The Card

MSI has outfitted their GTS 450 with the Cyclone cooler that we have seen on numerous other MSI cards. It is a good solution, because it runs quiet and keeps the card cool.


Like all other GTS 450 cards tested today, the card requires two slots in your system.


The card has two DVI ports, and one Mini-HDMI port (Mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter is included). Unlike AMD's latest GPUs, the output logic design is not as flexible. On AMD cards vendors are free to combine six TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links) - and use them all at the same time. On NVIDIA cards you can use only two displays at the same time, so for a three monitor setup you would need two cards.

NVIDIA has included an HDMI sound device inside their GPU, which does away with the requirement of connecting an external audio source to the card for HDMI audio. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.3a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit output. NVIDIA also claims full support for the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 specification which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-ray 3D titles shipping.


You may combine up to two GTS 450 cards in SLI for added performance or improved image quality settings. We also posted a GTS 450 SLI review today, so don't forget to check that out.


Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.