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Nvidia Unveils New Mid-Range GeForce Graphics Card
crookedvulture writes "Nvidia has uncorked another mid-range graphics card, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. Every tech site on the web seems to have coverage of this new $250 offering, and The Tech Report's review will tell you all you need to know about the various flavors available, including how their performance compares to cards from 2-3 years ago. Interestingly, the review concludes that pretty much any modern mid-range graphics card offers smooth frame rates while playing the latest games at the common desktop resolution of 1920x1080. You may want to pay closer attention to power consumption and noise levels when selecting a new card."
Somebody dropping two hundred and fifty big ones on a video card is mid-range?
Jeez, I feel old.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
5770 is a nice midrange card. Plays everything well, mostly with high settings. 140$ is a nice price for a 5770 w/ 1GB GDDR5. For nearly the same price as the one mentioned here you're in CrossfireX with more power behind it
why would PC gamers use a TV as a screen? true gamers don't cut their screen so much, we use 1920 x 1440 or 1920 x 1200
It would appear that, based on power use and the performance of various chips, that the CPUs days of being the power hog and performance workhorse of the common desktop are over. Anything which today needs high-end CPU can (or at least, should) be able to utilize the GPU on the card as well - and to greater effect.
At the same time, We're seeing similar power use increases in our GPUs today that we did 8-10 years ago with CPUs. Performance is increasing, but power input is, as well. 40db for a graphics card is quite a bit, as is 230+ watts (ohmygod, that's more than my entire system while playing a game).
I wonder how long it'll be until we see the same kind of power performance improvements in GPU design as we saw in CPU design a couple years ago.
All said, it's quite a contrast from the 700Mhz celeron I still have cooking away with the 'whole system' power envelope at about 25 watts (PSU is only 35 watts), and have for the past 8 years. No, it's not gaming, but it's doing quite a lot just the same.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Additional benchmarks in another review over at HotHardware: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-560-Ti-Debut-MSI/
>You may want to pay closer attention to power consumption and noise levels when selecting a new card."
Hells no!! If the card doesn't make the room lights dim when I start up Crysis, and the back of the computer doesn't feel like a blowdryer (and sound like one), it's not fast enough!!!!111oneoneoneone *pant pant pant*
One is as you say the de facto standard thing. The top ATSC rez is 1080, so that is what a lot targets. However another part is just money. It is expensive to pack more transistors in a small space and that's what you need for higher rez monitors. People are pretty price sensitive so the market would be kinda small, meaning the unit price goes up meaning the market is even smaller. Another is interconnect bandwidth. Single link DVI and by extension older HDMI only supports up to 1920x1200@60Hz. That's just all the more bandwidth it has. Newer standards support higher resolutions, but they are pretty new. Many things still don't support them.
However a big one is simply interface scaling. Until recently, OSes couldn't really handle resolution independence well. In fact many still can't. Even those that can, they have to wait for apps to catch up. Windows 7 handles scaling flawlessly and if you have apps that support it, it all works great. However when you get an app that does it at best looks ugly, sometimes doesn't scale at all, or at worst has some elements (like the fonts) scale but not others. Developers have to get on board and start using new methods to allow the OS to scale their app arbitrarily. Otherwise, a high rez monitor just means tiny items and that is a no-go for most people with less than perfect vision.
We'll see higher rez monitors in time, and there already are some (you can get 2.5k 27" and 30" displays from a number of companies for reasonably affordable prices), however it'll be a bit. There's a number of issues t be dealt with.
I get a lot more value for my money buying games at a books/media store that buys the remnants that didn't sell originally a year ago and sells them for $10 a title or less
In a lot of cases, these games are in the bargain bin precisely because 1. the publisher has pulled the plug on the online multiplayer matchmaking servers, and 2. the game offers no local multiplayer (shared-screen or spawn installation) option.
42" TV is not bad, and very inexpensive, for a monitor.
Sure, if you want to put your mouse and keyboard on a TV tray and do all your web surfing, word processing, and coding on a television while other members of your household sit and wait for you to finish.
1920x1080 is "common"? Not a single monitor in my house can display above 1440x900 (except my TV, and that doesn't hardly count). I wish 1920x1080 was that common.
