Today NVIDIA announces their GeForce GTS 250 series. While the name my sound like something new and exciting, the GeForce GTS 250 is basically an overclocked GeForce 9800 GTX based on the G92 chipset. The G92 has been used on a large number of NVIDIA cards before, including several GeForce 8800 series, as well as the GeForce 9800 series. Initially NVIDIA offers two reference design cards with 512MB and 1024MB of video memory. But Palit, who is one of NVIDIA's biggest board partners, went all out and offers their own 2048MB card design on launch day. That is what we call a beefy board with a lot of frame buffer that can come in handy in current and future games. - techPowerUp
Over the last week or two there has been a heated debate online regarding the latest graphics card from NVIDIA. These kind of discussion is usually reserved for the latest high-end products but in this case it is just a mainstream model, the GeForce GTS 250. Today we publish our results on a week's worth of testing and find out if it really is such a controversial card or if it is worth talking about for completely different reasons. In addition to this we will compare it to a special edition board from XFX in form of their Radeon HD 4850 Triple-X version which shares a similar price point to the GeForce GTS 250 graphics card but does it really make such a difference and can it really stand the heat? - DriverHeaven
NVIDIA is a company well known for its rebranding, and so its latest product is definitely nothing new to this tradition. And since June time, when the company released the GT200 series of really new chips, they only had some optical shrink products in 55nm, and no truly new GPU's. The GeForce GTS 250 is based on the G92b chip, the 55nm successor of the 65nm G92 chip. The 55nm G92b was launched as GeForce 9800 GTX+ version and NVIDIA now claims that this new card is an upgrade to this good old card. The GeForce 9800 GTX+ was launched in June and it was selling for $229. The new GeForce GTX 250 will be selling at a much lower price point and also has been slightly optimized. - FudZilla
In the computer industry there is not any kind of rivalry like what we see on the graphics card industry market. So over the years the GPU war has been getting meaner and ugly for the too big boy's ATI and NVIDIA and as those two fight it out we consumers have benefited by getting better products at lower prices. This is a win, win situation for all gamers out there especially in the mid to low-end where you can get an awesome and powerful card for a minimum of cost. In the same sense console gaming has been holding strong, and many game developer have been staying on the console bandwagon, giving the PC gamers a primarily ported version of the console game which is less visually enhanced. - NinjaLane
The latest incarnation of the GeForce GTX 260 not only packs the upgraded 216 stream processors, but it also carries with it a 55nm core. What this means is that the card can run cooler, which in turn means it can run faster. While NVIDIA chose not to do anything with the clocks of the card, it doesn't mean companies out there won't. Today we're looking at the Palit GeForce GTX 260 Sonic edition. The Sonic means the card is overclocked and the 55nm means that we have the upgraded stream processors. This is our first 55nm based GeForce GTX 260, but we think we've picked out a good one. Let's just have a quick look at the package to see what Palit has included before we look at the card itself. - TweakTown
The ASUS Radeon HD 4870 Matrix is a graphics card that differs in nearly every point from the reference design. Their GPU clock therefore is 800MHz instead of 750MHz and the 512MB of GDDR5 memory comes clocked at just 3800MHz. Furthermore the card comes with a PCB developed by ASUS itself which carries a dual slot cooler and is specially optimized for ASUS's iTracker software. The iTracker software enables a dynamic clock adjustment possible regarding GPU and memory clock speeds. This card is a full own design which does proof quite some innovation and willingness to bring products that are different. This Matrix version as such is one great result of their innovation so far. - OcaHolic
Where high-end cards are concerned, there hasn't been too much action lately, from either ATI or NVIDIA. Last month though, NVIDIA followed-up to their high-end GT200 series launch with two new boards, the single GPU based GeForce GTX 285 and their dual GPU based GeForce GTX 295. While both became just the highest-end cards on the market for their respective category, neither were architecturally new, but rather evolutionary upgrades. Now that's not to discredit NVIDIA's latest offerings though, because both are absolute screamers. Their GeForce GTX 285 became the fastest single GPU card available by a fair margin, and likewise did the GeForce GTX 295. So where we do stand now? - Techgage
The GeForce GTX 260 has quickly become one of those confusing models. We had the card originally launch in June of 2008 and towards the end of last year word came of an updated model that would carry with it 216 shader processors over the original 192 we saw at launch. Later on we heard more rumors that the card was going to move to 55nm technology, the only problem is that across this whole process the name of the card has never changed. This is no doubt a pain since NVIDIA has also renamed a number of other cards that haven't had a single change. Today we're looking at the Leadtek WinFast GTX 260+ Extreme. While it doesn't carry the new 55nm core, it does carry more shaders. - TweakTown
ATI continue to do things that frustrate us. We understand that they're not in the best position at the moment, but they just continue to make amateur mistakes. We're involved in the industry and the Radeon HD 4830 at launch made no noise whatsoever. There wasn't a company out there that wanted to send out a sample as soon as possible, nor did ATI make any effort as far as advertising the product goes. Now the thing is though, when we tested the Radeon HD 4830 from MSI we were surprised to see that it was a really a good card for its money. Today we have PowerColor's version of the graphics card, in its own design. So you have to wonder, is PowerColor going to come within arm's reach of the bar? - TweakTown
Now to our surprise and chagrin, our first grope of the Radeon HD 4870 X2 was perilous. We came away from it a better person, maybe stronger but scarred. But we were uncertain about reencountering the double edged machine, and rightfully so. It's dangerous. The Radeon HD 4870 X2 consumes a commensurate amount of power and can withstand tremendous heat, though in the right trained hands, it is just absolutely a force. Forged of the blackest PCB, this VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 X2 is capable of bringing the fiercest games to reckoning. And only after being bested by it could we ever hope to wield it's. Oh screw it, it's just a video card. We mean, it's one of the best video cards. - TechLounge
The battle wages on between the rivals who are both fighting for domination, each side keeps pulling ahead for a while. No, it's not a new video game but rather a new line of video cards from NVIDIA. With the high performance of the updated GeForce GTX 260, NVIDIA had to update the GeForce GTX 280 to fit in better with the GeForce GTX 295 that was also recently released. Originally, both the GeForce GTX 200 series were produced on the 65nm production process, but were recently given a die shrink to 55nm, which should increase clock speed, power efficiency and overall efficiency. This shrink saves NVIDIA money since it allows them to make more GPU cores per silicon wafer. - Overclockers Club
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