Conclusion
Conclusion
Let’s start out this conclusion by stating the obvious: it is great to see NVIDIA releasing new products at competitive price points that perform extremely well against the competition. We have already seen the impending release of the GTS 450 impacting the costs of both the HD 5770 and to a lesser extent the HD 5750. This in effect means people can buy quite a bit more for their money without necessarily having to skimp on performance.
At its heart, the GTS 450 is a card that makes an extremely good replacement for the infinitely long in the tooth GTS 250 1GB. Not only does it offer better performance than the G92-based card but the GF106 also offers better efficiency and a slightly more compact design. It should be apparent however that the GTS 450 1GB shouldn’t be considered a viable upgrade path for GTS 250 users. Sometimes this new card does run all over the outgoing $130 product, but in our opinion the now $169 GTX 460 768MB makes a lot more sense as an actual performance upgrade. In case you were wondering, the shockingly large gap between the GTS 450 and GTX 460 768MB will be plugged by overclocked versions of the 450 for the time being.
There is no denying the fact that NVIDIA’s GTS 450 has its moments in the spotlight where its overall performance outstrips that of the HD 5770. Unfortunately, if there is one thing this card lacks it is consistency. At times the 450’s performance lines up with or beats the HD 5770, but those moments are few and far between since many times we see it fighting for its life against the HD 5750. This causes us to have a “been there, seen that” attitude towards the GTS 450 since ATI has offered much the same performance for the last 11 months with a more efficient design.
Not all is doom and gloom though since at $129 we feel that the GTS 450 1GB offers a good amount of value for your dollar – especially if you happen to be someone who uses Folding @ Home applications. Its performance with AA enabled is also quite good considering the target market it is aimed at. Another aspect that stood out was this card’s absolutely phenomenal SLI scaling, where it was nearly able to best a GTX 470 in nearly every single test.
The GTS 450 1GB presents us with a bit of a challenge since even though it is very well priced, it just seems to lack the consistency we were hoping for. For a card that is supposed to be “laser targeted” towards a specific market, its performance against the competition wanders around a bit too much, even at the all-important 1440 x 900 and 1680 x 1050 resolutions. Nonetheless, for the framerates it does offer across a wide range of applications and the fact that it is still more than 10% less expensive than the average price of the HD 5770, the reference clocked GTS 450 can still be considered a good purchase in many cases.
Pros:
- Good all-round performance
- Extremely quiet
- Runs cool
- Absolutely excellent F@H performance
- Can match the HD 5770’s framerates at times
- Good price
- Fits G92 compatible aftermarket heatsinks
- Overclocker friendly
- SLI scaling = amazing
Cons:
- Same power consumption as the HD 5770 yet on average lower performance
- Lacks performance consistency from one game to another
