MSI GeForce GTX 560 Twin Frozr II Review

[Rob Williams]

To help fill a model gap that no one told us about, NVIDIA has released its GeForce GTX 560, a slight step down from the Ti variant. Featuring a cut of 48 cores and the potential for wildly varying clock speeds, this card is a strange beast. But, we look to pit MSI's 'Twin Frozr II' against our usual fleet of cards to see where it stacks up in the end.

You can check out our full look at MSI's take on NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 560 and then discuss it here!

[marfig]

Don't you guys feel just a tad bit annoyed that Nvidia went back to including abstract suffixes in their models? The 400 series was such a sane approach to naming conventions and now we are back to Ti; something we didn't see since... what, 2004?

And who knows what comes next? LE, the dreaded G, GS, GT, GTS, or something cute like Green Edition or Force). Anyways, no biggie. Just something that stroke a small nerve on me.

But, of course, didn't stop me from buying the GTX 560 Ti when it shipped by Asus. So what to say about this non Ti card?

The only thing that occurs to me is smiling at Nvidia release schedules that are so obviously done against the interest of the consumer, that I sometimes wonder why I like Nvidia so much.

In all truth, I cannot conceive this card as anything else than a replacement of the Ti version, coming at a cheaper price only now, but that could have had in fact be the only 560 model and stopped many a customer from spending plus $50 (or more, depending on the factory overclock of the Ti cards) for a supposedly better Ti card. The thing is -- and if my hasty math is correct -- the non Ti boosted an average of -5fps on the tests when compared with the Ti. This means, that for the $50 more I payed 3 months ago, I'm getting more 5 fps. So the Ti cost me $10 per fps for those last 5 fps. Can I say I was had?

[Optix]

Can it overclock is another question. If so, can it surpass the Ti? I'm all about getting the most for paying the least so a lower cost variant that can go beyond a higher end model is alright in my books, no matter how silly the launch may be.

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by marfig

Don't you guys feel just a tad bit annoyed that Nvidia went back to including abstract suffixes in their models? The 400 series was such a sane approach to naming conventions and now we are back to Ti; something we didn't see since... what, 2004?

It's become so commonplace with NVIDIA that I think I've grown into it, but now that I think of it, I guess AMD does keep its product names a lot simpler. There's just one prefix (HD) and then the model number to denote the performance. But, AMD does pull other strange tricks, like naming a card the HD 6790 when to me, it should have been called the HD 6830. It seems AMD can just as easy confuse the naming schemes on things if it wants to.

The problem I have with NVIDIA isn't so much the GT, GTX, Ti, et cetera, but the fact that the company will produce two cards with identical names and just add a suffix. Though a little unneeded in some regards, I'd rather just see the GTX 555 rather than GTX 560 non-Ti, and on the same token, the GTX 560 Ti just should be called the Ti. These suffixes do nothing but confuse, but straight easy-to-understand numbers shouldn't confuse anyone.

Originally Posted by marfig

In all truth, I cannot conceive this card as anything else than a replacement of the Ti version, coming at a cheaper price only now, but that could have had in fact be the only 560 model and stopped many a customer from spending plus $50 (or more, depending on the factory overclock of the Ti cards) for a supposedly better Ti card. The thing is -- and if my hasty math is correct -- the non Ti boosted an average of -5fps on the tests when compared with the Ti. This means, that for the $50 more I payed 3 months ago, I'm getting more 5 fps. So the Ti cost me $10 per fps for those last 5 fps. Can I say I was had?

Such is tech. The Ti version still should be quite overclockable though, and when taking that into consideration, an overclocked Ti should smoke an overclocked non-Ti. Of course, whether or not you overclock is another story.

Originally Posted by Optix

Can it overclock is another question. If so, can it surpass the Ti? I'm all about getting the most for paying the least so a lower cost variant that can go beyond a higher end model is alright in my books, no matter how silly the launch may be.

As mentioned in the article, ASUS has a 925MHz version for sale, and that would surpass the performance of the Ti. And because companies never sell an overclock that's considered bleeding-edge, I'm sure 950MHz wouldn't be too much of a problem. I hoped to add overclocks in here, but time got the best of me.