Nvidia GeForce GTS 450: Hello GF106, Farewell G92

Test System And Benchmarks

Before you fly off to the comments section to vent about the number of mainstream users with $1000 CPUs, remember that the effect of our test system's powerful CPU is just as easily achieved (if not surpassed) by a mainstream Core i7-750 overclocked to 4 GHz+. The goal, of course, is to alleviate any potential processor-based bottleneck in single- and dual-card modes. Had we in fact used an entry-level processor to purposely create a more cost-effective platform, the following results would have fallen closer together, but they would have been less informative.

Bear in mind that we're also not testing overclocking here. Unless our samples are retail (a la System Builder Marathon, where we buy all of our parts through Newegg), I find it disingenuous to publish overclocking results from a hand-picked batch of boards. I'll relay that Nvidia claims to be hitting 900 MHz+ on GF106 in the lab, but that is no guarantee of what you'll see at home.