ASUS GTX560 TI DirectCU II Graphics Card Review - PAGE 19

The GTX560 Ti is already an outstanding graphics card that can achieve excellent frame rates in DirectX 11 games on high-definition displays. However, beyond just gaming the GTX560 Ti also utilizes advanced technologies such as CUDA core processing and comes with support for 3D Vision, and 3D Vision surround when dual cards are available. So, in itself the GTX560 Ti is already a strong graphics card. Yet since today's graphics market is such a high stakes game with many companies vying for the top spot, good is just not good enough.

For this reason ASUS didn't release just another reference style board with its GTX560 Ti DirectCU II, but instead incorporated premium components and features into the design to improve the overall quality, performance and overclocking headroom. ASUS achieved this by adding high quality parts that are part of their Super Alloy design, utilizing premium grade capacitors, phase units and chokes. The design can increase operation lifespan by over 2 times the reference design, and decrease the onboard temperature by up to 35°C. Additionally, the Super Alloy design utilizes a Super Hybrid Engine technology that acts as an intelligent power consumption optimizer by switching between a high and low intensity setting in real-time for a 15% performance boost when needed.

The ASUS model also includes a DirectCU II thermal solution that can reduce the GPU temperature by up to 20% in comparison to the reference design. The DirectCU II solution includes three 6mm direct contact heatpipes, dual 80mm intake fans and a relatively large surface array. All in all, the Direct CU II design was able to decrease the temperature of the GF-114 GPU by an impressive 19% over the reference model, which was just one percentage shy of the estimate supplied by ASUS.

With the improved thermal performance of the DirectCU II heatsink, we were able to push the GPU voltage level to the max, which allowed us to increase the clock speed by 185MHz, or just over 22%. With the overclocked settings, the ASUS GTX560 Ti demonstrated excellent performance scaling across all of our benchmarks, and at times could nearly match the FPS level of the GTX 570.

Overall the ASUS GTX560 Ti DirectCU II is one of the best GF-114 based graphics cards currently available, and at $249.99 is a real steal. However, if you require more power and are not into overclocking the GPU manually, ASUS also offers a TOP version of this model, which comes with a GPU frequency of 900MHz straight out of the box.