EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Pro Reviews

The GeForce GTS 250 is very similar to the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and as such, the two cards perform almost identically when the new GTS 250's larger 1GB frame buffer doesn't come into play. At higher-resolutions, when additional pixel processing is employed (like in FarCry 2, for example), the GeForce GTS 250's larger frame buffer allows it to measurably outperform the older GeForce 9800 GTX+. In comparison to the Radeon HD 4850, generally speaking, both cards perform at nearly the same level, with a slight edge going to the GeForce GTS 250.

For its part, Nvidia has indicated to us its resolve to be the price-performance leader in this portion of the market, so it may make an additional price move if necessary to defend its turf. Nvidia has limitations here that AMD doesn't face, though, mainly because it doesn't have the option of simply switching to GDDR5 memory to get twice the bandwidth. That is, after all, the only major difference between the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870. On the merits of its current GPU technology, AMD would seem to have the stronger hand.

Overall EVGA's card is slightly faster then the reference one, and HD 4850 and GTS 250 are really neck to neck in terms of performance, and if the GTS 250's price ends up close, the choice will ultimately be yours, as both are very good cards with a great price tag.

EVGA offers the best support on the planet for most of their cards. A 2-year warranty may not seem like much but the fact remains that few people have video cards longer than 2 years, especially for those that want the higher end cards and need a hold me over card until the next generation of cards are released or they can afford a new card with the features and performance that the GTS 250 would offer. This card really blew me away in terms of overclocking as I was able to overclock the card to 958MHz stably without visual artifacts. The Step-Up program is a nice touch especially if NVIDIA releases a new card between now and 90 days from now or if you want to upgrade to a GTX275/285. This card is online for a price of $149.99 currently from Newegg and it performs pretty well in standard testing and game play. Its overclocking abilities are what make this card stand apart from its peers as it excels in that arena, earning it an Editor's Choice product.

Overall, we're quite miffed that NVIDIA's chosen to re-brand an older card - GeForce 9800 GTX+, because that's what the GTS 250 is. There's no really new architecture here, and all the non-hardware improvements such as CUDA-driven apps apply to the older cards too. The technology enthusiast in us would have much preferred a cut-down version of the GTX 260, for better performance, but NVIDIA's chosen to drop price instead of really innovate.