Sent from my CR-48
GTX 470 is slower, but has 448 cores, and a 302-bit memory interface. Does more speed of the GTX 560 Ti make up for less cores and slower memory interface? I'm interested in experimenting with OpenCLI and getting three of these in SLI for some GPU raytrace rendering - something the 470 lends itself to pretty well. 560 seems like a few steps forward and a few steps backwards - hard to say if it's worth getting over the 470, unless I have grossly missed something.
I got sick and tired of spending nearly double the price to get games on a console so I decided to get a mid range gaming PC. Looking over the math again, $1500 probably could have bought a lot of console games instead.
I remember when they launched the GeForce Go series for mobile GPU. With that kind of experience I can safely say "Go" and "Shit" are just the same. Last year was a minefield of GT ###, GT ###M or GTX ###, but only the last one was potent. I do not understand why they'd up from GTX 480 to GTX 560 if mid-range was their aim. No doubt this is to con(fuse) consumers. I can only say thanks for the heads up, so in GTX 560 Ti, "Ti" and "Shit" are just the same.
Nvidia are at it again and this will no doubt filter into a laptop near you.
as i see it .. these are my experiences,
PC gaming is too expensive.. too much BS - like having to register online just to play the damn game.you theif !
add to this 'lazy' porting to the PC of certain console titles, and console only,
messing about with software conflicts / OS / possible tweaks etc etc fragile OS / which OS version,
general (in my area) lack of stores carrying PC games, most carry NONE,
abundance of games / consoles / deals for console owners. on the high street, too.
pretty much plug 'n' play, no wait, smoother experience etc.on consoles.
add the vapid PC gamer 'willy waving' behavior, as seen in many online forums, boring us all to death with their .. ah well.
utterly thrilling PC specs, 3 or 4 lines deep as a 'signature'
PC gaming is ultimately dying. pity. i still play Theif
And in 6 months, all cards move one level down.
I just upgraded from on-board video and got a GeForce GT240. Even if my rebate doesn't go through, it falls in your Budget category.
Then again, I run a quad-core CPU running 64-bit Linux, and am not a hardcore gamer. But it's been great. I'll probably never drop more than $100 on a video card, it just doesn't make sense to me. I think a lot of people get caught up in the "latest and greatest" frenzy, and some people truly are hardcore gamers (those that are snickering at my video card choice). Which is great because it pushes the technology but I just don't get it.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I guess I am a bit out of touch if the common desktop resolution is now 1920x1080. Maybe for newer monitors from the last 2 years or so. I also find it quite odd that it is much easier to find widescreen monitors nowadays. What happened to the 1600x1200 or 1024x768 resolutions?
If you happen to purchase a 30" monitor with 2560x1600 resolution, you pretty much need a $251+ video card for smooth games. Granted you can get away with a lesser video card, but cheaping out by $200 when your monitor costs $1000+ seems silly.
I'm not sure exactly what you bought, but in the last month I bought an Asus P8P67 mobo + Intel 2500K 4 core processor for $300 (runs at 4.5GHz on demand using Asus' built in overclocking), 8GB ram for $80, CPU Heatsink $30, computer case for $100, and a Geforce 580 for $500. I saved some money by using the OS and HD from my old system. But I would call this more than mid range, and less than $1500 (or at least comparable if buying Win7 and a HD)
Now's the time to buy the last round of "mid-range" cards while they're clearing them out. Last Summer's card (GTX 460) that occupied this same price point is now basically being put on clearance to make room for this thing. Lots of sales and rebates and such. Just last week, I ordered the GTX 460 off newegg for $150 (which was recently discounted), but I've also got $70 worth of rebates coming my way AND I got two free games out of it: Mafia II and Just Cause 2. So $80 for a really good gaming card and 2 games. It pays to be patient and not grab things at release.But if you wait too long, prices will go back up because there won't be any more manufacturing rebates. It's a small window of opportunity just before and during a major new release.
I'm pretty excited about my new card because the last time I spent any real money on one was for a shiny new 3DFX card back in the day. Wow, that made Quake 2 look beautiful. I think I've still got it in a box somewhere next to my old Aureal A3D sound card.
And that puts you in the "enthusiast" group if you're throwing down $1000 on a monitor alone.
Which means you have to buy two gaming PCs, two of these video cards, and usually* two copies of every single game, for each household with more than one gamer.
* Few games nowadays support spawn installation.