ASUS ENGTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review Index
- 1 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP: Presentation
- 2 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Features
- 3 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP OpenGL performances
- 4 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Direct3D performances
- 5 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Gaming performances
- 6 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP DirectCompute performances
- 7 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Power consumption and overclocking
- 8 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Conclusion
7 – ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Power consumption and Overclocking
UPDATE
More overclocking here: (Tested) ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II GPU Overclocking Session: GPU reaches 1000MHz.
For the power consumption and overclocking test, I used the upcoming FurMark 1.9.0 (still not released due to a little lack of time but it should be there shortly! –already seen somewhere…). The graphics workload in the new FurMark 1.9.0 has been slightly increased, leading to more power consumption (few watts in more). But this extra graphics workload can make the difference with high overclocking settings.
The total power consumption of my testbed in idle with the GTX 560 Ti is 100W.
As I said in the first part of the review, GTX 500 power monitoring hardware (see here: GeForce GTX 580 Power Monitoring Details)
is an optional feature on GTX 560 Ti. ASUS has decided to not implement this power monitoring hardware on its custom GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP. And honestly it’s a good choice, especially for a card with high quality components (chokes, capacitors, MOSFETs) like this one.
I say that ASUS has not implemented the power monitoring hardware but actually I have no confirmation of this fact. I base my assumption on my FurMark tests. But I’m sure that ASUS has tweaked or removed this power monitoring hardware because of the power consumption of the card: around 225W for the card alone with default clocks when FurMark 1.9.0 is ruuning.
With default GPU clock speed (900MHz), the total power consumption of the testbed stressed by FurMark 1.9.0 is 351W for a max GPU temperature of 78°C (FurMark settings: 1920×1080, fullscreen, Burn-in mode, dynamic background, no AA, no postfx).
Hey, just a detail: ASUS’s DirectCU II VGA cooler is a great product and GPU temperature at idle does not exceed 33°C. Really nice!
The reference clock of the GF114 is 822MHz. There is already a factory overclocking of +78MHz. Let’s see if we can go further.
- FurMark 1.9.0, GPU core: 900MHz, Vcore: 1.025V, Total power consumption: 351W, GPU temp: 78°C
- FurMark 1.9.0, GPU core: 940MHz, Vcore: 1.025V, Total power consumption: 360W, GPU temp: 80°C, stable in Burn-in test, stable in Xtreme Burn-in test
- FurMark 1.9.0, GPU core: 950MHz, Vcore: 1.025V, Total power consumption: 362W, GPU temp: 80°C, stable in Burn-in test, UNSTABLE in Xtreme Burn-in test
- FurMark 1.9.0, GPU core: 960MHz, Vcore: 1.025V, UNSTABLE in Burn-in test, UNSTABLE in Xtreme Burn-in test
Then without tweaking the GPU voltage, the max stable GPU clock is 940MHz (or +118MHz compared to the reference clock). And I’m sure that with a little boost of the GPU voltage, we can increase again the GPU clock speed (up to 1000MHz?).
We can the calculate the power consumption of ASUS’s GTX 560 Ti with default GPU clock. The Corsair AX1200 PSU has an efficiency factor of around 0.9 (see this article, there is a graph of the AX1200 efficiency).
P = (351-100) * 0.9
P = 225 watts
225W is rather far from the TDP of 170W. It’s normal. The TDP is not the max power consumption of the card and ASUS’s GTX 560 Ti is already overclocked. Then a GTX 560 Ti with an overclocked GPU stressed by FurMark can exceed without problem 220 watts.
