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Review: NVIDIA (eVGA) GeForce GTS 250 1GB: much ado about nothing?

by Tarinder Sandhu on 3 March 2009, 08:00 3.2

Tags: GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked 1GB, EVGA, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA), PC

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qarad

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GeForce GTS 250 1GB

GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Select partners currently etail GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB cards for around £150/$190. The larger frame-buffer comes into play when gaming at higher resolutions and with copious amounts of eye-candy on, and the price difference between it and the cheapest GeForce GTX 260 (216-core), around £50, is enough to justify its existence.

Going from the rationale above, the also-new GeForce GTS 250 1GB would just be this card with a different name, right?



Take a look at them there specs and it all looks mighty familiar to this Gigabyte GeForce 9800 GTX+ 1GB. It is, in the main, but rather than being a partner-led initiative, NVIDIA's releasing this GPU as a reference model.

The vital stats may be the same, but the card's PCB has been redesigned to make it shorter (and cheaper to produce). Further, minor behind-the-scenes improvements on the 55nm process mean that it now uses a single 6-pin power-connector rather than two found on the incumbent model. Please click here to see where it stacks up against the competition in the pure numbers game, substituting the GeForce 9800 GTX+ for this GPU.



GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB on the top and eVGA GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked on the bottom.



And the smaller card, nine inches in length, sporting only a single 6-pin PCIe connector.

Priced at around $149 online, the GTS 250 1GB will occupy the space previously taken by the 9800 GTX+ 512MB. The pricing needs to be this keen because ATI's Radeon HD 4850 512MB is currently available for $139, the Radeon HD 4850 1GB for $160, and the Radeon HD 4870 512MB for $165.