ASUS GeForce GTS 450 TOP Video Card Review

Last month NVIDIA launched their new midrange video card: the GeForce GTS 450. Benchmark Reviews covered the launch with two articles focusing on single-card performance and SLI performance at reference clock speeds. In this review, we turn our attention to partner products. Specially, we take a look at an overclocked GTS 450 offered by ASUS. With a 925MHz core clock speed and DDR5 running at 4000MHz, the ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP ships out well above the reference clocks speeds we benchmarked at during the launch and represents ASUS' highest out-the-door overclock. In this review, we'll put it to the test against a similar clocked offering from EVGA, AMD's HD5770, and one of the previous generation's top cards: the HD4870.

In addition to overclocking, ASUS includes a few other features with the ENGTS450 designed to offer increased performance and entice consumers. One of the most obvious is the non-reference heatsink and fan, termed DirectCU. As the name implies, the HSF utilizes copper heat pipes that make direct contact with the GPU. The power PCB itself is also non-reference and includes an upgraded four-phase power design. Mated with ASUS' Voltage Tweak, they claim up to 50% performance gains.

Manufacturer overclocking and extras are often accompanied by a price premium and the ASUS ENGTS450 is no exception. However, at only $10 more than reference cards, it promises to be great value. To find out just what that $10 gets you, we'll put the ENGTS450 through its paces in our benchmark suite. Up first, though, we take a look at the GF106 architecture and the card itself.

Manufacturer: ASUSTek Computer, Inc.
Product Name: ASUS GeForce GTS 450
Model Number: ENGTS450 DirectCU TOP/DI/1GD5
Price As Tested: $139.99 at NewEgg

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by ASUS.

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