Shootouts

NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 - Going For the Mainstream Jugular

By Kenny Yeo - 13 Sep 2010

Introducing the Cards

The Galaxy GeForce GTS 450 Super OC

Galaxy’s customized GeForce cards have always been one of the fastest around and the their new GeForce GTS 450 Super OC continues the tradition by sporting really aggressive clock speeds. This card is clocked at an impressive 888MHz at the core (lucky number), 1776MHz at the shaders and 4000MHz DDR at the memory. This is substantially more than a reference card’s equivalent 789MHz, 1566MHz and 3608MHz DDR.

Also, the card comes with Galaxy’s unique “flip-fan” custom cooler, which has an easily detachable fan for easily maintenance. Our experience with Galaxy’s unusual cooler tells us that while it may be special, it’s not the most effective cooler on the market, as their cards that are fitted with this fan usually run a tad hotter. It’ll be interesting to see if Galaxy has done anything to improve on them.

The Galaxy GeForce GTS 450 Super OC sports the same detachable flip-fan cooler that we've seen on their custom designed GeForce GTX 460 and GTX 470 cards.

Rather than offer the usual twin DVI ports, Galaxy has decided instead to substitute one of them for a traditional VGA one. Also, they have included a proper HDMI port as opposed to a mini-HDMI one that is seen on so many Fermi cards.

The fan can be lifted as such to access the heatsink below for easily maintenance.

 

The MSI N450GTS Cyclone

MSI is offering only custom designed versions of the GeForce GTS 450 and their first card from this SKU is the N450GTS Cyclone. Naturally, the card is factory overclocked at a respectable 850MHz at the core, 1700MHz at the shaders and 4000MHz DDR at the memory.

And to complement the higher clock speeds, MSI has fitted their own unique Cyclone cooler. The Cyclone cooler has been seen on various MSI cards and it has proved itself to be an excellent cooler that marries the two important cooler attributes of cooling efficiency and attractiveness.

The distinctive Cyclone cooler makes a return in MSI's N450GTS Cyclone card.

The MSI card sports the usual twin DVI ports and single mini-HDMI port, so nothing interesting to report here.

The Cyclone cooler is one of the funkier looking custom coolers out there and and if there's anything it isn't short of, it's cooling fins.

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