My son has been using the Geforce GTX260 for over a year now. Upgraded his PC again a few days back with the EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1563-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready. I actually purchased this card in January 2011 then sold it to friend early January 2013 replaced it with the Geforce GTX 680. Only to rebuy it back a few days ago almost a year exact that I sold it.
I was curious how well the 560 holds up on current games any type between Sept 2013 – March 2014.
The PC it is in I would consider to be what the majority of PC gamers use.
Hardware:
17″ ViewSonic 4:3 ratio LCD Panel (VG730M) Resolution @ 1280×1024
AMD Phenom 9600B Quad Core CPU clocked @ 2.31ghz
System memory 4gb of DDR2
EVGA Geforce GTX 560ti SuperClocked. Nvidia Core Clock reference is 822 Mhz.
Shader Clock:1645 Mhz reference
The 560ti Superclocked is @
Core Clock 900Mhz
Shader Clock 1800Mhz
Operating System is Windows 8.1 all updates are current.
Nvidia drivers are WHQL v.334.89
All games I either benchmarked or ran FRAPS to monitor Frame rate.
Resolution in game is @ 1280×1024 with the exception of Thief one benchmark was done in 1280×720.
First game I threw in was Tomb Raider reboot. I was told with TressFX enabled it ran choppy.
It’s settings were @ max w/tressFX on & NO Vsync or Antialiasing.
Resolution was @ 1280×1024
Ran benchmark that is built into the game. Minimum FPS-1.9 Average FPS:39.5 Maximum FPS-56
I played the game a bit and it didn’t feel lagged at all. I feel that the game will run pretty smoothly throughout the game. Playing multiplayer may be a bit different because online you will want as many FPS as you can get.
Tomb Raider reboot was released on March 2013 so it’s already a year old but I felt it should be thrown into the games I benchmarked. I think Tomb Raider reboot still looks great it’s graphics aren’t dated yet.
2nd game I test was much more recent.
Thief Reboot Released :February 25, 2014 in North America, February 27, 2014 in Australia, and February 28, 2014 in Europe. It will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
I absolutely loved the original was out around 1997 or 1998 I remember having a 3DFX Voodoo 2 and a Creative 3d sound card “There wasn’t 5.1 for PC gamers back then.”
It just sucked me in the atmosphere was amazing and at night at the desk alone I was creeped out.
Now that graphics are very close to real time FMV everyone under the sun is doing reboots. Not that it’s bad or anything:-) I love the new Thief & Tomb Raider.
Thief Benchmarks: All resolutions are 1280×1024 unless stated in Benchmark results.
1st:run Maximum detail: Minimum FPS-0 Maximum FPS-40.5 Average FPS-19.0 Bottom line this is not playable at all.
2nd:Custom settings All High Detail AA-low No Vsync Minimum FPS-0 Max-50.8 Avg-23.4 Dropped down to high and did a few custom changes these settings are not playable.
3rd:Custom Textures :high shadows:high Depth of Field:Normal AF:x16 Parallax Occlusion:unchecked FXAA: unchecked Tesselation: unchecked
Min-0 Max-53.6 Avg-24.2. Again at these frame rates it’s just not going to be enjoyable.
4th:All setting stayed as they were in run #3 except on this run I unchecked even more visuals and lowered textures and shadows to normal and Still was not playable at these settings.
I ended up doing 7 different configurations trying to get some visuals in game while maintaining a playable frame rate. It just was not possible to do so.
Setting everything to low just to play this on your PC isn’t worth it you can play the Xbox 360 or PS3 version and get a smoother experience.
The Thief game brought the 560ti rig to it’s knees.
Since Thief is a slow moving game and doesn’t rely on fast dodging and accurate shooting while moving it can probably be played at Low & Medium settings but why would anyone want to play any game like that? When consoles seem to be handling it no problem.
On a high end PC Thief looks amazing and the game is very entertaining. I’m a Thief fan so my judgment isn’t exactly fair. There are others that feel the exact opposite of the new reboot.
3rd game I went and tested is Batman Arkham Origins Release Date: Oct 25, 2013 Also On: PlayStation 3, Wii U, Xbox 360 ,PlayStation 4 & XboxOne
Arkham Origins I set all settings that could be set to DX11 Enhanced only Ambient Occlusion and Hardware PhysX were turned off and Depth of field was set to Normal.
At start of game FPS ran @ 32-65. Until First encounter with multiple enemies then FPS held solid @ 55-60FPS.
Batman Arkham Origins runs great. The 560 is holding up well.
Next game Shadow Warrior it was set @ Ultra quality 75hz No AA wasn’t running very smoothly FPS-18-33. At high quality it ran @ 40-60FPS very playable for this type run & gun action First Person Shooter/slasher.
Had to bring Battlefield 4 into the mix.
Maximum detail 32-50 FPS while that is great I didn’t get much further in game only at beginning I don’t think this would be smooth through the whole game.
Set @ High quality it was much better and I think it would run great through the whole game maybe even online. FPS-65-80FPS.
This game had to be in the mix it’s the oldest game of them all but the graphics it posses I still believe the best out is Crysis 3
@ Ultra setting FPS-12-22 Not acceptable!
@High settings FPS-28-32 getting better maybe play through game with little lag. But Online multiplayer NO WAY!
@ Medium settings FPS-27-62 there’s the # I look for 60fps but it’s not a solid 60fps but at medium it looks like online multiplayer is possible.
I’m very surprised how great a 4 core CPU clocked @ 2.3ghz, 4gb of memory and a 1gb Nvidia Geforce 560ti held up.
The only game on the list here that was problematic was Thief. Maybe a few more driver releases will fix the frame and make it a bit more smooth for people that don’t have the latest and greatest rigs.
Here’s a few screen shots I took when getting frame rates.