Nvidia GeForce GTS 450: Hello GF106, Farewell G92

Features
By Chris Angelini
published

After dutifully serving the mainstream gaming community for three years, Nvidia's G92 is finally being played out. Meet GF106, the little engine behind GeForce GTS 450. Is this 192-core part still potent, or did Nvidia cut too much from G92's replacement?

Benchmark Results: Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (DX9)

Again, we see the GeForce GTS 450 fall in between AMD’s Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 mainstream cards.

In theory, this would make the GTS 450 a solid value, since Nvidia is shooting for pricing at the 5750’s level. However, because Call of Duty employs an older API, I thought it’d be interesting to add previous-generation mainstream cards from both companies in the benchmark results. Consistently, the GeForce GTS 250, based on G92, remains faster than the new GeForce GTS 450. The old Radeon HD 4850 even manages to slide in ahead of the GTS 450 at 1920x1200, despite its lowly 512 MB frame buffer.

And so begins a pattern of older hardware, launched during a golden age of PC gaming and still for sale today, keeping up with the latest and greatest in mainstream graphics. Naturally, numbers like this don’t compel you to upgrade. And this is why we have no trouble recommending cards like the GTS 250 and Radeon HD 4850 in our Best Graphics Cards For The Money column each month. Under $100, they’re still very potent, very relevant options.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
138 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Poisoner
    Man, G92 still holds it own. What an amazing piece of technology.
    Reply
  • welshmousepk
    Slightly underwhelming to be honest. the GTX 460 seems like a way better choice. or a 5770.
    Reply
  • IzzyCraft
    Well now that it is competing with the 5750 maybe they will push both down to $100 and we wouldn't need to buy old G92 or R700's :D
    Reply
  • teeoneimme
    anyone else NOT so excited about this card?
    Reply
  • skora
    As Chris pointed out with Tessellation, DX11 isn't going anywhere fast with the programmers. I'd say still go for a 1gb 4850 or CF two and really have a powerful GPU subsystem for the $200-$220 price point. By the time they are aged, you'll have 2nd gen DX11 GPUs out and the software will finally be available to use them.
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    im still chuggin along on my hd 4850... and if i ever needed to, i can crossfire another one for a mere $90, these cards have been overpriced for a year

    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 =
    Reply
  • Jzcaesar
    Man, I was hoping to see some overclocking; hopefully, they'll be included in another article. But I agree with Chris: the 450 is a bit disappointing at $130.
    Reply
  • one-shot
    YAWWWWNN....This card is putting me to sleep. I'm going to bed.
    Reply
  • duk3
    I'd like a gtx 460 maxcore.
    Perhaps a gtx 485 aka gtx 460 X2 would be nice as well.
    Reply
  • sandypants
    Just bought a second 4870 1 GB to complete my CF setup which was planned 1.5 years ago. Only $130 from Newegg. 4870 vs 450 is not a tough choice if you are buying for a dedicated gaming rig. The 4000 series are still very adequate.
    Reply