MSI GeForce GTX 560 Twin Frozer II review - Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

The regular GeForce GTX 560 (non Ti model) is as interesting as a GTX 460 or even 470 really. Based on the newer chip it has been tweaked and offers better performance, better power efficiency, yet we still think the power consumption is a little on the high side. Most of them win in my book. The card can keep up in the mid-range segment really well. As always pricing will be essential and the decisive factor though.

We like the GeForce GTX 560 for what it is, a decent mid-range performer that will render most games quite well even in high-resolutions.

This model will position itself in the 175 EUR bracket and this card will offer you best performance with monitor resolution up-to 1600x1200. Most games however will play fine at 1920x1200 as well, and that thus oozes value for money.

The MSI GTX560 Twin Frozer II (OC version) is a very decent and impressive product, the performance is nice which will match pricing hopefully. Just don't pay more than say 175 EUR for this card, otherwise the GTX 570 is getting more interesting.

We very much like the MSI GTX560 Twin Frozer II (OC version) in terms of aesthetics and default performance. Though we feel the standard factory overclock could have been 900 MHz. When you apply a little extra GPU voltage with the help of AfterBurner, then you'll pass 1000 MHz on the graphics core. The memory bandwidth is brilliant as well as you'll reach roughly 5 GHz (effective data rate) on that 256-bit gDDR5 class memory.

The cooler then, it's again the Twin Frozer II cooler that disappoints me. The overall cooling performance is okay, but once you startup a hefty game, it just becomes somewhat noisy, and anno 2011 we feel that is not needed. It's however the only negative remark we can think of. And while some are bothered by hearing a graphics card, others do not care.

In retrospect we feel that this GeForce GTX 560 series is a nice product that can be welcomed in the 169~179 EUR mid-range graphics card market, yes the MSI GTX560 Twin Frozer II (OC version) will of course be slightly more expensive as opposed to reference cards due to it's custom design, component usage and cooler.

These products however remain more of the same gear we've been seeing for a long time now. But when you focus at performance versus money, yeah sure then the MSI GTX560 Twin Frozer II (OC version) will be a good deal with excellent tweaking possibilities. This card will offer you a lot of gaming pleasure.

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