The Geforce GTS 450 is NVIDIA's new mainstream GPU with DirectX 11 and PhysX support, with a GPU clock of 783Mhz its performance was quite underwhelming at launch. Today however we take a closer look at a factory overclocked unit from Asus, equipped with custom heatpipe cooler and a healthy 142Mhz GPU overclocked, that's supposed to be a bit faster than the stock model, enough to make the GTS 450 a video card to consider? Let us find out.

 

 

 

Right from the get go you know what you're dealing with, Asus puts in very big font that this card is factory overclocked to 925Mhz, and I love the fact that they put the generic Geforce GTS 450 core clock beneath it, how many people who buy their hardware from a store shelve know these defaults by heart?

 

GPU Codename	GF106
Manufacturing Process	40nm
Transistors	1170 Million
Die Size	238 mm²
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16
Memory	1024Mb GDDR5
SM Count	4
GPU Clock	925Mhz
Memory Clock	1000Mhz
Shader Clock	1850Mhz

 

So how does it compare to its precedessors? If we look at the Geforce 300 lineup we see that's a completely different beast, so another level down to Geforce GTS 250, which in turn is nothing a rebadge Geforce 9800 GTX+, and that one is a die-shrunk and overclocked Geforce 8800 GTX, which was released back in November 2006, so almost 4 years later we have a new technology and the opportunity to find out how a €120 midrange entry level model stacks up to these previous high-end models.

 

Asus has gone for dual slot cooling solution which features two large heatpipes as the main driving force for keeping the GPU running cool, the shroud helps guide the air over the fins, and out the back of the case

 

 

The back reveals mounting plate used by the heatsink that keeps the PWM of the Geforce GTS 450 cooled, and you also get a nice shot of the SLI connector.

 

 

A close-up of the top right corner shows that you only need one 6-pin PCIe power cable to hook up this video card, if you have an older PSU, Asus provided an useful Y-splitter for you.

 

 

Output wise we have 3 options, where only 2 can be used at the same time, from left to right: HDMI (with digital sound), D-SUB VGA, DVI. The HD audio chip is build in the GPU, after installing the driver in Windows you can send all your audio straight to your display by use of HDMI.

 

 

 

Where as the golden Geforce 8800 GTX pretty much dominated the competition at the high end, the Geforce GTS 450 arrives in the middle of pack of savage competition, and not only from ATI/AMD, but also their own predecessors, cards which were sold new for €200 and up and are now easily found at prices below €150. The Geforce 9800 GTX+ for example you can find for €80, the Geforce GTX 260 you can even buy new for €105.

 

Of course there are some areas where you'll have a definite advantage for choosing the latest model, and not just for the DirectX 11 support, which might be a bit overrated, but rather cooling, power usage, size and noise. If the Geforce GTS 450 can match the performance of the cards mentioned above, but uses less power and generates less noise, than it does make for a compelling choice, if you're in the market for a new video card of this caliber.

 

Size wise this is no-brainer, here is the card compared to a Geforce 9800 GTX+

 

 

 

 

Power wise the fact that you don't need 2x6-pin PCIe connectors should make it quite clear what to expect.  But enough talk about numbers, time to show the results ->

We've tested the Asus Geforce GTS 450 on a Windows Vista SP2 x64 based system build around a Core 2 Duo @ 3.4Ghz with 4Gb RAM. We ran the GTS 450 at reference NVIDIA speeds (GPU: 783Mhz, Shader: 156Mhz, Memory: 1000Mhz) as well as the stock speeds set by Asus for their TOP version, being GPU: 925Mhz, Shader: 1850Mhz, the memory speed remained unchanged.

You can jump straight to our video card comparison database here for the full detailed results analysis, we've updated the benchmark suite with 2 new additions, Mafia 2 (ran with PhysX disabled) and Aliens vs. Predator ran in DX11 mode. These two games released in 2010 offer a good idea of what the Asus Geforce GTS 450 is capable of at different resolutions.

Synthetic Benchmarks

 

Starting with the two most recent benchmarks from Futuremark, 3DMark06 gives us a an early indication of DX9 game performance, here the reference Geforce GTS 450 outpaces the 9800GTX+, while the Asus DirectCU manages to squeeze by a Radeon HD 4890 and almost match a GTX 260, impressive showing so far. Switching over to 3DMark Vantage this DX10 benchmark doesn't always mimic in-game performance, but it's worth seeing where the cards rank anyway. The reference card is well ahead of the 9800GTX+ here, head to head with the GTX 260. The Asus overclocked version is nipping at heels of the Radeon HD 4890 and about 1000 points (or ~10%) faster than the stock NVIDIA card.

 

Game benchmarks

 

 

First the new benchmarks, Aliens vs. Predator in DX11 HQ mode is only playable at 1280x1024, even the overclocked GTS 450 from Asus barely manages 30fps at 1600x1200, without AA/AF. Mafia 2 gives a better impression, here you can get away with 1920x1200 (without AA/AF) without too much issue, do also note that the Mafia 2 benchmark is a worse case scenario, most of the time you won't come across gaming sections as stressful as those in the benchmark. Playing around with the settings we were able to run at 1920x1200 with 16xAF enabled and even PhysX running at its lowest setting; Of course for the results charts and fairness PhysX was disabled. Compared to the aging 9800GTX+ you can see that the reference GTS 450 is no match, trailing the older card noticeably. Luckily the card reacts nicely to the GPU overclock, Asus' 18% overclock translates into a 25% FPS boost at 1920x1200 (noAA/AF) and pushes it past the 9800GTX+, although that margin decreases as resolution and IQ goes up.

