My computer is a core i3 530 that is home theater PC that sees moderate gaming. Would you recommend a GTS 450 or spend the extra money and get a 1GB GTX 460? I keep my resolution at 1080p so 1920 performance is a must.
For 1920 x 1080 you need the GTX 460 for gaming if you want to play on high settings. My single GTX 460 plays everything I have played so far on high settings just fine.
It depends of the games you want to play. Given the benchmarks here the GTS 450 doesn't look like the best option if you're looking at playing more graphically intense games. The GTX 460 is probably going to be a better option for gaming at 1920x1080 because of how the GTS 450 tends to choke a bit at higher resolutions, especially with AA enabled. Now for something like WOW or even CoD MW:2 you may be able to get away with the GTS 450, but overall I would recommend going for the GTX 460 1GB.
Given that you play SC2 the GTX 460 is going to be a must, especially if you want good 1920x1080 performance. Although your CPU may turn out to be a bottleneck in SC2.
Right, it just depends on how far you want to overclock and how low you want noise and temps. Though with a good aftermarket cooler the 32nm core i's stay quite cool.