EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] It's been well over eight months since NVIDIA first launched their GeForce 200 series, and until now, we haven't seen much from the company in way of mid-range offerings. The closest we've come has been with the GTX 260, but at over $200 (much more at launch), it's still more than some people will want to spend. We can stop waiting for such a thing to arrive though, as the GTS 250 makes its entrance now. The lead up to this card's launch has been a little different than most, though, as rumors and speculation of what the card is all about have been soaring through the Internet for the past few weeks. Some of the points made have been valid, some have been false, but if anything's true, it's that NVIDIA definitely caught the attention of enthusiasts with this one. To kick things off, let's figure out what this card is, and what it isn't. As rumors have been clear to point out, the GTS 250 utilizes NVIDIA's G92b core, which is the exact same chip used in their 9800 GTX+. It's for that reason that some have been quick to throw a quick jab at NVIDIA, since the origin of this GPU was the 65nm G92 - first found in the 8800 GT. Realizing that, it becomes a little easier to understand why some are up in arms. For the most part, I don't really blame anyone. I'd like to see a brand-new mid-range core as much as the next guy. But for what it's worth, NVIDIA isn't trying to hide anything, and they've done well to fully disclose exactly what the GTS 250 is. So, the important thing to note is that they're not trying to fool anyone into thinking this is something that it's not, although some may disagree. Closer Look at NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 250. What's going on, then? As pointed out during a press briefing last week, NVIDIA discussed their desire to "simplify" their product line-up. One example used to explain the situation was to take a look at the card that the GTS 250 replaces. At quick glance, a regular consumer may assume that a 9800 GTX+ is much more powerful than, say, a GTX 285, when their performance is in fact on opposite sides of the spectrum. Hence, the need to simplify comes into play. Throughout the coming year, the company will target their entire current line-up and rename models appropriately, so that when consumers go into a retailer or hop onto an e-tailer, they'll feel confident in their purchasing decision (although, that would also assume they visited our site first!). Current naming schemes are a real problem, but not only with GPUs. Currently, AMD's own processors are about to hit the "10K" mark, and Intel hit it not long ago, hence the revised naming scheme for their Core i7 line-up. So, any advances made to simplify product naming schemes is fine by me. To reiterate, the GTS 250 = 9800 GTX+ in almost all regards, except for some that I'll talk about now. First, thanks to a board redesign, NVIDIA has shortened the card an entire inch, to settle in at 9". The GTX 285, by comparison, is 10.5", so the smaller body of this card will be appreciated by those with a smaller chassis. Also thanks to this board redesign, one power connector was removed, so all you need to power the GTS 250 is a single 6-Pin PCI-E and you're good to go. Despite these changes though, the TDP is 5W higher on the GTS 250, at 150W. Another advantage to the GTS 250 is the increase in memory size, to 1GB. The 9800 GTX+ was limited to 512MB, so without even testing, we can be assured that the newer card will fare a bit better in high-resolution gaming (1920x1200+). That said, there will also be a 512MB version of the GTS 250 available, which is ideal for those who want to pair it with their already-existing 9800 GTX+ for SLI. Since the architecture is the same, SLI will work fine as long as the memory densities are the same. Finally pricing for the GTS 250 1GB is $149, while the GTS 250 512MB will debut at $129. The latter is quite similar to current 9800 GTX+ pricing, although some of those may be had for even less after mail-in rebates. The competition that the GTS 250 goes after is ATI's Radeon HD 4850 1GB, a card that at recent check, retails for at least $30 more (before mail-in-rebates). Model Core MHz Shader MHz Mem MHz Memory Memory Bus Stream Proc. GTX 295 576 1242 1000 1792MB 448-bit 480 GTX 285 648 1476 1242 1GB 512-bit 240 GTX 280 602 1296 1107 1GB 512-bit 240 GTX 260/216 576 1242 999 896MB 448-bit 216 GTX 260 576 1242 999 896MB 448-bit 192 GTS 250 738 1836 1100 1GB 256-bit 128 9800 GX2 600 1500 1000 1GB 512-bit 256 9800 GTX+ 738 1836 1100 512MB 256-bit 128 9800 GTX 675 1688 1100 512MB 256-bit 128 9800 GT 600 1500 900 512MB 256-bit 112 9600 GT 650 1625 900 512MB 256-bit 64 9600 GSO 550 1375 800 384MB 192-bit 96 Below, you can see the card's status report courtesy of the latest version of GPU-Z. Everything here is accurate, aside from the GPU code name and manufacturing process. As already mentioned, this card uses the G92b core, which is built on a 55nm process, not a 65nm one as it appears in the shot. Also seen here are the 128 Shader (or CUDA) processors and 16 ROP units. Overall, the card may be "outdated" by some standards, but it's still a solid