Nvidia’s SLI technology is particularly interesting in the entry-level space because gamers spending $100 or $150 on a card today might want to add a second board down the line, rather than replacing one card with another. The flexibility to add performance as money allows is nice. And given scaling results like these, very little performance is left on the table when you add another card.


If I were to identify the GeForce GTS 450’s strongest characteristic, it’d be great SLI scaling. You don’t necessarily double performance, but in each of the games we tested, we realized at least 85% of the second board’s performance, and reached as high as 92% in a couple of titles.
Now, this assumes you’re using a well-balanced platform. Our Core i7-980X is overkill to be sure, but even an overclocked Core i5-750 should be enough to let this two-card combination stretch its legs.

Two GeForce GTS 450s will cost about $260. Are you taking a value hit by going the SLI route, or is it better to save up and buy a single GeForce GTX 460 1 GB for $220 now? The SLI configuration is actually quite a bit faster. So, for about 20% more cost, you’re getting about 25% more performance.
- GeForce GTS 450: Farewell, G92
- GF106: Nvidia Revisits The Mainstream
- Tessellation Performance And HTPC Potential
- SLI Is The Key
- Test System And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark Vantage
- Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX9)
- Benchmark Results: Crysis (DX10)
- Benchmark Results: Aliens Vs. Predator (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 2 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Just Cause 2
- Power Consumption And Temperatures
- Conclusion
its a shame that ati's cards didn't drop in MSRP. hell, the hd 5850 is finally approaching it;s MSRP of $250 from a year ago. I was hopign last year by around this time, hd 5870 would be ~$200... it's not even close =[
Perhaps a gtx 485 aka gtx 460 X2 would be nice as well.
This is the only reason to get this card, though the price will have to drop to something around 100$ for people to get these cards in SLI.
Would have considered this card last year though.
Hi Jz!
I know, the overclocking stuff is always sexy to look at. The thing is, when someone tells me "Check out the overclocking on this card--it's a beast," then I know the boards are hand-picked. It's only worthwhile to look at overclocking if you take a retail card and compare it against a competitor's retail board as well. We'll have something like this in the near future. For the time being, though, don't stress too much over the lack of overclocked results--if you can't buy the clocks we'd see, then it's not worth the trouble, right?
All the best!
Chris
Agreed. Unfortunately since the 5700 series is the SAME as the 4700 series, ATI did something with the marketing, and it's extremely hard to find a real 4870 online. I have 2 of them from 2 years ago. I JUST started using crossfire playing the single player of starcraft 2, and I don't get any performance out of it. Reason? Uses more than 4gb of RAM during heavy load. Daaaang!
it is also worth noting that newegg's stock of last gen performance cards is tiny (just six gtx 200 cards left!) and perhaps this should be taken into consideration as well