Gigabyte GEFORCE GTS 450 Review

I was at a bit of a loss considering what test setup to use in testing this new card. On the one hand, eliminating the CPU bottleneck by using the fastest CPU on the market today is a good thing as it allows the graphics card to perform without limitation. On the other hand, showing performance of a $150 video card with a $1000 CPU is not necessarily the most optimal configuration for most people wanting to buy this card. In the end, I wanted to show performance versus like cards without the CPU limitation and kept the video card test platform as is.  I used NVIDIA’s release 260 drivers with this platform as they are the first ones to fully support the GeForce GTS 450.

Test System

•            Intel Core i7-980X CPU running at 4.02GHz

•            24GB of Kingston DDR3-1866MHz memory

•            Thermaltake SpinQ CPU cooler

•            2 128GB Kingston SSD V+ Now SSD drives in RAID 0 mode

•            Cooler Master 1000W PSU

•            ASUS 16X DVD-R drive

•            GIGABYTE GeForce GTS 450 running release 260 drivers

•            ASUS P6X58D Premium motherboard with latest drivers and BIOS

•            Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate Edition

Tests

•            Dirt 2 1920x1200 8x FSAA 16x AF Benchmark

•            AVP 1920x1200 8x FSAA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough

•            Modern Warfare 2 1920x1200 8x FSAA 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough

•            Crysis Warhead 1920x1200 8x FSAA, 16x AF Custom FRAPS walkthrough

•            3DMark Vantage 1280x1024

•            Uningine Heaven benchmark 1920x1200 8x FSAA 16x AF

•            Just Cause 2 1920x1200 4x AA 16x AF Benchmark