14 DAY TRIAL // Since makers of video controllers can offer only so much variety in terms of product performance, Colorful figured it would play around with a certain other aspect of NVIDIA's mainstream Fermi card, namely that of size.
For users in need of an update, the GeForce GTS 450 video card from NVIDIA was released as a replacement for the popular GTS 250.
Also, like all other reference cards that the Santa Clara, California-based outfit created, it has a dual-slot cooler.
To offer something different from all the others, Colorful decided to revise the card and replace many of its components until it succeeded in making a single-slot version of it.
As TechPowerUp has it, and shows in the photos it managed to get of the PCB (printed circuit board), Colorful not only used a single-slot model cooler, but even made sure to get rid of the so-called 'oversized' components on the PCB,
For instance, all cylindrical capacitors were switched with flatbed high-C POSCAP capacitors, the same kind used in server hardware.
Colorful also used four 2 Gb (256 MB) memory chips, made by Hynix, instead of eight 1 Gb (128 MB) chips to fill up the 128-bit GDDR5 memory bus.
Each two chips share a 32-bit wide path and this reduces the footprint, energy draw and heat over all other versions of the adapter.
Furthermore, the makers of the device placed the chokes not on the PCB per se, but suspended in openings by their leads, so as to enhance ventilation.
This also reduces the obstruction caused to the cooler because the size of the chokes on the obverse side is reduced.
Finally, vents are carved throughout all the areas of so called free-space on the PCB, so as to allow air to be easily drawn in, and there is a simple 3+1 phase VRM.
Unfortunately, the report held no sort of information on the price or availability of this so-called GTS 450 Ultra Slim.