GeForce GTS 450 and GTS 450 SLI - Brand new GeForce in the mid-range
In the recent period, we mainly had high-end and mid-range video cards on our table, with the most recently presented GeForce GTX 460, the range of the GTX 400 series has been closed for the time being (of course, in the meantime, it turned out that the full-fledged GF104-based GTX 475 will probably arrive, at least the rumors are getting stronger). It was timely that something should finally happen in the middle category, and here the word "finally" should be imagined in font size 82. Why is that? Come to think of it, there hasn't been a major architectural change within NVIDIA since the 8800 GT and 8800 GTS 512. When was that? Three years ago... I think there is no need to explain why we waited so long for a really new mid-range GeForce solution.
Of course, there were renamings in connection with the G92 core, 8800 GTS 512, 9800 GTX, 9800 GTX+, GTS 250, but the same architecture and the same core worked on them all the time, with the difference that as time progressed, the G92 moved from 65nm to 55nm production line , so it could already be called G92b. How could NVIDIA afford this? This is difficult to understand, but in any case, the fact that at that time the G92 became an extremely successful GPU, and as time passed, its technological lag against the competition increased, but in terms of performance it was still quite good mud, and the greens were in no hurry. Later, the GTX 200 family was by definition only present in the upper category, and NVIDIA indicated that the GT200 (and later GT200b) core was difficult to "dumb", so cards based on G92 (and G96) continued to compete in the lower regions.
NVIDIA voiced that the DX10.1 is not important, and then something changed later, because the models that support it, which typically enter the lower category and notebook segment, were suddenly announced. The GT200 was somehow trimmed after all, from which the GT 210, GT 220 and GT 240 were born, and who knows what else. Although all of the new cards supported DirectX 10.1, only the GT 240 could deliver measurable performance, but this was not to the extent that it could be called a true mid-range card, as the G92 variants, which by then had many names, had GTS He couldn’t compete with a model known as the 250 either.
Then the Greens indicated that the DX11 wasn’t up to date yet, and for them it really only became one when the Fermi architecture finally ran into the GeForce GTX 480 with a huge slip. The joy wasn’t completely cloudless, there was performance and technological freshness, but there were problems with heat generation and consumption, we already know the rest… NVIDIA said mid-range Fermi solutions will have to wait a long time, so the cheaper DX11 compatible GeForce Those looking to buy were left on the hop again. We had to wait, wait. Until now. With the debut of the GeForce GTX 460, something changed, a really successful piece finally rolled out of the workshop, which could be recommended, as the price-performance indicator also became favorable. All this was due to the redesigned GF100 core, the GF460 on the GeForce GTX 104 proved and able to improve on its predecessor’s bugs in virtually every area.
Not long after, we learned that the GeForce GTS 450 was coming soon, which we were happy about for several reasons. On the one hand, due to the above, there has been no new mid-range green solution in Hungary for years. On the other hand, it was well known that the GTS 450 is based on the GF106 core created by redesigning the GF104, and we hoped that the good form of NVIDIA launched with the GTX 460 would endure.
How justified our enthusiasm was and how the Greens managed to return to the lower region of the middle class… Well, we will give the answer to that on the following pages.
