The Inno3D GTS 450 iChiLL is factory-overclocked Nvidia GTS 450 graphics card with a great cooling solution on board designed by Arctic Cooling. The twin fan cooler was so silent we could barely hear it.

The GTS 450 series is a replacement of the GTS 250 series, offering a better performance. While we agree with that, the competition from AMD is very hard. With the HD5750 and HD5770 series already available on the market a year now, we think that the Nvidia's first Direct X 11 solution for the mid-range market cannot easily make the difference. Several online stores confirm that the HD5770 is almost priced at the same price range as a GTS 450 graphics card. And for the same money, you get a performance that is not any higher than the HD5750 or the HD5770 series.

The factory-overclocked Inno3D GTS 450 iChiLL can compete with the HD5750 and in some cases with the HD5770 cards much easier than a generic GTS 450 implementation, but consider that Inno3D's customization will cost you some extra bucks more. That's not as much as you may think, as we are talking about some extra €10~15 . Of course the card worth it, and it is highly recommended to choose an over clocked GTS 450 solution if you are thinking of buying Nvidia's latest offering.

On the positive side, the GTS 450 series is armed with all the latest technologies from Nvidia (3D gaming, HDMI 1.40) which makes it a future-proof purchase. The graphics card will perform great at resolutions of 1280x1024 with AA enabled, or at 1680 x 1050. On the other hand, we are not very excited about the graphics card's overclocking performance, although the card is advertised to have great overclocking potential.

We expected something more exciting and possible faster for NVIDIA's first mid-range DX11 class product. A 256-bit version of the card would be highly welcomed, and could make the GTS 450 more competitive.

The Inno3D's team did their best to make the GTS 450 more attractive. They certainly succeeded with the GTS 450 iChiLL. Although we are sure the card could be factory-overclocked a little more, the GTS 450 iChiLL delivers exactly what it supposed to, nice DirecX11 gaming for the latest titles at resolutions of up to 1680 x 1050, silent operation and a cool sub €150 EUR.