Zotac 560 Ti - good 560 to buy?

[birthdaymonkey]

Newegg.ca currently has this available. I've never owned a Zotac product before and am wondering what people think of them.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...-190-_-Product

With a rebate it's pretty much the cheapest 560 on the site. The Sparkle is also $229 and seems closer to the reference design, but it doesn't come with the rebate.

(Please don't tell me to buy a 6950. I want an nV product for this computer. I like having one machine with ATI and one with nVidia.)

EDIT: There's also an EVGA FPB card for $249 -$20 Rebate. Is that a better choice?

 

[RussianSensation]

Why not the Galaxy 560 card? The fans flip up for easier dust cleaning

Here is a review of the Zotac.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Why not the Galaxy 560 card? The fans flip up for easier dust cleaning

Here is a review of the Zotac.

I was thinking of getting something a bit closer to the reference design. That Galaxy one looks sort of idiosyncratic and I don't know anything about their support. Do you have positive personal experience with Galaxy products?

Edit: I see that HardOCP has a review of the Galaxy card and that it does have a better cooler than the reference 560. Maybe it's the one to get after all... especially for $195 AR.

 

[RussianSensation]

If you want a card with Reference design, why not grab the PNY GTX560 from NCIX?

- You get 3 years warranty + additional 2 years upon registration on the website
- Free copies of Just Cause 2 and Mafia 2 (steam downloads)
- Comes to ~ $200 after MIR before taxes

 

[nenforcer]

I liked the Zotac GTX 460 when it included a native display port output but since so few monitors still have that they have dropped it for the HDMI in the GTX 560.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I was looking at the PNY at NCIX. However, I have a $500 newegg gift card, so it's gotta be the egg. I'm leaning toward the Galaxy card after reading a quite positive review on HardOCP:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/02/01/galaxy_geforce_gtx_560_ti_gc_overclocking_review/3

The most important feature to me is having a quiet, effective cooler, and it seems that the Galaxy delivers that. And it's cheap.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Ended up ordering the Galaxy 560 Ti for $195 CAD AR. Thanks to the folks who chimed in with suggestions here and in the 6950 vs. 560 thread.

 

[RussianSensation]

Ended up ordering the Galaxy 560 Ti for $195 CAD AR. Thanks to the folks who chimed in with suggestions here and in the 6950 vs. 560 thread.

Great! Let us know if the card meets your expectations based on noise levels and/or overclocking (if applicable).

 

[timma]

Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti SOC +1
1000Mhz good performance~:sneaky:

 

[birthdaymonkey]

Great! Let us know if the card meets your expectations based on noise levels and/or overclocking (if applicable).

Got the Galaxy 560 and so far have been very pleased with my purchase. The build quality of the trim on the cooler seems a little flimsy, but it doesn't seem to affect the performance, and the heatsink itself seems solid.

The noise levels and temps are low, and the OC was breezy. After reading an overclocking review on HardOCP, I just turned up the core voltage to 1100mv and cranked up the core clock to 1000MHz and the memory to 1075. Temps max out around 80-82 degrees with these settings under MSI Kombustor's GPU burn-in (with the "xtreme" box ticked... they didn't go above 75 with it unchecked). The card idles at 25-27 and the maxes out at 61 in Starcraft.

tldr: Card is good, lots of OC headroom. Glad I got this one instead of the reference 560... and it was the cheapest one available at $195 CAD AR.