I did post some speculation about this card yesterday in various threads. The 455 is said to be a 460(GF104) with some more crippling while the 450 is said to be a GF106 chip. I have no idea what a GF106 will entail core wise, all that i could find yesterday was that everyone that has any info says it will have a 128 bit bus.
The power is the most interesting thing to me. The 460 depending on who you believe is only a twin PCIE cable card to allow for the overclocking potential of the chip. If this is true then that means that the two cards we are talking about may well have a single connection.
This will mean that the market for the card is expanded quite a bit. While i believe that more people than ever have a PSU capable of powering a 2 cable card, there are still those who are looking to upgrade a shop bought PC which in most cases means a single PCIE cable.
The 460 at its price point in the UK makes the 5770 totally irrelevant, the only issue is the twin power cables. A 4550 with a single 6 pin requirement will make it totally obsolete.
My reasoning is this,the 450 is said to be aimed at the 5770 so I'm assuming that what they will do to the 460 chip to make a 455 wont drop the performance to a point where it no longer bests a 5770 as the 460 does so with consummate ease.
With the prices where they are and ATI refusing on a supply and demand basis to drop the prices of the 5 series chips, they are giving Nvidia way to much wiggle room.
Will Nvidia raise the price of the 460 up to the 5830 and drop the 450 and 455 one bang on top of the 5770 with the other slap in between the two ? Well i sure as hell would.
Well done for letting nvidia back into the game ATI
Mactronix