Evga GTS 450 (FPB) Free Performance Boost Edition
Pros: Good price, extremely good scaling in SLI, Good power consumption, Good temperatures when under load
Cons: Somewhat weak performance for higher resolutions, not particularly powerful for newer games, Moreso a better investment if used in SLI
A fairly solid and good card, based on the same GPU architecture as its 'older' brother the GTX 460. Primarily it was designed for those gamers who play at resolutions below 1080p (1920x1080). Attempting to run most games at that resolution, the card does tend to become hampered and its performance can drop off a fair lot. Temperature wise it runs rather cool, however setting up a fan profile is advised. The fan is basically all but silent at speeds of up to 50%, around the 60% margin it does become noticeable, but less so if you use a headset. The main thing that sets this card apart is its scaling ability using Nvidia's SLI technology, which can combine two (or more) graphics cards power together to boost rendering abilities in games. The 450, as can be seen in numerous reviews, has a performance gain of around 90% when adding another card, with current prices around the $100 mark, two can be put in SLI quite cheaply. The only real downside being however that the cards are Mid-range, and likely to suffer from poor performance in more demanding games that may come out in the future. However for now the cards in SLI have more than enough performance and are a good cheap bang for your buck way of getting higher level performance for cheap. If you are unsure whether to purchase a card, or SLI, simply look up the many reviews that have been done and see the increases for yourself. However, by its self the 450 is a rather poorly performing card and will struggle at higher resolutions on newer games. Only really advised if you are playing at much lower resolutions (1280x1024/1280x720).
