Final thoughts
Our review of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti highlights that it is, on average, 33 per cent faster than a GeForce GTX 460 1GB card. The large performance variation intimates that the two GPUs are a class or two apart - a fact that's true when looking at the relative performance of two reference-clocked cards.
However, the GTX 460 1GB is a proven overclocker, with many cards running past the GTX 560 Ti's 822MHz engine and 4,008MHz memory speeds with consummate ease. Understanding that the two cards are closely related in terms of architecture, one question that needs answering is how do the two compare when set to equal frequencies; a state of affairs that can be easily engineered by spending a few moments with an overclocking utility.
Pitting two equally-clocked GTX 460 and GTX 560 Ti cards against one another shows that there's roughly a 10 per cent performance advantage in favour of the newer Ti. This is to be expected at the very least, as the newer GPU has additional shading and texturing units to call upon. But the very fact that a GTX 460 can get into the same frame-rate ballpark means that it remains an excellent buy.
We reckon that the GTX 560 Ti is a quality card that, at launch, is priced a touch too highly, though this is always the case with a new architecture. Folks who splashed out for an el-cheapo GTX 460 1GB in recent months needn't be disheartened at the new arrival; the old GPU still has plenty of legs left, as does any mid-to-high-end card released in the last two years.
The increasing cadence of graphics-card releases translates to per-generation gains that aren't as impressive as one might infer from the nomenclature - the GTX 460 1GB, for example, can run all the code a GTX 560 Ti can, while AMD's been on a DX11 path since September 2009.
With incremental gains in performance and feature-sets that aren't wholly different from previous generations', especially once the enthusiast meddles with frequencies, coupled with the glaring facts that very few PC-only titles require either massive GPU horsepower or, indeed, are must-have purchases, we urge readers to look carefully at their next purchase. Should a 5-series AMD card or 4-series NVIDIA GPU come up at an unbelievably tasty price, we think you should give them serious thought.
