With the GTS 450 fully upon us, it goes without question that NVIDIA’s board partners will be launching overclocked and custom cooled versions. Usually, it takes a few weeks or even months for the non-reference designs to make their way onto the market but with the GTS 450, things are different. Nearly every company in NVIDIA’s stable will have their own versions of this budget-friendly card right off the bat.
Gigabyte is as usual front and center with a large lineup of GTS 450 1GB versions that run the gamut from almost reference cards to rip roaring products that feature extremely high clock speeds. We say almost reference since even though Gigabyte doesn’t list their most basic GTS 450 as “overclocked” it does indeed come with higher clock speeds and a custom cooler. According to the information we have, Gigabyte will not be releasing any stock-clocked GTS 450 1GB cards at launch and will instead use the card we are reviewing today as their lowest-end product. This is particularly noteworthy since it will be priced at the reference version’s $129.99. We can expect an "OC Edition" to cost about $20 more.
While Gigabyte hasn’t changed all that much when it comes to the basic GTS 450 1GB design, this card nonetheless makes use of numerous features to differentiate itself from the competition. Clock speeds are increased by a moderate amount as befits any OC-spec’d GPU and the reference heatsink has been discarded in favour of a compact assembly that sports a copper core. It should be interesting to see how this affects everything from cooling performance to noise production.
The number of GTS 450 cards available at launch will likely boggle many consumers’ minds, but in some cases your choice should be clear cut. Does this Gigabyte card make the cut? The higher clock speeds and custom cooler are definitely excellent starting points…
Gigabyte is as usual front and center with a large lineup of GTS 450 1GB versions that run the gamut from almost reference cards to rip roaring products that feature extremely high clock speeds. We say almost reference since even though Gigabyte doesn’t list their most basic GTS 450 as “overclocked” it does indeed come with higher clock speeds and a custom cooler. According to the information we have, Gigabyte will not be releasing any stock-clocked GTS 450 1GB cards at launch and will instead use the card we are reviewing today as their lowest-end product. This is particularly noteworthy since it will be priced at the reference version’s $129.99. We can expect an "OC Edition" to cost about $20 more.
While Gigabyte hasn’t changed all that much when it comes to the basic GTS 450 1GB design, this card nonetheless makes use of numerous features to differentiate itself from the competition. Clock speeds are increased by a moderate amount as befits any OC-spec’d GPU and the reference heatsink has been discarded in favour of a compact assembly that sports a copper core. It should be interesting to see how this affects everything from cooling performance to noise production.
The number of GTS 450 cards available at launch will likely boggle many consumers’ minds, but in some cases your choice should be clear cut. Does this Gigabyte card make the cut? The higher clock speeds and custom cooler are definitely excellent starting points…
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