StarBound's 560Ti SLI Journal and review

[StarBound]

I have said it time and time again. I prefer a single card to sli/crossfire. Today I am shown results that made me wonder what went wrong and where. Maybe it was just drivers? But here are some figures from my benchmarks.

As it stands I am now the owner of 2 Gigabyte Geforce 560Ti cards in SLI mode. The cards are shorter and the fan block under the card also thinner than that of the Sapphire Radeon 5870 Vapor-X. The card also needs 2 x 6 pin connectors and the juice needed to power each card lands at roughly 160W per card (180W is the SoC). So without teasing everyone let me just post number for both the 5870 and the 560ti. Both as single cards and as multi cards:

Metro 2033:
Options: Resolution: 1920 x 1080; DirectX: DirectX 11; Quality: Very High; Antialiasing: AAA; Texture filtering: AF 16X; Advanced PhysX: Disabled; Tesselation: Enabled; DOF: Enabled
560ti SLI: 8.38 / 43.33 / 171.47
5870 CF: 5.80 / 36.33 / 177.27
560Ti: 5.89 / 24.00 / 48.55
5870: 8.40 / 24.00 / 51.43

As you can see SLI scales as it should with a minimum frame rate going up where CF brought the minimum to a low. The average on SLI was almost double than that of a single card and nearly 30% faster than crossfire. As a single card solution the 5870 and 560ti are evenly matched.

Next up is shader and tesselation tests with Unigine's Heaven and Tropics benchmarks.

Tropics:
Settings - Render: direct3d11; Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen; Shaders: high; Textures: high; Filter: trilinear; Anisotropy: 4x; Occlusion: enabled; Reflection: enabled; Refraction: enabled; Volumetric: enabled
560ti SLI: FPS:137.0 / Scores: 3452 / Min FPS: 90.8 / Max FPS: 227.3
5870 CF: FPS: 130.7 / Scores: 3293 / Min FPS: 47.0 / Max FPS: 219.1
560Ti: FPS: 75.1 / Scores: 1893 / Min FPS: 52.4 / Max FPS: 115.2
5870: FPS: 72.6 / Scores: 1829 / Min FPS: 52.5 / Max FPS: 115.2

Again SLI numbers are nearly doubled accross the board. Very nice scaling while CF shows a drop in minimums again. And yet again the 560ti and 5870 are neck to neck, toe to toe.

Heaven:
Render: direct3d11; Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen; Shaders: high; Textures: high; Filter: trilinear; Anisotropy: 4x; Occlusion: enabled; Refraction: enabled; Volumetric: enabled; Replication: disabled; Tessellation: normal
560Ti SLI: FPS: 79.5 / Scores: 2003 / Min FPS: 20.8 / Max FPS: 171.4
5870 CF: FPS: 64.8 / Scores: 1632 / Min FPS: 3.5 / Max FPS: 178.6
560Ti: FPS: 43.5 / Scores: 1095 / Min FPS: 16.9 / Max FPS: 95.4
5870: FPS: 35.5 / Scores: 894 / Min FPS: 13.7 / Max FPS: 93.2
Tessellation: extreme
560Ti SLI: FPS: 59.5 / Scores: 1498 / Min FPS: 18.2 / Max FPS: 155.3
5870 CF: FPS: 40.3 / Scores: 1014 / Min FPS: 12.5 / Max FPS: 144.3

SLI scaling... same as above. Nearly double but interestingly enough so is CF in this case however CF still amplifies the minimum to an all time low.

- Noise and Heat -
Let's look at the cards that I had and the cards I have. The 5870 Vapor-X is overclocked by default and delivers cooler, quieter results because of it cooling system. The Gigabyte 560ti is also factory over clocked (822 stock vs 900 oc) with its own twin fan windforce cooling. Both cards are similar in benchmarks and I found that even in this aspect the cards share the same noise and heat.
CF/SLI the cards become notably loud. The fans spin at around 3000RPM and the temprature comes in at just over 70C. When only using a single card the result is a subtle noise with a fan that only goes up to 2500RPM and a 60C temperature on the card. Why SLI/CF has to increase beyond that of a single card might simply be related to the space in which these cards have to work with.
While the 5870 idles at 150mhz the 560ti idles at 50mhz. I have no way however to check power consumption so I have to work off other online sources.

- Conclusion -
This is the Nvidia answer to the 5870. Priced at around R3000 this card is well worth investing for the short remainder of this generation of cards. The SLI scaling makes it well worth getting a second should you choose to have or can afford another.

[ADT]

You've got a lot of time it seems Star

[Mystical_Titan]

Will maybe post some findings here too?

