How Fast Is It?

Sadly, NVIDIA did not compare the new GeForce GTX 560 against the AMD Radeon HD 5000 series of graphics cards. Instead, they chose to compare the GeForce GTX 560 against their own (and rather dated) GeForce 9800 GT graphics card. Why? Because it's apparently the most popular graphics card right now on Steam!

The Valve Steam Survey also showed that most gamers prefer the resolution of 1920 x 1080, which is exactly the resolution that the new GeForce GTX 560 is designed for. Basically, NVIDIA would like to convince current GeForce 9800 GT users to upgrade to the GeForce GTX 560.

To achieve an average frame rate of 40 fps or higher in Crysis 2, GeForce 9800 GT users would have to use a much lower resolution like 1280 x 1024, but the GeForce GTX 560 can not only run Crysis 2 at 1920 x 1080 but also with the "Very High" quality setting.

In the Rift MMORPG, the GeForce GTX 560 is powerful enough to use the "Ultra" quality setting with Edge Smoothing, while the GeForce 9800 GT is only capable of supporting 1920 x 1080 at "Low" quality without anti-aliasing.

In Battlefield : Bad Company 2, upgrading to the GeForce GTX 560 allows you to use the "High" quality setting with 8x anti-aliasing. If you are using the GeForce 9800 GT, you will only be able to use the "Medium" quality setting with anti-aliasing disabled.

Obviously, this isn't a "fair" comparison by any measure. It's really meant to showcase how much GeForce 9800 GT users stand to gain by upgrading to the new GeForce GTX 560. Do note that these results are based on the new Release 275 GeForce drivers, which offer 8-15% better performance.

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