NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 TI 448 Core Video Card Review

GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores

This morning NVIDIA released a new graphics card called the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores. This is a limited edition graphics card, and as its name implies, the GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores is outfitted with 448 CUDA cores. As most enthusiasts and gamers know, both CPU’s and GPU’s are binned and tested as they are produced. The chips that don’t pass testing for one speed might find new life as a different part. NVIDIA has been make the GeForce GTX 570 graphics cards for over a year now and we were told that there has been a pile of GPU cores that didn’t pass for a GTX 570 sitting in a warehouse for some time. Some engineers and marketing people at NVIDIA thought why not make a limited edition run of a new video card to clear out the inventory and to also ‘give back’ to gamers by selling them at a sweet price. The result of that decision was to release a card called the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 Cores for a suggested retail price of just $289.

With game titles like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Battlefield 3, and Batman: Arkham City many gamers are looking to upgrade their video cards, so this is NVIDIA’s best attempt to get your holiday money!

The NVIDIA GeForce 560 Ti with 448 cores reference design is a GeForce GTX 570 reference design card with a GPU that has 448 cores enabled on it rather than the full 480 cores. As a result the thermal design power rating has dropped from 219W down to just 210W. When it comes to performance NVIDIA says that it will be between the GTX 560 Ti and the GTX 570. To be specific the GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores is ~10-15% faster than a 560 Ti. The GTX 570 is ~5% faster than the GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. Most GeForce GTX 570 graphics cards cost between $339 to $359 on Newegg, so this is a chance to save $50 to $70 and get a card that is just 5% slower.

NVIDIA didn’t send us a reference card to test, but our friends over at MSI sent a card for us to review today. They will be offering two flavors of the GeForce 560 Ti with 448 cores; one based off the reference design and another ‘Power Edition’ card featuring the Twin Frozr III GPU cooler. The reference design will be $289 and the MSI Power Edition will be around $299.99-309.99 MSRP, similar to the GTX570 vs GTX570 Power Edtion difference in pricing. MSI feels that with the extra overclocking headroom and improved thermal solution that the $20 price premium is well worth it for consumers! The card that we were sent for testing was the MSI N560GTX-448 Power Edition.

The MSI N560GTX-448 Power Edition is factory overclocked up to 750MHz on the core clock and 3900MHz on the memory clock, so it will be interesting to see how it performance against a stock GeForce GTX 570. MSI listed the TDP on this overclocked GF110 powered card as 230W.

Let’s take a closer look at the MSI N560GTX-448 Power Edition video card and then get on to the benchmarks!