Hardware Galaxy GeForce GTS 250 1GB review

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2009/08/26/galaxy-geforce-gts-250-1gb-review/1

Galaxy is an Nvidia partner that's been cranking out graphics cards in the States for years. With a plan to move to the UK in the pipeline, we got in their GeForce GTS 250 1GB to take a look at the approaches the company takes to making its products stand out from the crowd.

 

I think you may have your overclocking graph labels the wrong way round...

 

Who proofed those graphs? Thanks for the heads-up, I'll fix them now.

 

I wager 5 quatloos on the newcomer

 

"Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 512MB – operating at 7383/1,836/2,200MHz using Forceware 185.68"

core - 7383 MHz NICE

 

Nice review. PIty the extra memory doesn't make too much of a difference.

 

Hmmm, not quite sure now if I should go for the stock GTS 250 or go for the 4870

 

can bit please review the palit gts-250 1gGB so we can compare plz.

 

gladiator battles would be so cool...

 

Are those US/UK prices right? It's actually going to be cheaper here based on the current exchange rates.

 

ANY GPU card that offers 1xDVI and 1xVGA instead of 2xDVI with VGA converters for those who need them gets a bit FAT 'No, NO!...' from me without even looking at the specs/results.

 

Sorry to nitpick but didn't Harry already review the GTS250 1GB??

 

This is a different one, same core esentially, but made by a different manufacturer.

You could say the same for all those 8800GTS/8800GTX reviews that I saw a few years ago.

 

you have OC section,but without actual OC numbers there

also,Nvidia's requirements for GTS250 are 1.100 memory speed
Galaxy doesn't even follow that,so as far for memory speed goes,it's an underclocked version compared to the reference one

the OC numbers don't impress me either,I get bether numbers fron the older first in the line 8800GTS ( from which later derrived 9800GTX,9800GTX+ and GTS250 with/without sloght modifications)

 

ambient temperature is what?

 

The reason provided with the Folding@Home performance isn't quite right. In fact, the author needs to explore this issue in a future article. (Does Folding@Home benefit with extra RAM on the video card?)

These video cards with "more RAM than standard versions" don't do anything for gamers. In fact, you really are wasting your money if you only use them for games. This is because of the way games are written. (Remember: Developers need to code for widest user base to maximize profit; and not everyone has a 1GB video card. So it would be of little use to optimize for that.).

It DOES do quite a bit for those coding with Nvidia's CUDA...When you use Geforce as a GPGPU, the extra RAM helps. Last I checked, Folding@Home GPU2 client is written/optimized with CUDA. (So its no surprise that it does quite well in the amount of teraflops it produces in this scenario).

This is why the 1GB version kicks butt in Folding@Home but offers very little benefit in games.

 

@aussiebear...

I was under the impression that more RAM benefitted resolutions over 16x10... but I suppose it is more of a case balance... you do need more RAM but you also need a better GPU so the two go hand in hand. Hence why the higher GPUs have around 1GB minimum memory... I wouldn't have said it the way have, I think that is misleading, but I believe I get your point.

 

A word of warning with this one. It has the identical silver and blue topped crappy capacitors on my Jetway 8600 GTS. These are substandard cheap capacitors which do not contain the preservative required for long duration gaming. The ones on my 8600 blew recently whilst playing wolfenstien. whilst the card does still function with capacitors with wadding hanging out of them it does not bode well seeing them being used on other new cards.

 

remember running 820 core on the original 9800gtx.. that was a very stable oc too =] before the die shrink on the stock cooler (after a re-tim)

it was a good card for lower res- like cod4 would play maxed at 16q aa 16x af at 1600x1200 never lose a frame

but it absolutely blew at crysis.. and you couldn't supersample like on the old g80.. we saw the bigger memory fall flat on the 8800gt too, and they are pretty much the same card