Nvidia recently quelled all complaints about the efficiency of its Fermi architecture with a card that's not only faster than its similarly priced competitor; it also consumes slightly less power, runs cooler and quieter. The GF104-based GTX 460 is already looking like a real hit in the $200 price bracket, and it seems lower-end derivatives are just around the corner.
According to Turkish site Donanimhaber, a new GeForce GTS 450 graphics card will be doing the rounds towards the end of August. This would be the first Fermi with the 'GTS' name. Although details on the number of stream processors or clock speeds are not known yet, the card is reportedly based on the 40nm GF106 core and will feature up to 1GB of GDDR5 memory, which will be addressed via a 128-bit memory bus.
Price is also unknown, but $150-$170 is likely if Nvidia intends to compete with the Radeon HD 5770. Interestingly, the site also suggests Nvidia's AIC partners will be free to make their own non-reference designs at release.
Entry-level graphics cards based on the GF108 graphics processor are expected further down the road to fill the sub-$100 market. With this, Nvidia is hoping to steal back part of the mainstream and low-end graphics market, which has been dominated by ATI for a while. However, it should be noted that the company may only have a few months of breathing space before ATI comes out with their second-generation DirectX 11 cards by the end of the year.