Here is a stress test with FurMark 1.8.2 Xtreme test mode and the GTX 560 Ti DCII TOP with default clocks:
- FurMark 1.8.2, GPU core: 900MHz, Vcore: 1.025V, Total power consumption: 346W, GPU temp: 75°C
Here is a comparative table of the power consumption of the card ALONE (not the total power consumption of the system):
Power: 352W – EVGA GTX 580 SC (core: 880MHz, Vcore:1.082V) – OC settings |
| Power: 330W – ASUS ENGTX580 (core: 871MHz, Vcore:1.088V) – OC settings |
| Power: 324W – EVGA GTX 580 SC (core: 797MHz, Vcore:1.082V – default settings) |
Power: 298W – ASUS Radeon HD 6950 (core: 840MHz, Vcore: 1.300V) – OC settings |
| Power: 290W – ASUS ENGTX580 (default settings) |
| Power: 276W – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 (core: 940MHz, Vcore: 1.175V) – OC settings |
| Power: 272W – EVGA GTX 480 |
| Power: 260W – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6970 (core: 880MHz, Vcore: 1.175V) |
| Power: 225W – ASUS ENGTX560 Ti DirectCU II TOP (core: 900MHz, Vcore:1.025V) |
| Power: 220W – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870 (core: 1000MHz, Vcore: 1.300V) – OC settings |
| Power: 197W – ASUS Radeon HD 6950 (core: 810MHz, Vcore: 1.100V) |
| Power: 185W – ATI Radeon HD 5870 |
| Power: 155W – SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870 (core: 900MHz, Vcore: 1.175V) |
| Power: 147W – ASUS EAH6870 |
| Power: 135W – MSI N460GTX Cyclone 768D5 OC |
ASUS ENGTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Review Index
- 1 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP: Presentation
- 2 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Features
- 3 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP OpenGL performances
- 4 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Direct3D performances
- 5 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Gaming performances
- 6 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP DirectCompute performances
- 7 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Power consumption and overclocking
- 8 – ASUS GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP Conclusion
this thing is some beast..beating a GTX470 with only 8SM..they musta done some hella performance tweaks with the GF114
I think i’ll wait for a 660 then 😀
I wonder if my PSU could handle 2 of these…
At the moment it’s handling pretty well my 2 palit gtx 460 1gb which have a very similar tdp.
My PSU is a CORSAIR AX750 Gold 12cm PLUG (87+)
@Zibri: I’m sure that the AX750 can handle (without problem) two GTX 560 Ti highly stressed…
For comparison… with same settings my 2 GTX 460 score 1511 points and 60 FPS in unigine heaven.
Settings: 1920×1080 fullscreen, tessellation: normal, shaders: high, 4X MSAA, 16X anisotropic filtering.
TAKE OF THE COVER, FANS AND COOLER AND PICTURE IT PLEASE.
WANT TO SEE ITS DIFFERENCES TO REFERENCE LAYOUT.
JeGX pourquoi ne pas avoir monter les voltages ?
interdiction du fabricant , pas le temps pour peaufinner l’oc de la bête ?
dommage car la 560 ti à l’air d’etre la reine en overcloking … ou pas ?
I don’t think NVIDIA have used ‘Titatnium’ since GeForce 4?
@komar: juste pour une question de temps. Effectivement en augmentant la tension d’alim du GPU on devrait gagner quelques Hz de plus. J’essaierai de faire un test plus tard.
J’ai vu la review techpowerup de la bête ne te dérange pas .
Jetais juste curieux de savoir cb elle prenait en aircooling
Merci quand même JEGx
Greetings .
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I have to say I am quite impressed by the 560. The performance was expected, but still it’s nice to see it’s there.
noise?
@Michael: at idle, the card is extremely quiet. Under FurMark the cooler is noisy but is supportable (nothing to see with GTX 480 stock VGA cooler!). And I talk for an open case testbed…
Underwhelmed. You’ll get a 6950 for the same price using 20-30W less and has more performance. FAIL!
@DrBalthar: don’t forget the secret weapon of the GTX 560 Ti: overclocking. I will publish an article shortly 😉
Overclocking will just make it hotter and eat more power with marginal gain doubt it can cover the performance gap. Nvidia has piss poor Flop/Watt with the whole Fermi line.
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Very nice review, I was focussing my search on this reviewed card and the 6950 variant.
There are a lot of reviews of normal 560ti and 6950 based cards, but not so much of the asus direct CU versions.
I like the way you discuss things, they are righ spot on as what i was looking for.
Still not sure which card to pick, the 560Ti or the 6950 based on ASUS Direct CU II design, they are allmost the same price, but have both pros and cons.
I like playing BC2 for instance, the nvidia cards are better in this game, but what about future releases…those choices…:)
I got a 6950 hell of problems and the card was having problems with fable 3, i returned the card next day got a EVGA 560 ti next day and now is running any game over 50 fps. i will say this second ATI i buy and they all failed me.
A 6950 for the same price as a ENGTX 560 ti top CII?????? No way!!! At lease 700 bucks differance! I don’t know who ur supplier is, but no way. And I must agree with “6950 falls” ATI cards in general are very buggy and unstable, my last 3 ATI’s had constant issues, ranging from overclocking probs, to HDMI problems to even crossfire problems, ATI is just too much hassel in general. Although they are good value for money, and good performers, stick to the tried and tested man!! NVIDIA.
I just put together a nice system got it all running but the vidoe card wont display on the moniter and my motherboard has no on board video..I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.What I built was MB Asus Sabertooth X58 LGA 1366 R, PSU Antec TPQ-1200 1200W RT, CPU Intel Core 17 950 3.06G 45N R, MEM 4Gx3 KHX 1866C9D3K3 12GX R, HDD 1.5 WD WD15EARX 64M%… Any Info anyone can give would be great.