SPCR

Newest Fermi-based GTS 450 is hitting shelves. Priced at $ 130 for a reference card and positioned to compete with HD5770, it just might be a sweet spot for occasional gamers with smaller-than-huge LCDs. A single PCI-E 6pin means it's frugal on juice, too. I know I'll be in the market for it.

Apart from reference design, GB has come up with a Windfart card, dual pipes and dual fans. A tad longer PCB and more copper in PCB to facilitate OC. Given GB's a not-so-clear history with fan management on custom coolers, I wonder is this is going to be the ultimate card for silence lovers not wishing to use aftermarket heatsinks.



OTOH, the reference design is quite short and lookes just like it will be happy with AC S1 or Setsugen.



EDIT: GTS of course, as lodestar said, not GTX as I previously wrote

kater wrote:Newest Fermi-based GTX 450 is hitting shelves. Priced at $ 130 for a reference card and positioned to compete with HD5770, it just might be a sweet spot for occasional gamers with smaller-than-huge LCDs. A single PCI-E 6pin means it's frugal on juice, too. I know I'll be in the market for it.

Apart from reference design, GB has come up with a Windfart card, dual pipes and dual fans. A tad longer PCB and more copper in PCB to facilitate OC. Given GB's a not-so-clear history with fan management on custom coolers, I wonder is this is going to be the ultimate card for silence lovers not wishing to use aftermarket heatsinks.



OTOH, the reference design is quite short and lookes just like it will be happy with AC S1 or Setsugen.

Don't know if I'd want a card called a windfart in my rig.

Well of course you'd want. Especially the "SILENT BUT DEADLY" edition.

Won't be long until the new, more power-efficient Radeons hit the market. I guess NVidia has to use that window as much as possible.

Based on the listing of several models now on NewEgg at least one manufacturer (Palit NE5S4500F0601) will have a low profile version, which could be useful. The stock cooler may be quiet enough on the non-overclocked versions if the GTX 460 is anything to go by.

6 reviews of various GTS450 with plethora of coolers/heatsinks on techpowerup alone. No cooler seems to be reference design, all have traditional, square mounting holes scheme.

Info from these & other reviews - GB Windfart seems to be unable to change RPM of fans (again?) - prolly same as Palit; ref cooler, as expected, is a simple block of alu w/o heatpipes or chambers etc., but seems to be v quiet and able to adjust RPM; MSI Cyclone seems to be the quietest so far. Most cards will happily fit AC S1 and similar - mounting holes are nicely placed, there's no stacked video headers; only Zotac card is a bit shorter, has holes placed a little to the I/O bracket & stacked headers.

Commence selection conundrum.

Sparkle seems to have the first passive version of this card, link from Techpowerup:
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/10-09-13/71c.jpg
I wouldn't run it passive though, but with a 500 rpm Slipstream fan zip-tied, which is almost silent.

Calibre X450G seems to have Arctic Cooling in their model, I run to this image while checking the SPARKLE's passive version. Which one would you prefer?
http://silenssimo.blogspot.com/

Well, a non-hardcore gamer with decently ventilated case should be able to use a fanless GTS450 w/o problems. I've had 8800GT with S1 fanless for some time, and no problems whatsoever. Granted, 8800GT prolly draws less juice and I always have a single 92mm fan spinning at least at 700 rpm fron bottom, but the new card's average <100 W consumption looks like no big deal for an AC S1 or some other hefty cooler.

But, in the end, I guess now I'd go for a v v quiet cooler with fan. Be it some HAWK or aftermarket cooler with a trusted Fander or Slip Stream. This fan will never be audible over my HDDs, and I'll sleep better knowing my VRMs get their share of draft.

Pointless card is pointless. 8-10% performance difference compared to GTS250, 30% price difference.

faugusztin wrote:Pointless card is pointless. 8-10% performance difference compared to GTS250, 30% price difference.

Unless you want a fanless folding @ home dedicated card. 8k+ PPD looks good for the GTS 450 vs 6-7k for a fanned 250. Source: http://www.overclock.net/overclock-net- ... lding.html

faugusztin wrote:Pointless card is pointless. 8-10% performance difference compared to GTS250, 30% price difference.

According to the Tom's Review, it appears to perform worse than the GTS 250 in the couple games they tested both in. It seems to provide comparable performance to AMD's year old HD 5750, while consuming around 22 watts more power under load. It costs more than a 5750 as well, many of which include rebates for even lower prices. Newegg currently has four HD 5770s available for less after rebate than their lowest priced GTS 250. I can't really see this holding up well against AMD's next generation of cards. It seems like the only competitive card Nvidia was able to offer this generation was the 460, which targetted the only weak point in AMD's lineup.

