Wednesday, December 22nd 2010
NVIDIA Readies GeForce GTX 560 to Counter Radeon HD 6950
NVIDIA is readying a new GPU to counter the Radeon HD 6950. Released earlier this month, reviews suggest that the HD 6950 managed to slip into a sweet-spot between GeForce GTX 470 and GeForce GTX 570/Radeon HD 5970, giving buyers an option for around $300. NVIDIA's counter to this is named GeForce GTX 560, it is based on the new 40 nm silicon. While specifications-wise, this GPU is identical to the GF104, it is redesigned to allow high-clock speeds with lower power draw, the same secret-sauce that went into making GF110 is applied here.
The GeForce GTX 560 features 384 CUDA cores, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide memory interface that connects to 1 GB of memory. The new GPU has bolstered high GPU clock speeds, with 820 MHz core, 1640 MHz CUDA cores, and 4000 MHz (GDDR5 effective) memory, churning out 128 GB/s memory bandwidth. NVIDIA however, isn't in a hurry with its release, it has the GTX 560 slated for some time in January, 2011.
Source:
Expreview
The GeForce GTX 560 features 384 CUDA cores, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide memory interface that connects to 1 GB of memory. The new GPU has bolstered high GPU clock speeds, with 820 MHz core, 1640 MHz CUDA cores, and 4000 MHz (GDDR5 effective) memory, churning out 128 GB/s memory bandwidth. NVIDIA however, isn't in a hurry with its release, it has the GTX 560 slated for some time in January, 2011.
37 Comments on NVIDIA Readies GeForce GTX 560 to Counter Radeon HD 6950
And that 560 only has 8 more gb of bandwith than my 460?And same clocks?And why does it say PCI-E x16@x4?
GTX460's are already legendary overclockers, interesting to see this come out with a good 20% clock speed improvement, and more shaders too.
this could well be the a chip that ends up being a dual GPU high end card from nvidia, especially if its targeting the 6950 and a 6990 is likely 6950 cf performance or thereabouts.
If Nvidia is willing to go to war in price battling.... with this card I think it will easily be the new SLI setup in my system for sure!!!
I would put a big question mark on the overclocking headroom of this card though*, but then again Cayman does not OC well either.
*IMO the card has clearly been clocked to catch the HD6950 no matter what. I don't think OC headroom will be huge and I don't expect power consumption to be very low either.
**You can also look at it this way, GTX560 will cost the same to produce as the GTX460 so if really required Nvidia will most probably sell it for the same price as the GTX460 is selling right now. Realistically that will not happen though, because I don't think AMD can afford to sell HD6950 for less than $200 or it would have to sell the HD6970 for "little" more ($250 max) due to the small difference in performance, so bye bye profits. Nvidia on the other hand would not be pressured to lower the price of the GTX570 to the same price as HD6970, because it would still hold value due to much higher tesselation and CUDA performance for those willing to pay and for those not willing to pay that much Nvidia would have the GTX560 with just 10% lower performance (HD69xx cards are also at 10% difference between each other, but the HD6970 does not have any advantage, GTX570 does have). I think that in that situation the HD6970 would become pointless, being in the middle of sub-$200 cards like GTX560 or HD6950 that are close to it performance wise and a card that while being as pointless as the HD6970 in that situation from a gneral performance point of view, it still has a huge advantage in tesselation and CUDA.
In any case the GTX460 has exceeded 900-950 Mhz in most reviews with voltage tunning on the cards so if GTX560 has a higher voltage, posible thanks to much lower leakeage (as is the case with GTX580 and 570) 950+ Mhz are posible.
Without voltage bumps the HD6950 is not doing any better in ANY of the reviews around the net, usually doing 860-880 Mhz (10% OC) and much worse: HD6970 is not really exceeding 940 Mhz (W1zz obatained 915 Mhz...) which does hint at the real OC potential of Cayman. GTX5xx is not doing much better, I agree on that, but the OC headroom is slightly better due to lower stock frequencies. GTX560 will be arguably more limited, but I think the playing field will be very evenly close between Cayman and GF114. Stricktly speaking, yes, with voltage tunning, HD6950 will OC better than GTX560, but like I said due to lower stock clock relative to the architecture (I'd say AMD's 850 Mhz == 800 Mhz Nvidia's). On the other hand GTX570 clearly overclocks better than HD6970 and the cut down version of GTX560 (let's call it GTX555) will most probably compete head to head with HD6870 and overclock much better. It's just due to how cards are stacked against each other, how we're pairing up a fully enabled and clocked chips to cut down chips from the other vendor.
