It took nVIDIA a pretty long time to actually release a budget video card that could handle today’s most visually pleasing PC video games. Basically, this card was built to contend the Radeon HD 5750 released some one year before this video card came into the market. However, its tardiness is only a little bit of a disappointment because the GTS 450 packs a few features that aren’t in its Radeon counterpart.
The name “GTS” generally tells us that it is of a series of video cards that are meant to be mid-range and cater to the casual gamer who cannot afford to spend too much to satisfy his gaming fetishes. Let me tell you though, the Palit GTS 450 Platinum 1GB does a heck of a job delivering what it promises. It is a low-priced alternative to high-performance cards that burn a seething crater into your wallet. The goal of nVIDIA when they created the GTS 450 is to give the consumers a low-priced, mid-range GPU that could handle DirectX 11 graphics for under $150.
The Palit version of the GTS 450 features 2 DVI, 1 HDMI and 1 VGA port, an ideal feature for shipping to Eastern countries in Asia because most consumers prefer VGA over DVI and it pretty much has a complete output selection. It is also possible to combine two of these cards to improve performance and graphics quality via SLI connection. Most people prefer to use the GTS 450 for this because it is affordable and practical.
Palit decided to go for a wide heat sink assembly with a copper base plate with two heat pipes for heat transfer from the GPU to the heat sink and cooling fan. All GeForce GTS 450 variants feature just one PCI-Express power cable, meaning you can use those extra power cables on fans and other devices.
Without getting too technical, the Palit GTS 450 Sonic 1GB fares a bit lower compared to the HD 5750 when tested with the game “Aliens vs. Predators” at 1024×768 resolution with no anti-aliasing; it resulted in 59.1 FPS, while the HD 5750 resulted in 59.4 FPS. However, when the resolution was cranked up to 1280×1024 with 2x AA, the Palit GTS 450 scored significantly higher than the HD 5750 with 31.0 FPS and 26.3 FPS respectively. So, the GTS 450 does indeed flourish against its rival when the graphics configuration is cranked up.
nVIDIA presents the market with a stable, working and affordable video card for the casual budget gamer that so far surpasses its counterparts in the most valuable respects. Palit does well to manufacture this great video card with the necessary output ports for general flexibility. The Palit GeForce GTS 450 Sonic 1GB is available on the market for $149.00.