Gainward has made an inpressive card
Pros: looks good, very good cooler, impressive performance, no need for video output converters
Cons: 2.5 slot card, only 4+1 phase power
So, when I was building my PC, I was looking for a midrange card that looked good and performed well. I quickly found that the GTX560 Ti was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. But I also wanted a card with a unique look. Enter the Gainward GTX 560 Ti Phantom² (I have bought the 2GB version).
Now, I know this is purely a matter of personal taste, but I think it looks very, very nice (the GTX570/580 Phantom looks even better). It also has a very unique design in which the fans are below the heatsink, as clealy visible in the picture below. The downside of this design is that the card takes 2.5 slost instead of 2. So the slot directly below the card is basically useless.
Now, performance-wise I was completely blown away (mind you, I came from a 2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with a 9700M GT). Every game I've thrown at it so far (with the exception of FSX and I don't have Crysis 1 or 2), it's been able to completely max at playable framerates (never dropping below 30FPS) at 1080p.
Overclocking-wise, it's a similar story. So far, I've been able to get a completely stable (using 3DMark11 for testing) overclock of 925MHz on the core without touching the volts (stock is 822MHz) and even during 3DMark11, temps don't even climb above 60°C, so there's probably quite a bit of headroom left. Ofcourse I know that every chip is different, but the 560Ti's overclock like hell. One think to bear in mind though is that the card has a 4+1 phase VRM (for reference, the MSI GTX560TI Hawk has 8+1 Phase VRM) so I don't really know how much extra volatge the VRMs can handle.
In short, if you're in the market for a mid-range GPU that looks different from all the rest and has very impressive performance for the price, this is a card you should definitely consider.
Now, I know this is purely a matter of personal taste, but I think it looks very, very nice (the GTX570/580 Phantom looks even better). It also has a very unique design in which the fans are below the heatsink, as clealy visible in the picture below. The downside of this design is that the card takes 2.5 slost instead of 2. So the slot directly below the card is basically useless.
Now, performance-wise I was completely blown away (mind you, I came from a 2GHz Core 2 Duo laptop with a 9700M GT). Every game I've thrown at it so far (with the exception of FSX and I don't have Crysis 1 or 2), it's been able to completely max at playable framerates (never dropping below 30FPS) at 1080p.
Overclocking-wise, it's a similar story. So far, I've been able to get a completely stable (using 3DMark11 for testing) overclock of 925MHz on the core without touching the volts (stock is 822MHz) and even during 3DMark11, temps don't even climb above 60°C, so there's probably quite a bit of headroom left. Ofcourse I know that every chip is different, but the 560Ti's overclock like hell. One think to bear in mind though is that the card has a 4+1 phase VRM (for reference, the MSI GTX560TI Hawk has 8+1 Phase VRM) so I don't really know how much extra volatge the VRMs can handle.
In short, if you're in the market for a mid-range GPU that looks different from all the rest and has very impressive performance for the price, this is a card you should definitely consider.