All in all we are at the same node, so most performance improvements can only come from higher stock clocks. Since the top limit is pretty much set in stone for the 40nm node, the higher that stock clocks are the lower the OC headroom.
Just compare:
EDIT:
Cut down cards:
HD6850 | 940 Mhz (21% OC) @ 1.15V | 1030 Mhz (33% OC) @ 1.4V | 1030 - 940 = 90 Mhz (10%) | 1030 - 775 = 255 mhz (33%)
GTX460 SE | 823 Mhz (27% OC) @ 0.95V | 923 Mhz (42% OC) @ 1.075V | 100 Mhz (12%) | 275 mhz (42%)
GTX570 | 822 Mhz (12% OC) @ 1.025V | 912 Mhz (25% OC) @ 1.175V | 90 Mhz (11%) | 180 Mhz (25%)
Fully enabled chips:
HD6870 | 965 Mhz (7% OC) @ 1.175V | 1015 Mhz (13% OC) @ 1.35V | 1015 - 965 = 50 Mhz (5%) | 115 mhz (13%)
GTX580 | 835 Mhz (8% OC) @ 1.025V | 902 Mhz (17% OC) @ 1.125V | 67 Mhz (8%) | 130 mhz (17%)
As you can see, no clear cut winner.
Bit dissapointed with that TBH, i was holding out for the 560 and was expecting it to be closer to 150Gb.
Still, i'll wait to see the benchmarks before deciding, if its at the same level as a 6950 (otherwise, why launch it) then i'll still go for this because of the extra features of the Nvidia cards..
It will be my first Nvidia card in 5yrs so quite looking forward to it.
GTS450 | 783 | 192 | 601.34 | 47.74 | 16 | 12.53 | 47.74 | 3608 | 128 | 57.73 | 45.10 | 32 | 25.06 | 47.74
GTX465 | 607 | 352 | 854.66 | 67.86 | 32 | 19.42 | 74.02 | 3206 | 256 | 102.59 | 80.15 | 44 | 26.71 | 50.89
GTX460 1GB | 675 | 336 | 907.20 | 72.03 | 32 | 21.60 | 82.32 | 3600 | 256 | 115.20 | 90.00 | 56 | 37.80 | 72.03
GTX470 | 607 | 448 | 1,087.74 | 86.36 | 40 | 24.28 | 92.53 | 3348 | 320 | 133.92 | 104.63 | 56 | 33.99 | 64.77
GTX560 | 820 | 384 | 1,259.52 | 100.00 | 32 | 26.24 | 100.00 | 4000 | 256 | 128.00 | 100.00 | 64 | 52.48 | 100.00
GTX570 | 732 | 480 | 1,405.44 | 111.59 | 40 | 29.28 | 111.59 | 3800 | 320 | 152.00 | 118.75 | 60 | 43.92 | 83.69
GTX480 | 701 | 480 | 1,345.92 | 106.86 | 48 | 33.65 | 128.23 | 3696 | 384 | 177.41 | 138.60 | 60 | 42.06 | 80.14
GTX580 | 772 | 512 | 1,581.06 | 125.53 | 48 | 37.06 | 141.22 | 4008 | 384 | 192.38 | 150.30 | 64 | 49.41 | 94.15
The most important thing to take into account when comparing Fermi based cards is how nicely they scale based on their ALU capabilities, and how little the rest of specs matter, as you can see here:
GTS450 | 46 | 47.74
GTX465 | 72 | 67.86
GTX460 | 73 | 72.03
GTX470 | 89 | 86.36
GTX560 | ? (HD6950 = 100) | 100.00
GTX570 | 109 | 111.59
GTX480 | 108 | 106.86
GTX580 | 125 | 125.53
*Actual performance numbers have been taken from W1zzard's HD6950 review (relative performance 1920x1200), which IMO is fortunare since this card is to compete with HD6950. Looking at how the actual numbers and theoretical numbers are so similar, it seems it will compete very nicely isn't it? Don't worry about memory bandwidth, it won't make a huge difference, if at all.
Now... nVidia to the rescue!!:pimp:
I love the GPU Wars!:roll: