NVIDIA’s GeForce GTS 450: Pushing Fermi In To The Mainstream
by Ryan Smith on September 13, 2010 12:02 AM EST- Posted in
- NVIDIA
- Fermi
- GeForce GTS 450
- GF106
- GPUs
Closing Thoughts
After the launch of the GTX 460 series, we had been hoping to see NVIDIA continue to drive forward with the same level of hyper-competitiveness that we saw with the 460. In some ways that has happened today, and in some ways that hasn’t.
The GTX 460 was a card that made the comparable AMD card obsolete and brought significantly improved performance to the $200 market. NVIDIA had a card built to hit one of AMD’s weak spots, and it struck beautifully. The same cannot be said for the GTS 450 however. It’s not targeting an AMD weak spot – instead it’s going right for AMD’s stronghold that is the 5700 series, and this is a much harder job.
Had AMD kept the price of the Radeon HD 5770 at $140+, there would have been a well-defined place – however small – for the GTS 450. But instead for the time being AMD dropped the price of the 5770 to $130 and brought it in to direct competition with the GTS 450. The GTS 450 isn’t competition for the 5770; at best it’s as fast, at the worst it’s as slow as a 5750.
What’s funny is that in a roundabout way we have NVIDIA to thank for this, as their pricing tactics with the GTS 450 and GTX 460 made this price drop happen. So in a sense NVIDIA is definitely competitive on pricing. But what this gives us is a situation similar to the GTX 470 launch – a competent card priced right between two competition cards with a performance level that meant it was competitively priced, but not aggressively priced. It’s aggression that’s missing from today’s launch, the GTS 450 simply isn’t aggressive enough on a price/performance basis.
Ultimately the card is not so slow that we would completely write it off; if you need to be in the NVIDIA ecosystem for whatever reason you could grab the GTS 450 and be satisfied without feeling like you’re missing too much by not going with the Radeon HD 5770. But if you’re a free agent and have no attachment to NVIDIA’s ecosystem, there’s not a game we benchmarked today where the 5770 was more than a hair’s width slower. Thus at NVIDIA’s new $130 price point the card to get is not the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450, it’s the AMD Radeon HD 5770. It’s a bit warmer and a bit louder than the reference GTS 450, but the performance gap is hard to argue with.
Quickly, we’ll also touch on the factory overclocked cards. A good factory overclock can wipe out the 5770’s performance advantage, the only problem is that factory overclocked cards carry a price premium that make them more expensive than the GTS 450, and by extension the Radeon HD 5770. The cheapest factory overclocked card we looked at today was the Asus ENGTS450 Top, which provided 5770-like performance for only $10 more. Ultimately our nod still goes to the 5770 because it’s $10 cheaper, but at this point we’re basing things on what amounts to little more than lunch money. For $140 you could grab the Asus card or a similarly overclocked card and be quite happy with the purchase.
Finally, there's the GTX 460 factor. With the recent price drop to $170, there's only a $40 difference between the GTX 460 768MB and the GTS 450 - and less if we're comparing it to an overclocked GTS 450. The GTS 450 is at that point on the price-performance curve where an extra dollar goes a long way (and the 5770 is just as guilty of this). If you can only spend $130-$140 then what you see is what you can get, otherwise a GTX 460 768MB is much more than a simple step up, offering upwards of 50% more performance for at most 30% more in price. Given those conditions the GTX 460 768MB is in a sweet spot that makes both the GTS 450 and Radeon HD 5770 pale in comparison.
Wrapping things up, we still have 1 more NVIDIA launch to go with: GF108. With the basic details of the chip already announced earlier this month with NVIDIA’s mobile GPU launch we already have a solid idea of how the chip is built. At this point it’s safe to assume that when it launches it will be going up against AMD’s 5500/5600 series, so stay tuned for that battle.
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Ryan Smith - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
If I had my way, we'd have every card known to man on our charts. But if I had my way, days would be 50 hours long to accommodate all of that testing...In any case not having a GTS 250 is not an oversight on our part - we simply do not have a GTS 250 to test with.
Stuka87 - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
So it seems to me like the 450 is trying to match performance with the now year old 5770. I really think nVidia should have one upped the competition, like they did with the 460 release.I just can't see this card getting the life that nVidia needs to get out of it. AMD will do a refresh long before nVidia does, which will ultimately mean the 450 will have a very short life in comparison to the 5770.