offering for the price, which is the most important thing. The GTS 250 also features a rather familiar design, one that's similar for the most part to the GTX 200 cards before it, but smaller. One noticeable difference is that the glossiness of the higher-end cards is lost, replaced with a matte surface (which I actually prefer). Also, despite the card's budget pricing, you are able to hook three of these guys together for Tri-SLI. It would be an odd route to take (as opposed to purchasing a larger card to begin with), but having the option doesn't hurt. Taking a look at the opposite side of the card, we can see the lone PCI-E 6-Pin connector, and also have a good view of the fan. The cooler design is simple in general, but pretty efficient for a stock offering. There's no doubt that GPU vendors will follow-up to this launch with their own cooler designs, however, which tend to be much better for overclocking and temperatures in general. You can expect that all of the launch GTS 250's will look identical, save for the vendor sticker, but similar to the case of our EVGA card here, pre-overclocked models are also sure to be plentiful. Before we dive into our testing results, one thing I wanted to point out was that while NVIDIA believes the GTS 250's main competition is ATI's Radeon HD 4850 1GB, we didn't have one on hand, to use for the sake of comparison. Also, due to time constraints, we were unable to put the 512MB variant through our most-recent test suite. However, since that's a 512MB version, the comparison doesn't matter a great deal at this point. A more appropriate comparison would be with the 9800 GTX+ 512MB, which we do have results for. So let's get to it! On the next page, we have our test setup and methodology explained in some depth, and following that, we'll get right into our Call of Duty: World at War results. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Test System & Methodology] At Techgage, we strive to make sure our results are as accurate as possible. Our testing is rigorous and time-consuming, but we feel the effort is worth it. In an attempt to leave no question unanswered, this page contains not only our testbed specifications, but also a fully-detailed look at how we conduct our testing. If there is a bit of information that we've omitted, or you wish to offer thoughts or suggest changes, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail or post in our forums. Test System. The below table lists our testing machine's hardware, which remains unchanged throughout all GPU testing, minus the graphics card. Each card used for comparison is also listed here, along with the driver version used. Each one of the URLs in this table can be clicked to view the respective review of that product, or if a review doesn't exist, it will bring you to the product on the manufacturer's website. Component Model Processor Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition - Quad-Core, 3.2GHz, 1.25v Motherboard ASUS Rampage II Extreme - X58-based, 0903 BIOS (12/31/08) Memory OCZ Gold PC3-12800 - DDR3-1333 7-7-7-24-1T, 1.60v ATI Graphics Palit Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB (Catalyst 8.12 Hotfix) Diamond Radeon HD 4870 1GB (Catalyst 8.12 Hotfix) NVIDIA Graphics Zotac GeForce GTX 295 1792MB (GeForce 181.22) EVGA GeForce GTX 285 1GB SSC Edition (GeForce 182.06) Zotac GeForce GTX 285 1GB AMP! (GeForce 181.22) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1GB (GeForce 181.22) Palit GeForce GTX 280 1GB (GeForce 181.22) XFX GeForce GTX 260/216 896MB (GeForce 181.22) EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked 1GB (GeForce 182.08) NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB (GeForce 182.08) ASUS GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB (GeForce 182.08) Audio On-Board Audio Storage Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 x 2 Power Supply Corsair HX1000W Chassis SilverStone TJ10 Full-Tower Display Gateway XHD3000 30" Cooling Thermalright TRUE Black 120 Et cetera Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit When preparing our testbeds for any type of performance testing, we follow these guidelines: General Guidelines No power-saving options are enabled in the motherboard's BIOS. Internet is disabled. No Virus Scanner or Firewall is installed. The OS is kept clean; no scrap files are left in between runs. Hard drives affected are defragged with Diskeeper 2008 prior to a fresh benchmarking run. Machine has proper airflow and the room temperature is 80°F (27°C) or less. Windows Vista Optimizations User Account Control (UAC) and screen saver are disabled. Windows Defender, Firewall, Security Center, Search, Sidebar and Updates are disabled. To aide with the goal of keeping accurate and repeatable results, we alter certain services in Windows Vista from starting up at boot. This is due to the fact that these services have the tendency to start up in the background without notice, potentially causing slightly inaccurate results. Disabling "Windows Search" turns off the OS' indexing which can at...

EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Superclocked

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Rob Williams