EVGA 01G-P3-1452-TR GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) Superclocked 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Pros: ANYONE who knows this GPU will know this is like a small block 383 stroker motor (350 small block with 327 heads and the crank and rods from a small block 400) a SCREAMER for performance and the buck man.

Cons: NONE!!!

Overall Review: Check out cryOzed or me (L45V3G45) on YouTube and see how well these cards perform.

Pros: I have purchased for myself and friends about a dozen EVGA cards in the past 10 years. I have always had good luck and good service with them. This year though, their product quality and service has taken a turn for the worse as I explain below. On a side note to EVGA, when a customer calls to let you know about problems with service or products, the wrong thing to do is to tell them that it's their problem. If you want to be a better company then you need to acknowledge and deal with both the good and the bad feedback. Not just brush it back off on to the customer, even after you acknowledge that the fault was on your company's behalf.

The card worked.

Fan is silent.

Cons: Prior to this card I had an EVGA 9800 GTX+ SC 512MB. Starcraft 2 recommended all settings on ultra, except for texture since it required 1GB. When I put in the GTS 450, it recommended everything to medium and texture to ultra. I tried SC2 with everything set to ultra. My FPS was about the same for the most part. The cutscenes were less smooth and in busy game play it has gone as low as 9 PFS!

This thing gets as hot as 75 C in a cold room that's only 65 F.

I called EVGA pre-sales prior to making a purchase. I explained what I had and what I use. They told me the 450 would be an upgrade. It clearly was not. When I spoke to a manager, he told me I was given bad info and that the problem was mine to deal with. Eventhough EVGA's customer service on this was lousy, Newegg's RMA service was fantastic.

I bought another EVGA card earlier this year. It had to be RMA'd, because it had faulty memory.

I gave EVGA the chance to make things right, but they dropped the ball.

Overall Review: I can understand the occasional faulty product, but there just is no excuse for bad service. It was bad enough that pre-sales gave me bad info, but the fact that the manager acknowledged it and then told me it was my problem was just unacceptable. What a perfect way to lose a 10+ year loyal customer. I build systems for myself and friends. I always tell them the good and the bad of what and who I deal with.

I recommend that no one ever purchase anything directly from EVGA. If EVGA makes a mistake they tell you to deal with it. Newegg picked up where EVGA failed. EVGA could learn something from Newegg about customer service.

System Information:
ASUS Striker II Extreme MB, 3.0 GHz Core 2 Duo E8400, ASUS Royal Knight CPU cooler, Arctic Silver 5, 4 x 2GB OCZ RAM, 2 x WD 500GB RAID drives in mirror, EVGA GeForce GTS 450 SC 1GB, 2 x Lite-On DVD-RW burners, 3.5" drive w/ memory card reader, Rosewill Challenger mid-tower, Thermaltake Toughpower 750W PS, Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit.