MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 1GB Cyclone Graphics Card Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,367 words · ~6 min read
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GTS 450. NVIDIA is coming fast and hard
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filling out their DirectX11 lineup. So, they now have a mainstream part that's
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going to be around $149.99 Street. This
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is a 1 gig card featuring a Cyclone
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cooler. So, obviously with the Cyclone cooler, you might imagine it's made by D
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MSI. So, the GTS 450 is meant to slot in
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under the GTX 460, as you might imagine,
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and really take the place in the price bracket that the GTS 250 used to occupy.
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So, why don't we go around to the back of the card? Let's find out what is special about the Cyclone version of
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this card. It has a 9 cm PWM fan for 40%
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more air flow. It has multiple heat pipes, meaning two for better heat
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dissipation, and it has a dust preer fan lifespan. Okay, as I mentioned
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before, this is a DirectX11 card, finally at a truly mainstream price
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point from NVIDIA, and it features all of their latest technologies, including
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CUDA, Physex, SLI, 3D Vision, and the
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rest of these are not really NVIDIA technologies, but they are also
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supported by the card. It is a PCI Express 2.0 card. It requires a six pin
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power connector and a minimum 400 watt
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power supply. So, why don't we go ahead and open up the box? Uh, I'm actually
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filming this um a while ago. I can't
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upload it until the embargo. So, by the time you see this, you will be able to
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buy this card. Let's have a look at the accessories that are included. It comes
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with a mini HDMI to HDMI normalsized
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adapter. Put that back in there. There we go. It comes with a two Molex to one
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PCIe six pin connector. Mind you, seriously guys, if you're not using a
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power supply with a PCI Express power adapter on it or connector on it, like
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really just get one because they're not expensive. Okay, we got a DVI to VGA
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adapter just in case you're still using an ancient monitor. Now, speaking of
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ancient monitor, this video card is perfect if you're using an ancient
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monitor because really this price bracket of video cards is designed for
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around the 1280x 1024 to 1680x 1050
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resolution range. If you're running a 24-in monitor, do yourself a favor, buy
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a GTX 460. But if you're running a lower
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res monitor, you want DirectX11, you want the latest feature set from NVIDIA,
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then this is a perfect choice. We also have a user's guide, a copy of MSI After
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Burner, and we
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have oh, a little guide on how to use their live update online feature. Now,
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let's look at the card itself. I have a feeling the cooler itself isn't going
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itself. See, I'm saying itself too much. The cooler is not going to
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surprise us too much because we have seen the Cyclone cooler before. MSI's
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Cyclone cooler is one of those uh value designs that performs really well. So,
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everybody loves it. Um, I can tell you from my experience working at NCIX that
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a lot of people have picked up the GTX 460 Cyclone because it really does make
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the GPU run cooler. It's quiet
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and it's cheap. I mean, what else can
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you ask for? MSI includes these little covers on all the connectors. So, I'm
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just removing all of those so that I can actually show you the card in great
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detail. Now, I believe this car does use a reference PCB. And the reason I'm
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going to go ahead and assume that is cuz you can see right on the back there are actually uh blank spots where there are
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are no RAM chips installed. So, it looks like what we probably have on here is 1
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2 3 4 5 6 7 eight RAM chips for a total
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of 1 gig. And I am correct. You can see on the other side we've got an
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additional Yeah, an additional four. And those two spots are also blank on the
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other side. So, I guess it could support up to 1.5 gigs of RAM. So, I wouldn't be
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too surprised to see a card, a GTS 450 with more RAM in the future. Although, I
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have to say there's probably not much benefit to loading up RAM on a card like
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this because it is a mainstream card. Here on the back, we've got two DVI
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ports as well as a mini HDMI. We've got the typical MSI branding built into the
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PCI back plate. Now, it's not even terribly important that they have all
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this ventilation here because this is primarily an interior uh exhaust design.
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It means you're not exhausting a ton of heat outside the case. But the benefit
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is that you do get to keep the GPU cooler. You get all of this incidental
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air flow going down over your RAM as well as onto your power circuitry here.
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And you do still get to exhaust a little bit of heat outside the case through the
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vents, but it's not going to be a ton. Power delivery is all right here at the
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back of the card. As I said before, I suspect this is a reference PCB, so
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you're not going to find anything exceptional in terms of power delivery. Although, for a mainstream card like
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this, you don't really need anything exceptional. Here at the back of the
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card, you find a six pin PCI Express power connector. And then you can see
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the fan is controlled via PWM. You know, I don't think I've ever talked about
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this before. No, no, stay talk. Look at the card. There we go. Uh PWM means that
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there is a fourth pin. It's pulse width modulation. So what it means is it's
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only actually sending voltage to the fan every so often instead of actually
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decreasing the voltage to run slower and then increasing it to run faster.
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Instead, it just runs 12vt all the time, but it does it in bursts. So the fan, if
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you're running 12 volt all the time, it'll spin fast. And if it does 12vt 50%
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of the time and then 50% of the time nothing, it'll spin slow. There you go.
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You learned something today if you didn't know how PWM fans work. At the
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back of the card, we don't find anything particularly exceptional. We've got our
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PCI Express 16x interface.
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And I'm a little confused. Look at this.
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I don't think I've ever seen this before. There's a great number of
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missing pins on the PCI Express 16X
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interface. And I don't know why. Uh you know what? If we have any astute viewers
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out there, please let me know why it is
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missing the contacts here. because uh I have not seen that in the past. I'm sure
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there's a very good reason for it, but uh there you go. There's something I've
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never seen before. We do have an SLI connector up here at the top of the
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card. Remember, one SLI connector, that means two-way SLI only. No support for
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3-way SLI. 3-way SLI is only supported on the GTX 465 and up, not the 460.
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Nothing below there except the older generation stuff, you know, 275, etc.,
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etc. And remember, four-way SLI is supported only on the 480. So, that
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pretty much covers everything I wanted to say about the GTS 450 Cyclone. I'm
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also going to try and get some performance numbers going at some point today. Thank you for checking out this
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unboxing video and uh thank you for subscribing to Linus Tech Tips. If you
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that hard. Cameraman, no smart ale comments from you.