 series and I really like the 560 Ti 448 core. But yeah, realistically speaking ... it's not a GTX 560 alright :)

For you as end-users these details do not matter though, you focus on features, performance and price. So the decisive and final factor will absolutely be the retail price. At the moment of writing the the prices I heard for the reference products are an SRP of USD$ 289 and 279 EUR. If that price stands then the 448 core version would be doomed from the start as you can pick up a GTX 570 for 289 EUR already.

Suggested retail prices are always lower in the stores though, so if the price settles at say 249 EUR, that's where the 448 core version will make some sense.

Comparing the 200 EUR GeForce GTX 560 Ti towards the 448 version, admittedly we do like the 448 core version much better -- it comes with an extra 256MB of memory, a faster memory bus (320-bit) and uses that GTX 570/580 silicon with a couple of shader clusters disabled. So the raw horsepower is definitely there. Realistically though you are looking at a 15% performance difference in-between the two.

Gaming wise the 448 core might just be what the doctor ordered for the latest game titles though, it has a chunk of extra memory which Battlefield 3 really likes, it has that little extra bite that Crysis 2 likes so much and as such it can be looked at as a really nice 1920x1080/1200 resolution graphics card.

Don't forget that the card tested today was clocked at reference speeds, there will be multiple SKUs out there coming factory overclocked, which brings this product towards the GeForce GTX 570 easily, and getting very close to GeForce GTX 580. If anything, our overclock without voltage tweaking has been showing great potential.

Gigabyte did a nice job with this card, it is very silent, runs at very cool temperatures and offers you a lot for the money as they throw in that WindForce 3 cooler, which works out really nicely. As a result of that cooling you will get the card to 800 MHz easily without voltage tweaking, and that my friends means value.

I'm not sure if I would call the card a GeForce GTX 560 448 core, as the reality shows it really is a GeForce GTC 570 in disguise. Regardless of that, if priced right, the card might just be what the Santa ordered for the Christmas season.

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