NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 Affordable DX11 GPU

NVIDIA’s reference specifications call for a 783MHz GPU clock, with 1566MHz CUDA cores, and 902MHz GDDR5 memory (3608MHz effective data rate). With those frequencies, stock GeFore GTS 450 cards offer 57.7GB/s of memory bandwidth with a 25.1GigaTexel/s textured fillrate. As is typically the case with mainstream NVIDIA GPU’s, however, board partners will be releasing cards clocked somewhat higher than the reference specifications recommend.

We got our hands on two cards for the purpose of this launch article, the EVGA GeForce GTS 450 FTW Edition and the Asus EN450GTS TOP.

  
EVGA GeForce GTS 450 FTW

The EVGA GeForce GTS 450 FTW Edition looks just like NVIDIA’s reference design, save the custom decals in its fan shroud and fan. EVGA’s offering is clocked much higher though. The card you see pictured here features a 920MHz core GPU clock, with 1840MHz CUDA cores, and 1025MHz (4100MHz effective) memory, which offers up 65.6GB/s of peak bandwidth.

Thy physical layout and EVGA’s card is identical to NVIDIA’s reference cards, however. It features a single, center-mounted fan on its dual-slot cooler and its output configuration consists of dual, dual-link DVI outputs and a single mini-HDMI output. The card requires only a single PCI Express 6-pin supplemental power connector.

  
Asus ENGTS450TOP

Asus’ ENGTS450 TOP sports a somewhat higher GPU clock—925MHz / 1850MHz to be exact—but its memory is clocked just a bit lower at 1000MHz (4000MHz effective). Asus does, however, equip their card with a custom cooler with heavy-duty copper heatpipes that make direct contact with the GPU. Asus calls the feature DirectCU. The cooler did a great job of keeping the ENGTS450 TOP running cool and it was also nice and quiet. Although, the reference cards were quiet too. In fact, after hours of benchmarks, the fans never spun up to the point where they were audible over other system components and the cards were still cool enough to touch and handle.

Asus has also tweaked the output configuration on the EN450GTS TOP. As you can see, the card has a single HDMI connector alongside VGA and DVI outputs.

Each of the retail cards we tested came with similar bundles. The cards included basic user’s manuals, driver discs, and 6-pin PCI Express power adapters. EVGA also throws in a DVI-to-VGA adapter, but that’s not needed with the Asus card because it has a VGA output.

Both companies also include their own proprietary tweaking and overclocking utilities with their cards.