 

 

 

When you concentrate on the results for the reference clocked Geforce GTS 450 you'd have to wonder, what were they thinking? The card is most of the time only marginally better than the old 9800GTX+, while sometimes it's even noticeably slower; the Asus TOP version luckily does deliver, and makes it clear that this card needs such an overclock to truly be worth considering. Looking at the results charts above, from left to right:

 

- Oblivion was a piece of cake for the 450, managing 60fps at the highest resolution quality settings, the Asus overclock doesn't really do much here.
- Call of Duty 4 has a pretty scalable engine that performs well on the 450, the Asus TOP version gives you a boost, enough to push the framerate counter past the 60fps mark
- Crysis is still not conquered by the new midrange, 1920x1200 (without AA/AF) is now possible, although the 9800GTX+ does this as well. An overclocked GTS 450 gives you a few frames more.

 

 

 

 

- Crysis Warhead has also a DX10 and DX9 mode, we ran DX9 in "gamer" mode, a good choice, the GTS 450 makes a good showing, TOP version able to give us almost 30fps at 1920x1200, and noticeably faster than the 9800GTX+! The DX10 enthusiast mode brings even the most expensive SLI/CF configurations to its knees, we've censored this chart here for our more sensitive readers.
- Far Cry 2 works marvellously on the fermi GPU, the GTS 450 inherented this from its bigger brothers, managing more than 30fps at 1920x1200 (4xAA/16xAF), the Asus TOP version almost at 40fps.
- STALKER: Clear Sky worked well on the Geforce GTS 450, it does take the Asus overclock to be able to distance from the older generations, 1920x1200 4xAA/16xAF at 42fps.
- World in Conflict was one of the few games where the extra clockspeed on the DirectCU TOP version from Asus failed to really make a difference. Performance is pretty much on par with 9800GTX+.

 

More benchmark results at all the different resolutions and IQ settings can be found in our video card comparison database.

Now that we have a reasonably good idea of how this card stacks up to the competition performance wise, it's time to check out the power consumption, noise and temperature results obtained from the Asus Geforce GTS 450 DirectCU TOP

Power Usage

Without a reference Geforce GTS 450 model in our possession we've downclocked the Asus card to see how it would impact the power usage numbers; do note that it's possible Asus increased the voltage going to the GPU to be able to run at these higher clockspeeds.

 

 

Measuring full system power usage at the wall socket gaves us the results you see above, with the reference clocked Geforce GTS 450 power usage went as high as 256W, in comparison the 9800GTX+ used about 30W more. Asus overclocked their GPU and this impact power usage for sure, 266W under full load, which is 10W more compared to reference clocks, seeing as we get a 10-25% boost in games, it's safe to say that it's worth it.

 

Temperature and Noise

Asus dualslot GPU cooler with huge heatpipes and somewhat larger cooling fan should provide some good numbers here

 

 

And we're definitely not disappointed, job well done Asus! Of all the midrange cards the GTS 450 TOP is running the coolest, and even under full load the video card is only 1dBA above case noise level; while this card is not passively cooled, inside a well ventilated ATX case you won't hear it running.

Extras

Asus and ASRock products have been pushing AIWI software with their products, ASRock has a good installation guide written about it here. AIWI is motion tracking software for your iPhone/iPod Touch which transmits this data to your PC (which has the AIWI client running) over WIFI or Bluetooth. ASRock made a nice demonstration video about this, which is hard to top:

 

 

We tried AIWI, installed it on the 64bit Vista OS, as soon as you configure it you can immediately use it as a touchpad to control the mouse. Browsing through the game catalogue we soon realized there are only a handfull of full games supported, most of them sports related, we did have some fun with some free flashgames which worked remarkably well with an iPhone as controller, the interface of the iPhone also changes depending on the game you're playing, so it's a well though out design. In the end though it does feel a bit gimmicky, but it's free, and you should definitely give it a try if you have a iPhone/iPod Touch.

Conclusive Thoughts

When NVIDIA released the Geforce GTS 450 there were already a lot of factory overclocked models announced from different launch partners, the Asus Geforce GTS 450 DirectCU TOP version comes with a GPU overclock that's the absolute minimum to get the 450 GPU going, why NVIDIA did not raise the stock clocks is anybodies guess, but the fact is that the reference model is too slow to be considered for a new build or upgrade.

The Asus version on the other hand is a step up from mediocre and brings the GTS 450 video card head to head with ATI's main rival: HD 5770, while also improving on the previous generation of NVIDIA mainstream cards (GTS 250, 9800GTX+). If the factory overclock is not sufficient, you can use Asus' included VoltageTweak software to boost the vGPU and get more than 925Mhz out of the 450 GTS core, speeds of up to 1000Mhz are not unheard of.

 

 

In this market segment it boils down to price/performance and Asus knows it, they are aggressively pricing this TOP card, which can be found for €110 online, which is about €20 more than reference model; That translates into 22% more money for 10-30% more performance and a cool and quiet heatsink. The main competition comes from ATI's Radeon HD 5770 (which might get renamed in the near future), its price is closer to that of the reference GTS 450, while its performance is on par with the overclocked Asus model. So the outcome is simple.

If you're looking for a mainstream video card worth €90-110 and want to enable PhysX and take advantage of NVIDIA's CUDA technology, than the Asus DirectCU version should be at the top of your shortlist. If however you don't care about CUDA/PhysX the Radeon HD 5770 will provide a slightly better price/performance deal.

 

We like to thank Milan and Rogier from Asus for allowing us to test their latest products, until next time!