NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 Launch Roundup: Asus, EVGA, Palit, and Calibre Overclocked and Reviewed
by Ryan Smith on September 13, 2010 6:08 PM ESTWrapping up our two part series about NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTS 450, we have our in-depth look in to the vendor cards. As was the case with the GTX 460, NVIDIA’s partners are coming out swinging by offering a wide variety of customized cards alongside NVIDIA’s reference design. Custom PCBs, coolers, and more; you’ll find it all here.
| GeForce GTS 450 Cards | |||||||
| Reference | EVGA FTW | Asus ENGTS450 Top | Calibre X450G | Palit Sonic Platinum | |||
| Core Clock | 783MHz | 920MHz | 925MHz | 850MHz | 930Mhz | ||
| Memory Clock | 902MHz (3.6GHz data rate) | 1026MHz (4.1GHz data rate) | 1000MHz (4GHz data rate) | 950MHz (3.8GHz data rate) | 1000Mhz (4GHz data rate) | ||
| Width | Double-Slot | Double-Slot | Double-Slot | Triple-Slot | Double-Slot | ||
| Length | 8.5" | 8.5" | ~9" | 8.5" | 7.4" | ||
| Overclocking Utility Included? | N/A | Yes, EVGA Precision | Yes, Asus SmartDoctor | No | No | ||
| Warranty | N/A | 2 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years | 2 Years | ||
| Price | $129 | $149 | $139 | $149 | $159 | ||
One thing that is significantly different from the launch of the GTX 460 however is just how far NVIDIA’s partners are overclocking their cards. With the GTX 460 the vendor cards we saw came with a mild overclock. But with the GTS 450 launch the cards are coming with much greater overclocks. Case in point: EVGA launched with a SuperClock (tier 1 overclock) card for the GTX 460 launch – for the GTS 450 launch they’re going with a FTW (tier 3 overclock) card.
As a result there’s a distinctly wider gap between the custom vendor cards and NVIDIA’s reference cards, a beneficial outcome for the vendors as it makes it easier for them to separate and justify their higher-priced higher-margin cards from the army of reference clones. In the case of the GTS 450 these overclocks are especially beneficial as the GTS 450 at reference clockspeeds is a bit of a lame duck: it’s only as cheap as a Radeon HD 5770, but it consistently underperforms that card. With overclocks pushing 20%, NVIDIA’s partners can close the gap left by the reference-clocked GTS 450.
We’ll be looking at 4 cards today, covering the spectrum from reference-based with a strong overclock to a triple-slot monster. 3 of our 4 cards have similar overclocks, coming in at roughly 920MHz for the core and 1GHz (4GHz effective) for the memory. This means the resulting performance for most of these cards is virtually identical, but how each one gets there is slightly different.
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Mathieu Bourgie - Tuesday, September 14, 2010 - link
Ryan,First of all, great review on the GTS 450. Not a bad card, but I agree that it's not at the right price. Seems like AMD saw this and the price cut on the GTX 460 768MB coming and got ready with a price cut on the 5770.
Cut the GTS 450 to $120 though and then it would be competitive, since it would be $20 away from the Radeon HD 5770 and only $10 more than a Radeon HD 5750, in both cases just enough to make you consider it. At $130, it's $10 away from a Radeon HD 5770 and going with the 5770 is a no brainer for me.
Bring the GTS 450 down to $110 and its a blockbuster, since it has no problem outperforming the Radeon HD 5750 at the price.
It's not a bad card at all, it's competitive, but it's not the hit that the GTX 460 is, especially now with the 768MB edition at $170.
Anyway, that said, I was wondering: Why not throw some overclocked Radeon HD 5770s performance data in the mix?
I mean, here we see how well the GTS 450 performance scales from stock, to factory overclocked and finally, to manually overclocked with additional voltage.
How about doing the same with a Radeon HD 5770 and compare the performance?
You took a look at the PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 Vertex about three weeks ago (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3868/quick-look-powe... which has a small overclock, which is still enough to improve performance a tad. You could at least add the data from that test in here, no?
Obviously, we all expect the overclocked Radeon HD 5770 to distance itself further away from the GTS 450. The question that I and I'm sure that others are also interested in is: By what % or how many FPS does a manually overclocked Radeon HD 5770 beat an manually overclocked GTS 450?
azcoyote - Thursday, September 16, 2010 - link
Ryan,What are the chances we could see a roundup of low-profile and/or passively cooled cards?
That segment of cards seems pretty hard to find and pick parts for when building with space constraints.
Thanks!
Wiley
Palitusa - Thursday, September 16, 2010 - link
Palit designed a Low Profile and is the First one to release World Wide.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
It is half the size of GTS450!!
Ryan Smith - Friday, September 17, 2010 - link
I may be getting the Palit low-profile card soon. Stay tuned.Xpl1c1t - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - link
I'm tuned. More low profile cards need to impact the market these days.Mautaznesh - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
I'd much rather go with an ATi card. Take advantage of the Eyefinity.