Introduction

You are the one that lurks in the shadows; you wait for the most opportune moment to strike. There is no need for you to be part of all the action, so you wait, and when the moment arrives, your call to action is one of stealthy calculation and accuracy. You are the “Sniper,” the one who is rarely seen but the most feared.  You are patient and cunning and when you strike, one shot is one kill until the next target crosses your path.

Like a “Sniper,” there are many gamers who wait until a product of opportunity crosses their path. These gamers don’t feel the need to jump on the bandwagon as soon as a new product is announced, they lurk in the shadows until the day they can leap forward. To take that leap, the product must possess a great value at its price point and performance with future potential for expandability. Ultra performance is not their goal, their desire is to enhance what they have on hand. With this in mind, they will make their purchase, and when an increase in performance is desired, they will not upgrade but purchase an addition. The NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 codename “Sniper” targets these gamers.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450, based on the “Fermi” GF106 architecture, is a Direct X 11 video card. The GTS 450 was designed for those who are serious about gaming but consider value their first priority. The NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 targets those who game on monitors between 17" and 22”, at resolutions between 1280 x 1024 and 1680 x 1050. The GF106 chipset is of the “Fermi” architecture but scaled down to make it more affordable.  The GTS 450 GF106 chipset is of its own, it is not a crippled higher end processor with cores and features shut down. Based on the same process as the GTX 460, the GTS 450 comes with 4 Streaming Multiprocessors, 192 CUDA cores, 32 texture units and 16 ROP units.