Introduction
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 570 is the latest high-end card for the budget-conscious gamer. Being built on the same foundation at GTX 580, it comes with reduced shader count, lower clock and also a lower price to fit a $350 price point.
ASUS has taken this successful base design and customized it on their GTX 570 Direct CU II using a brave approach: triple slot cooling design. The additional slot on the GTX 570 DCII allows a bigger cooling solution for improved cooling potential. ASUS has focused on reducing fan noise instead of delivering the lowest temperatures possible, which makes a lot of sense in my opinion. For you there is no difference whether the card is at 60° or 80° under load, but fan noise is something you will have to constantly live with.
The ASUS GTX 570 Direct CU II also comes with a small overclock to squeeze some extra performance out of the card. While other board vendors would charge a hefty price premium for such a design approach, ASUS only adds $10 to the cost of the GTX 570 DCII which is extremely reasonable and makes this card attractive for users who would only be looking at the reference design otherwise.
| Radeon HD 6850 | Radeon HD 5850 | GeForce GTX 470 | Radeon HD 6870 | Radeon HD 5870 | GeForce GTX 570 | ASUS GeForce GTX 570 DC II | GeForce GTX 480 | GeForce GTX 580 | Radeon HD 5970 |
---|
Shader units | 960 | 1440 | 448 | 1120 | 1600 | 480 | 480 | 480 | 512 | 2x 1600 |
---|
ROPs | 32 | 32 | 40 | 32 | 32 | 40 | 40 | 48 | 48 | 2x 32 |
---|
GPU | Barts | Cypress | GF100 | Barts | Cypress | GF110 | GF110 | GF100 | GF110 | 2x Cypress |
---|
Transistors | 1700M | 2154M | 3200M | 1700M | 2154M | 3000M | 3000M | 3200M | 3000M | 2x 2154M |
---|
Memory Size | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1280 MB | 1024 MB | 1024 MB | 1280 MB | 1280 MB | 1536 MB | 1536 MB | 2x 1024 MB |
---|
Memory Bus Width | 256 bit | 256 bit | 320 bit | 256 bit | 256 bit | 320 bit | 320 bit | 384 bit | 384 bit | 2x 256 bit |
---|
Core Clock | 775 MHz | 725 MHz | 607 MHz | 900 MHz | 850 MHz | 732 MHz | 742 MHz | 700 MHz | 772 MHz | 725 MHz |
---|
Memory Clock | 1000 MHz | 1000 MHz | 837 MHz | 1050 MHz | 1200 MHz | 950 MHz | 950 MHz | 924 MHz | 1002 MHz | 1000 MHz |
---|
Price | $180 | $200 | $250 | $220 | $270 | $350 | $360 | $400 | $500 | $580 |
---|