MSI N560GTX-Ti Hawk Review

RHKCommander959 - May 15, 2011
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Testing:

The testing consists of running Aliens vs. Predator, Metro 2033, Crysis Warhead, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Just Cause 2, Unigine Heaven Benchmark 2.1, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, 3DMark 11 Professional, 3DMark Vantage and temperature/power consumption testing. Three common resolutions are used for all the tests with 4AA and 16AF settings, but the 3DMark tests have four resolutions/runs. After a run through all the tests, the card is overclocked to roughly its maximum stable capabilities and then tested again. Settings stay the same for each card tested so the results can be compared. All testing is done on similar hardware running 64-bit Windows 7. The charts are all organized in terms of best to worst performance.

Processor: Intel i7 920 @ 3.60GHz
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P SE 1366
Motherboard: ASUS P6X58D-E
Memory: Mushkin Redline DDR3 1600MHz 6-8-6-24
Video Card: MSI GTX 560 Ti
Power Supply: Mushkin 800 watt Modular power supply
Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA
Optical Drive: LG DVD-RW
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Case: Hiper Osiris

Comparison Video Cards:

Sapphire HD 6990
AMD HD 6970 CrossfireX
HD 6970 & HD 6950
Sapphire HD 5970 2GB
Sapphire HD 5870
Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic 2GB
XFX HD 6870
XFX HD 6850
ASUS GTX 580 SLI
ASUS GTX 570 SLI
NVIDIA GTX 580
NVIDIA GTX 570
NVIDIA GTX 480
Galaxy GTX 470 GC
EVGA GTX 460 FTW
ASUS ENGTX465

Overclocking:

MSI GTX 560 Ti Hawk N560GTX-Ti 1010/1250

Overclocking the Hawk was very easy. The main limitation was cooling for the power circuitry. I was able to pass most benchmarks at 1050MHz core but it began freezing. In feeling around the card, I found the hottest area to be the backside above the phases. The metal plate isn't the best at dissipating the heat when pushing the clocks further. 1020MHz still wasn't stable enough to pass all testing but 1010MHz was. The memory overclocked outstandingly, nearly 21.5% faster and it still probably could've went higher with better cooling! At 1275MHz it was pushing 163GB/sec bandwidth, stock for this card is around 134GB/sec with factory is at 128.25GB/sec. 1250MHz was rock solid stable for the memory but it was able to run testing at 1275 MHz, not much higher was possible with the stock system though. Testing was ran at 1250MHz to ensure stability, equating to 160GB/sec in bandwidth. For the design, the Frozr III had decent cooling performance but the PWM cooling performed less than my expectations based on the card design. After seeing all of the other features for overclocking that were packed in, I had hoped that there would be sufficient cooling there to allow for higher overclocks. Above 70% fan speed was only worth 1°C difference and a huge noise increase. Core voltage was only bumped up 25mV and 10mV for memory at 1250 MHz while at 1275 MHz they needed 70mV. Personally I would modify the heat plate near the power circuits, adding in some heat sinks with thermal adhesive or some other modification since that seems to be the weak spot. With that done it would also be easier to watercool the core only, possibly with a Peltier or other extreme options.

Maximum Clock Speeds:

Testing for the maximum clock speed consists of looping Crysis Warhead and Unigine 2.5 for 30 minutes each to see where the clock speeds will fail when pushed. If the clock speed adjustment fails, then the clock speeds and tests are rerun until they pass the full one hour of testing.