Well, pretty much any new product has to 1) fight its own initial deficiencies (say, optimal drivers are still not there) 2) increased competition from existing adversaries (5750 & 5770 cards can be more easily rebated or bought 2nd from fleabay at much reduced prices) 3) is only slightly better (translating to "faster" for the majority) than its predecessors (e.g. i7 & i5 CPUs vs newer 775) but still sold at premium prices.

True, GTX460 is by far a better product, more competitive, better overall characteristics, etc. Give the GTS450 some time to settle, wait for price adjustments and it'll be ok, I guess.

On Sparkle's site i can only find a "Calibre X450G with Arctic Cooling solution". Better than reference coolers, worse than fanless i guess.

Can't post URLs but it's on the front page on their site today.

It seems like a good upgrade solution if you like low noise and you run Linux and game on wine, which basically excludes Ati cards because of their (lack of decent) drivers.

kater wrote:Give the GTS450 some time to settle, wait for price adjustments and it'll be ok, I guess.

That is the only thing GTS450 doesn't have. Southern Islands are knocking on the doors, so NVidia has a 1.5-2 months to sell as many cards as it can before launch of Southern Islands.

Problem with NVIDIA is that they are now pretty much one generation late. Yes, they delivered comparable performance in each price category - but every category was ~9 months late.

Eh. Nothing since ATI came out with the 3870 has made sense. The 260GTX was the only good card in my mind in years.

This 450GTS isnt so bad. If overclocked a little it holds up to 5770 in all games. I dont know power usage of it oc'd though. Really, a 5770 is cheap enough to just say Why Not?

Jefe, do you get the fact that this card is worse than 260GTX ? How it should make sense then ?

Cryoburner wrote: It seems like the only competitive card Nvidia was able to offer this generation was the 460, which targetted the only weak point in AMD's lineup.

much bigger than one weak spot; 460's in sli dominates nearly all of the amd lineup.

the other place where nvidia dominates is in driver support, which amd can't do for squat... plus, you can't get cuda from amd.

no one runs SLI.

that might be an issue for dominating in that category. I like sli better than xfire, but 5770's pimp that cold for dirt cheap. I duno why they do so well, it's strange.

If I ever was tempted to dual video card, I would put my old Zalman on both of them in a single loop without a psu, then it would make sense. other than that, I duno what one would be doing on SPCR with air cooled sli's!

If you could sli with an S1 rev2 on both plus a few undervolted fans, maybe it could be done. I duno who has tried such a thing though on here.

I know the 260gtx is a faster card! better in almost all ways but no dx 11. some run dx 10.1 which is nice enough. 10 flat sux kinda.

I'm just saying that for cheap, 450gts is not bad. remember, it's nvidia, so it gives much more compatibility to run linux or mac or whatever. Plus it has physx, which is always nice right? vs nothing on my ati.

We need like the new 32 and 28 nm process gpu's I think to get to the next level of power/performance/price.

Just FYI: GTS450 SLI.

Regards,
Luca

Slower or same speed as 5770 but consumes more power.

Guess thats the best they can do

Yah the SLI decently well. Not too impressed, only good for people who use different operating systems, as far as I can see.

If it were like $119 I would say it's a good card.

~El~Jefe~ wrote:no one runs SLI.

i do, and it kicks butt:

" Whether this is worth the trouble is up for you to decide. What is crystal clear however is that the dual GTX 460 setup offers considerably more performance than a single GTX 480 card, up by 23%."
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVID ... LI/27.html

"Against the ATI competition, the GTX 460 SLI cards fare well, too. Starting with the popular Radeon HD 5870, the GTX 460 SLI setup admittedly costs 15% more but the GeForce combination can provide a whopping 43% better performance on average. The GeForce GTX 460 SLI cards were also able to compete against the dual-GPU monster that the Radeon HD 5970 is. The $700 Radeon was a mere 4% faster... not much more needs to be said about that.

Those willing to overclock will be rewarded with plenty more performance as well. Our mild overclock provided an additional 14% performance which was enough to put the GeForce GTX 460 SLI graphics cards on par with two Radeon HD 5870 using Crossfire, and in some cases even beat them."
http://www.techspot.com/review/309-gefo ... age10.html

i run ati in my htpc setup, but it sucks for most gaming purposes.

i have a superclocked gtx260, and it rocks, but it's still priced the same as it was a year ago, so it's a waste of money.

According to German site HT4U, the MSI cyclone is the quietest one, quieter than their GTX 460 Cyclone and quieter than the Gigabyte Windforce