HangFire - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
This comment is right on the mark, and part of a disturbing trend I see with new video card generations in general and Nvidia in particular. With each new generation we are getting the same performance, more or less, at the same price points, the only difference is a newer Direct X level, lower power, or less noise, or a new video connector, etc.If all you care about is getting a certain FPS in a few games on one monitor with a certain level of AA and eye candy, the older generation cards would often be a better choice, if they were only available. Unlike in previous generations, which seemed to stay in production forever even when obsolete, the best values either go away (like the 4770 or GTX 275), get recycled at the same or higher price point (8800/9800), or get replaced by similar performance at that price point (GTS 450 vs 250).
The end result is that for a give price point, you are not buying any more Frames per Second then you were 2 years ago- unless you paid too much and made a really bad choice 2 years ago.
While at first I was thrilled to see so many older cards in this review, the GTS 250 is conspicuously absent, perhaps because it is rather embarrassing to see what little new the 450 has to offer in terms of price/performance. The 450 is not yet on Bench either, though I hope that will be remedied soon.
So, congratulations Nvidia, you now have a more complete DirectX 11 lineup, but you've offered me nothing in price/performance to make me want to replace any of my DirectX 10 cards.
just4U - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
I disagree. Annand put up numbers for the 4850 which has always pretty much walked allover the GTX250 (9800GTX 8800GTX etc) Looking at the graphs the 450 is somewhat faster so including the 250 benchmarks is not neccessary.Also, Both Ati and Nvidia seem to be in a holding pattern as far as performance goes with their current lineups. People upgrading from the latest and greatest from the last generation of video cards won't notice huge gains performance wise. What they will notice (depending on the card) is lower temperatures, less power consumption, and ofcourse more features.
Those upgrading from cards 2+ years old or value oriented cards from the last generation are likely to see the most gains overall with these new ones. The rest of us get a sideways upgrade at best. Atleast thats my opinion anyway.
geniekid - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
I must also disagree, respectfully. A couple of the benchmarks here show that for less than half the price I paid for my top-of-the-line factory OCed 9800GTX several years ago, I can get about the same or slightly better performance. This shows me that progress is being made - or, at the very least, that price/performance is improving over time.HangFire - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Wow, thanks for the respect in the disagreement! But then, this is AT not Tom's.Speaking of Tom's, I just read their GTS450 review, and their statement after the DX9-10 benchmarks (CoD:MW2 and Crysis) mirrors mine vis-a-vis the GTS 250- "Naturally, numbers like this don’t compel you to upgrade." While another site quoted 20-25% better performance, Tom's had the 250 faster than the 450.
I would expect a three generation old top-of-the-line card to have poor value compared to a mainstream card of today. (I say three because a 9800 GTX OC is essentially an 8800 Ultra). Nvidia complicates the issue with generational recycling and the missing GTX 3xx DirectX 10.1 cards that never existed. I'm trying to compare like-to-like, that is mainstream cards in the $140 to $150 range (price at introduction).
If you look at the incremental performance differences of the mid-stream cards 8800GT->9800GT->GTS 250->GTS 450, anyone that actually bought each of these cards for $130->$150 expecting a big generational performance boost with each jump was sorely disappointed. On the AMD side things are a little better, but the mainstream level 4xxx to 5xxx jump was more about power and Eyefinity than performance. (Of course their top-end cards made big jumps, at big $$$).
The new GTS 450 is launched at the same price point the GTS 250 had, and offers very similar performance. Of course, the 250 dropped in price like a stone, because it had to, and the 450 may have some adjustments ahead of it. But let's say it was 25% faster across the board, is it compelling? The 7800GT to 8800GT upgrade, now that was compelling.
just4U - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
You have to remember something though.. the 8800 line was a new standard by which all cards are/were measured by. Like the Radeon 9700/800 it takes years to move past it... We do not see those crazy bumps in performance and features happen often afterall.IceDread - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
"The GTX 460 was a card that made the comparable AMD card obsolete and brought significantly improved performance to the $200 market. NVIDIA had a card built to hit one of AMD’s weak spots, and it struck beautifully. "A news site should strive towards being unbiased but anandtech sure does not do that.
just4U - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Have you had the oportunity to use the 460? Or the 5830/50 that it competes against? Anandtech hit the nail on the head with that statement and it's not based upon Ati/Nvidia bias. Simply put it's one of the best buys on the market right now and with all of Nvidia's misteps it's surprising to see them come out with a card that is so hard to pick fault with.heflys - Monday, September 13, 2010 - link
Yeah, the GTX 460 1gb made the 5830 obsolete, but the 768mb version sure didn't. And the 5850 has started to come down in price, and you can now pick it up for $259 after rebate.