ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP - Cooler & Faster

ASUS' Mainstream Attack

Packing 192 CUDA cores and specifically engineered by NVIDIA to tackle the popular 1650 x 1050 pixels resolution, the GeForce GTS 450 is NVIDIA's mainstream warrior and it replaces NVIDIA’s aging mainstream stalwart, the GeForce GTS 250. To further entice mainstream users and gamers, NVIDIA has set a very attractive US$129 launch price for the GeForce GTS 450, and thus far, the GTS 450 has been positively received.

Many customized versions of the GeForce GTS 450 cards have since hit the market, as seen in two of the earlier roundup articles (Part 1, Part 2) that we’ve done, and we have just received the latest custom edition from hardware giant ASUS.

This is the ASUS ENGTS 450 DirectCU TOP, and as its name suggests, not only does it comes with ASUS’ custom-designed DirectCU cooler, it is also their flagship card. For the uninitiated, the DirectCU cooler is unique because its copper pipes are in direct contact with the GPU core, which ASUS says makes for faster transfer of heat from the GPU core to the heatsink array, making the cooler more effective than traditional fan and heatsink combo designs.

And as befits a flagship card, the ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP comes with one of the highest clock speeds we have seen on any GeForce GTS 450 - 925MHz at the core, 1850MHz at the shaders and 4000MHz DDR at the memory is certainly nothing to be sniffed at.

Here’s a quick look at the card.

 

Test Setup and Results

To evaluate the card, we’ll be using our Intel X58 setup with the following specifications:

• Intel Core i7-975 (3.33GHz)
• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard
• 3 x 1GB DDR3-1333 G.Skill memory in triple channel mode
• Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
• Windows 7 Ultimate

It’ll be interesting to see how the ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU matches up against the other GeForce GTS 450 speed demons from our earlier articles. And since the basic performance of the GeForce GTS 450 has been established in two of our earlier roundup articles (Part 1, Part 2). We've decided to cutback on the number of tests for this card rather than running the usual suite of benchmarking tests. As such, we'll be testing only 3DMark Vantage, Crysis Warhead, Far Cry 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. These games will give us a good idea of the card’s performance.

Here’s the full list of cards tested and driver versions used:

• ASUS ENGTS 450 DirectCU TOP (ForceWare 260.52)
• EVGA GeForce GTS 450 FTW (ForceWare 260.52)
• Gigabyte GeForce GTS 450 OC (ForceWare 260.52)
• Palit GeForce GTS 450 Sonic Platinum(ForceWare 260.52)
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 (Catalyst 10.8)

The list of benchmark used are as follows:

• Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
• Crysis Warhead
• Far Cry 2
• Battlefield Bad Company 2
  
   

Solid All-Rounder

Where performance is concerned, the ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP is definitely no slouch. As our benchmarks show, it was a match for some of the quickest GeForce GTS 450 cards we’ve tested, which was just as we had anticipated seeing that they all have comparable clock speeds.

What’s more, the ASUS card was also the coolest card among them, recording a breezy 61 degrees Celsius under load; and it also achieved a very impressive 1010MHz at the core during our overclocking test. This shows just how effective ASUS’ DirectCU cooler is. Overall, the ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP is a good take from ASUS on the GeForce GTS 450 SKU, offering good performance and thermal characteristics.

In terms of pricing, the ASUS ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP comes in at US$139, which is about US$10 to US$15 more than reference editions. Considering the extra performance, effective cooler and impressive overclocking potential, we think its premium over reference cards is very well justified.

All things considered, this is a solid all-rounder from ASUS and may very well be one of the best GeForce GTS 450 cards out in the market now.

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