discussion ASUS GeForce GTS 450 1GB DirectCU TOP Review

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Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Far Cry 2 (DX10)

Even though Far Cry 2 has its own built-in benchmarking tool with some flythroughs and “action scenes”, we decided to record our own timedemo consisting of about 5 minutes of game time. It involves everything from run-and-gun fights to fire effects. The built-in benchmarking too was then set up to replay the timedemo and record framerates


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Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 has quickly become known as one of the best-looking games on the market and while it doesn’t include DX11 support, it uses the full stable of DX10 features to deliver a truly awe-inspiring visual experience. For this benchmark we used the car chase scene directly following the Casino Assault level. This scene includes perfectly scripted events, some of the most GPU-strenuous effects and lasts a little less than four minutes. We chose to not use the in-game benchmarking tool due to its inaccuracy when it comes to depicting actual gameplay performance.


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Metro 2033 (DX11)

Metro 2033 (DX11)

There has been a lot of buzz about Metro 2033 which has mostly centered on its amazing graphics coupled with absolutely brutal framerates on even the best GPUs on the market. For this test we use a walkthrough and combat scene from The Bridge level which starts at the beginning of the level and lasts for about 5 minutes of walking, running and combat. Famerates are measured with FRAPS and Advanced PhysX is turned off.


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StarCraft II (DX9)

StarCraft II (DX9)

In order to test StarCraft II performance we recorded a typical multiplayer battle on the Agria Valley map and used it as a replay in order to ensure every run was identical to one another. We used the last 3 minutes of the replay which includes the final assault on the enemy base. MSAA was applied in the NVIDIA and ATI control panels for certain tests.


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Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine’s Heaven benchmark is currently the de-facto standard when it comes to simple, straightforward DX11 performance estimates. While it is considered a synthetic benchmark by many, it is important to remember that no less than four games based on this engine will be released within the next year or so. In this test we will be using a standard benchmark run with and without tessellation enabled at three resolutions,


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Temperature & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Core Temperature & Acoustics

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Vista desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

The temperatures seen with this card are impressive considering the frequency its core operates at. In addition, these temperatures DO NOT come at the cost of acoustics as the TOP is easily as quiet as the reference design.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

Unfortunately, it looks like the ASUS GTS 450 TOP consumes even more power than the EVGA FTW. The reasoning behind this isn't quite clear but we would lean towards the possibility of the custom components being slightly less efficient than the lower-end ones on the reference version. In addition, as we saw in the Specifications section, the ASUS card has a higher default voltage than the other products.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Using the ASUS SmartDoctor utility in addition to our usual stability checks, both the core and memory of the GTS 450 1GB were pushed as far as the default voltage would allow. In addition, we bumped the core's voltage as high as the software would allow.


Final Clock Speeds (stock voltage)

Graphics Clock: 959Mhz
Processor Clock: 1918Mhz
Memory Clock: 4240Mhz (QDR)



Final Clock Speeds (max software voltage)

Graphics Clock: 981Mhz
Processor Clock: 1962Mhz
Memory Clock: 4240Mhz (QDR)

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

After testing six different GTS 450 cards (the rest of the reviews will be up shortly), we can say without a doubt that ASUS’ TOP DirectCU edition stands out from the competition. It still carries some of the not-so-perfect performance deficiencies of the reference GTS 450 but it has been engineered and pre-overclocked in such a way that issues have been neatly swept under the rug.

The allure of the TOP begins with its beastly heatsink, making it the coolest running GTS 450 tested for our launch-day articles regardless of its high clock speeds. Speaking of frequencies, with a 925Mhz GPU core clock ASUS has one upped the likes of EVGA’s FTW edition, but the latter still has the performance advantage due to 100Mhz higher memory clocks. Overall though, the TOP's performance increase puts it above the HD 5770 in many cases and allows this ASUS model to simply blow the reference card out of the water.

In addition to the sky high speeds and custom heatsink, ASUS basically went back to the drawing board and has completely redesigned every aspect of the GTS 450’s PCB to suit their needs. Granted, this does add to the overall length of the card but it also means a heavily upgraded component selection that just begs for higher overclocks. If you want more all that’s needed is a quick voltage increase in ASUS’ SmartDoctor software and the TOP will be more than happy to oblige.

The crowning achievement of the ASUS GTS 450 TOP DirectCU is its price. At $139 its feature set puts the $149 EVGA FTW to shame and its performance isn’t that far off from some of the highest clocked GF106-based products on the market. This card is near-perfect and shines a positive light upon the entire NVIDIA GTS 450 lineup. As such, it wins our Dam Good and Dam Good Value awards.


Pros:

- Excellent performance
- Price versus competition
- High performance heatsink
- Heavily upgraded components
- Quiet

Cons:

- Slightly elevated power consumption

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