Conclusive Thoughts

Driver issues
Before getting to the actual testing of the video card, I have encountered a lot of difficulties with the Forceware 260.63 Nvidia put on the website, compatible with the newest GPU released, the GTS 450. The installation works, but there are issues with the Control Panel which appears with a very big delay (usually 2-3 minutes). When it appears after a fresh computer restart, the Control Panel shows only the 3D Vision Surround options, the other options are missing; to make the other options appear in the Control Panel, I had to simply close it and reopen it. Unfortunately, after a system restart, the problem repeats itself; this issue also delays the appearance of the Windows menu which appears when we right click on the desktop, which is very annoying. The solution of the problem recommended by some people in the forums is to reinstall the drivers, but it was a no go (tried for about 5 times). To solve the problem, I have decided to install the previous driver version, 260.52, which was available for the reviewers during the launch of the GTS 450. This driver did not present the same issues as the newer one.

InnoVISION's take on the GTS 450
Like other manufacturers, InnoVISION has decided not to use the reference clock speeds, but to overclock it a little bit; the cooling system from Arctic Cooling does an excellent job keeping temperatures down in both IDLE and Full Load tests. This usually means that overclocking the card is not an issue, at least when looking at the temperatures.

Regarding the card performance, it stayed close to the XFX Radeon HD 5770, overall trailing the competition, rarely beating it. Only when overclocked, it can win over the 5770, but this will add extra heat and power consumption. Other reviewers have also tested GTS 450 SLI configurations and it seems the cards scale very well, being very close to a single GTX 470, at a lower price and a lower power consumption.

The MSRP for this card is between 150 and 160 Euros (the price of the Accelero Twin Turbo Pro being 35 Euros without taxes) and on the market we can see cards priced between 108 and 178 Euros without taxes, from different manufacturers. The RADEON HD 5770 can be found in shops from 111 Euros to about 230 Euros, depending on the bundle, clocks or cooling.

At the proposed price point the InnoVISION offers a nice DX11 alternative to the ATI Radeon HD 5770 "reference" model, if you want to with the green camp mid-range solution. For the more budget minded gamers, this new GPU from NVIDIA delivers what ATI did a year ago with the HD 5770, if however you are gaming at 1920x1200 or higher resolution, you should consider spending that extra €50 and get a GTX 460 or factory overclocked HD 5830.



I would like to thank again to InnoVISION for allowing us to test their latest products!