14 DAY TRIAL // The GeForce GTX 460 has become NVIDIA first, greatest and, currently, only means of addressing the needs of the mainstream graphics card market. As such, it makes sense that it would hurry to unleash additional models suited for the lower segments. Not much is known on these upcoming products, but one of them has been revealed by rumors to be called GeForce GTS 450. Details on its specifications are scarce even now, but a certain report has, at least, uncovered a small part of the feature list.
The GTS 450 will be based on the GF106 graphics processing unit (GPU), but it won't exactly be a reference card. What this means is that NVIDIA will give its manufacturing partners full reign over its GPU, so that they may make their own PCBs (printed circuit boards) and coolers in any shape and size they wish.
There are, on the other hand, some things that should hold true for all future models. For one, the amount of memory available will be 1GB of GDDR5. The other one is that said memory will operate on an interface of 128 bits. The publisher of the report, DonanimHaber, was unable to land any hint as to what clock speeds the chip, memory and shaders will sport, nor even how many CUDA cores will be available. All in all, whenever NVIDIA does decide to unleash its GF106, one can expect its manufacturing partners to unveil an entire host of video controllers of their own.
The GeForce GTS 450 should cater to the part of the mainstream market, the one just below the performance segment that 'belongs' to the GTX 460. Basically, it should take on any other board with a price point of around $150. As for what will happen after, the GF106 GPU should end up as the basis for future card models, though the exact roadmap is still a mystery.