Today marks the release of the fifth member of the GeForce 400 series, as Nvidia takes the covers off their new mid-range contender the GeForce GTS 450. Based on the new GF106 architecture, the GeForce GTS 450 sheds a lot of weight when compared to existing cards. The end result is a cheaper product that has very low power consumption and thermal output, the only question remaining is how well does it perform?

Even without the minor factory overclocking, the GeForce GTS 450 was still on average faster than the Radeon HD 5750. When compared to the GeForce GTX 460 (768MB) the Inno3D GeForce GTS 450 iChill was 22% slower at 1680x1050, while we know for a fact that a standard GeForce GTS 450 is 28% slower. Therefore at $130 US the GeForce GTS 450 appears to offer the best price vs. performance ratio of any graphics card.