If Avalon are willing to stake their reputation on a public claim that their product provides 450mh/s
Here's a quote from Bitsyncom referencing the 450Mhz figure:
the number you are all aiming for is 450
I wouldn't call "the number you are all aiming for" staking their reputation... or even a
claim. Vague comment is vague.
Let me put it another way: is it their stated policy to replace any customer chips which won't go above 300mhz as part of the warranty? If I bought 1,000 chips from them and tried to return the ones that wouldn't go above 300mhz would they take them back promptly for a full refund? Has someone tried this? These are the sorts of things to look for. There will always be significant chip-to-chip variation; since you can't test their unsorted wafers yourself you have to rely on their public statements and returns policy (i.e. staking of reputation) to figure out what counts as "typical".