discussion NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 1GB Single & SLI Review

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Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 (DX10)

Just Cause 2 has quickly become known as one of the best-looking games on the market and while it doesn’t include DX11 support, it uses the full stable of DX10 features to deliver a truly awe-inspiring visual experience. For this benchmark we used the car chase scene directly following the Casino Assault level. This scene includes perfectly scripted events, some of the most GPU-strenuous effects and lasts a little less than four minutes. We chose to not use the in-game benchmarking tool due to its inaccuracy when it comes to depicting actual gameplay performance.


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Metro 2033 (DX11)

Metro 2033 (DX11)

There has been a lot of buzz about Metro 2033 which has mostly centered on its amazing graphics coupled with absolutely brutal framerates on even the best GPUs on the market. For this test we use a walkthrough and combat scene from The Bridge level which starts at the beginning of the level and lasts for about 5 minutes of walking, running and combat. Famerates are measured with FRAPS and Advanced PhysX is turned off.


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StarCraft II (DX9)

StarCraft II (DX9)

In order to test StarCraft II performance we recorded a typical multiplayer battle on the Agria Valley map and used it as a replay in order to ensure every run was identical to one another. We used the last 3 minutes of the replay which includes the final assault on the enemy base. MSAA was applied in the NVIDIA and ATI control panels for certain tests.


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Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine: Heaven v2.0 (DX11)

Unigine’s Heaven benchmark is currently the de-facto standard when it comes to simple, straightforward DX11 performance estimates. While it is considered a synthetic benchmark by many, it is important to remember that no less than four games based on this engine will be released within the next year or so. In this test we will be using a standard benchmark run with and without tessellation enabled at three resolutions,


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SLI Testing: 1680 x 1050

SLI Testing: 1680 x 1050

Aliens versus Predator

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

DiRT 2

 

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SLI Testing: 1680 x 1050 pg.2

SLI Testing: 1680 x 1050 pg.2

Just Cause 2

Metro 2033

StarCraft II

Please note that ATI's Catalyst 10.8 and 10.8b have issues with Crossfire in Starcraft II. ATI has been able to replicate the scaling problems and is working on a fix.

 

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SLI Testing: 1920 x 1200

SLI Testing: 1920 x 1200

Aliens versus Predator

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

DiRT 2

 

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SLI Testing: 1920 x 1200 pg.2

SLI Testing: 1920 x 1200 pg.2

Just Cause 2

Metro 2033

StarCraft II

Please note that ATI's Catalyst 10.8 and 10.8b have issues with Crossfire in Starcraft II. ATI has been able to replicate the scaling problems and is working on a fix.

 

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Folding @ Home Performance

Folding @ Home Performance

One of the cornerstones of consumer GPGPU performance has always been a card’s ability to crunch numbers for distributed computing projects like Stanford’s Folding @ Home program.

In this test, we use the latest GPU3 client on a number of cards and let it run for 24 hours in order to get an approximate PPD average. Since this is the beta of GPU3, the quantity of projects is limited which helps give a slightly more accurate comparison between the GPUs. In order to monitor PPD, we used the HFM.net program.

The performance of the new 400-series cards with the GPU3 client is nothing short of remarkable; with the GTS 450 showing itself to be an excellent value in terms of PPD per watt and PPD per dollar. When overclocked, it runs circles around the last generation with numbers that look a lot like a stock GTX 285. We wouldn’t be surprised if the GTS 450 becomes the card of choice for folding rigs soon after its release.

 

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Temperature & Acoustics / Power Consumption

Core Temperature & Acoustics

For all temperature testing, the cards were placed on an open test bench with a single 120mm 1200RPM fan placed ~8” away from the heatsink. The ambient temperature was kept at a constant 22°C (+/- 0.5°C). If the ambient temperatures rose above 23°C at any time throughout the test, all benchmarking was stopped. For this test we use the 3DMark Batch Size test at it highest triangle count with 4xAA and 16xAF enabled and looped it for one hour to determine the peak load temperature as measured by GPU-Z.

For Idle tests, we let the system idle at the Vista desktop for 15 minutes and recorded the peak temperature.

As with most of NVIDIA’s lower-end Fermi cards, the GTS 450 1GB shows some extremely low temperatures. In addition, it is very, very quiet which could make it the perfect HTPC card.

System Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well.

Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.

We were a bit disappointed when it came to power consumption since even though it can’t compete with a HD 5770 on a regular basis; the GTS 450 consumes as much power as its ATI competitor. It also consumes quite a bit more power than a HD 5750. On the plus side, this new card is definitely a step in the right direction when compared to the GTS 250 which was a power hungry card.