[StarBound]

With your Twinforzr 560s

[Mystical_Titan]

With any luck, I'll have them by end of day, but most likely tomorrow. Are the numbers for Metro 2033 the min, avg and max FPS?

[StarBound]

yup

[KillerByte]

Its unfair to compare the GTX560s to the HD5870. You can pick up an HD6950 for the under R3k and two of these cards would be a better match in such a test.

PS. We have a feature dedicated to the performance of the the HD6950 Xfire and GTX560 SLI in the May issue of PCF.

[StarBound]

I can only compare cards that I have owned. And since I had both a 5870 which was the top of the range early last year I compared it to the midrange which is the 560ti this year.

Tom's hardware also stated interestingly enough that they cant see why anyone would want to go for 560ti based on the price difference when the 6950 is superior. I've seen a few sites selling the 5870 for R3k or under but those are the move stock sales obviously. But if you want to compare pricing then there is no reason to buy a 5870 for more than the same price as a 560.

One thing I didnt mention was that I have a huge problem with SLI in some games. WoW give massive frame tearing. Metro gave slight tearing, The unigine benchmarks gave no tearing. This isnt a problem that can be solved with vsync. Either need new drivers or something hardware side might be wrong. But again benchmarks had nie issues.

[Mystical_Titan]

I'm checking out the 6950 CFX and 560 SLi review from Guru 3D. These two cards are neck and neck, really not much to seperate them. The 6950 pulls ahead by a few frames in most games, about 5 on average, 10 max (not much in a multi-GPU setup). Factor in that the 6950 doesn't keep ahead by much and that the 560 is quieter and cooler and consumes less power, I'd rather go for the 560.

[Mystical_Titan]

Got my cards, OCed them already too. Running them @ 950, 1900, 2400 up from 880, 1760, 2100. NO extra voltage and load doesn't go over 65. Awesome!

When I'm feeling brave, I'll add some volts and aim for the magic 1 GHz.

[Sojourn]

Do you guys use stock cooling with those, or do you have extra fan(s) blowing on the gpu area?

[StarBound]

The gigabyte comes already overclocked to 900mhz and uses its own "windforce" cooling. The only other thing I have to add is I am using a HAF so my case has decent cooling and a huge open area to disperse heat. My top card has the best with open slot above and below it. The 2nd card is kind strained as my psu is at the bottem blowing up hot air into the case, the xonar is blocking half the air intake and the card is getting the heat from the psu.

The only other options I have is turn the psu down and remove the sound card.

[Mystical_Titan]

Do you guys use stock cooling with those, or do you have extra fan(s) blowing on the gpu area?

Stock case and GPU cooling.

[Puento]

upload some pics please !!

[StarBound]

upload some pics please !!

Me and the frozen frogs arent on speaking terms.

[GDI_Lord]

upload some pics please !!

Me and the frozen frogs arent on speaking terms.

[Stuart]

upload some pics please !!

Me and the frozen frogs arent on speaking terms.

http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic. ... 0#p1541150

[GDI_Lord]

Ah. Thanks Stuart.

[Mystical_Titan]

I can't get my 560 Ti's running stable in FurMark 1.9.1. It seems that program REALLY takes it out of your cards. Tried running at 950 MHz core, which is probably a bit high for SLi, but then even at stock settings my cards crashed in FurMark. Weird.

[Slimshaedy]

They shouldn't crash at stock settings bro...

[Mystical_Titan]

Gee, you think?

[GDI_Lord]

What were your temperatures like? (You ARE running with the temperature graphs turned on, right?) If the temps are ok, try with a newer or older driver version.

[GDI_Lord]

Double post.

A more cellphone-friendly version of the forum would be much appreciated please dear Mods. It's not like you're busy right now, is it?

[StarBound]

i7 3930k @ 3.2ghz Stock
MSI Twinfrozer OC 580gtx
8GB DDR3 in quad channel @1866mhz
Asus Rampage 4 Extreme board
Vsync on a 120hz screen

The games will be Batman Arkham City, 1920x1080, ultra detail, 16x Ani, 4x AA, normal physx and highest tessellation.
GTX 580 – 25 / 51 / 60
GTX 680 – 27 / 69 / 113

Just Cause 2 benchmark mode for Dark Tower (everything maxed without blurring):
GTX 580 – 64fps
GTX 680 – 75fps

Unigen Heaven
GTX 580 – 20 / 50 / 121 – 1278 score
GTX 680 – 57 / 66 / 130 – 1666 score (note 2nd benchmark so minimum will be higher)

Added the 580gtx and 680gtx