The MSI N560GTX-448 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC is MSI's version of the nVidia GTX 560 Ti 448 – a limited-edition card built around nVidia’s GF110 core. This same core was originally used in the top GTX 580 chip, and included 512 stream processors.
Another cut-down variant, the GTX 570, came with 480 stream processors. Now we have here the nVidia GTX 560 Ti 448, which is once again built around the top-spec GF110 core, but takes just 448 stream processors – hence the name GTX 560 Ti 448.
It’s important to remember that ‘448’ suffix; don’t confuse the GTX 560 Ti 448 with the standard GTX 560 Ti. The latter is based on the GF114 core and has quite different specifications.
Quite why nVidia has chosen to use a name that’s so easily confused with an existing product, we have no idea – what would have been wrong with 565 Ti?
Besides the 448 shader processors, the 560 Ti 448 comes with an ample 40 raster operation pipelines (ROPs), identical to the 570 and 580. Its 56 texture units are also capable, although the 580 and 570 come with 64 and 60 of these respectively.
The default core clock of the 560 Ti 448 is 732MHz; but MSI overclocks this to 750MHz. The default memory clock of 900MHz (3600MHz DDR effective) is pushed further, to an impressive 975MHz (3900MHz DDR effective), while the 1280MB of GDDR5 memory completes an extremely well-endowed product in memory specifications.
The card needs two 6-pin connectors from the PSU, and provides output over a pair of DVI ports and a mini-HDMI.
It’s slightly lower than the 570 in terms of power consumption, with a given TDP of 210W against the 219W of the 570. However, the standard 560 Ti has a TDP of 170W. So this card proves relatively power hungry. We found it fairly loud, particularly under load and wouldn’t recommend it in a room where low noise levels are preferred.
MSI N560GTX-448 Twin Frozr III Power Edition/OC: Performance
In terms of performance, we found the GTX 560 Ti 448 to be just a step or two behind the GTX 570.
In BattleForge, it achieved frame rates of 56.3 and 50.9fps at resolutions of 1680 x 1050 and 1920 x 1200 respectively. This compared to 60.1 and 53.9fps for the GTX 570.
In Heaven, it was marginally behind, producing 38.0 and 29.8fps against the 40.9 and 31.3fps of the GTX 570.
In Crysis, the GTX 560 Ti 448’s numbers of 34.3 and 28.2fps were again slightly down on the 570’s 37.8 and 30.7fps.
Overall, these figures are pretty good given the acknowledged strength of the GTX 570 – the 560 Ti 448 is significantly faster than any other current sub-£200 card. It’s generally only a handful of frames behind a 570.
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