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

Gainward GeForce GTS 250 1GB Video Board Review

The Gainward GeForce GTS 250 is packaged in a box which features the new angel mascot and a few of the cards specifications, though there is no mention of the core or memory speed of this product. Inside we find a reasonably thorough bundle which includes cables for component and HDMI operation. The GeForce GTS 250 is a 9-inch long card with dual slot cooler and our Gainward model uses a green PCB. The entire front of the card is covered by the cooler and on the back there are just few components of note although we can see the two SLI connectors make us aware that this card supports 3-way SLI mode.

We can also see just, the top of the single 6-pin power connector which points out the top of their PCB and helps supply the card with its 150W it requires for operation. Underneath the cooler on this model is 1GB of GDDR3 memory which is connected to their GPU by a 256-bit memory bus. The core itself is a 55nm G92 chipset with 128 shader processors and 16 raster units. In terms of clock speeds the Gainward version is set to 738MHz core, 2200MHz memory and just 1836MHz shaders clock which match the reference specifications as set out by NVIDIA and comes with full support of DirectX 10 and their own technology.

The GeForce GTS 250 was subject to a barrage of negative press in the run up to its launch with a lot of rumours circulating that it was just a re-badged GeForce 9800 GTX+ version. Whilst it does share the same core with the older part there are quite a few significant changes which improve the card. Firstly there is the reduction in size of the PCB which makes it better suited to small form factor PC's or media systems. There is also a reduced power requirement which allows this card to run off a single PCI Express power connector. The GeForce GTS 250 also benefits from an additional 512MB of memory, a nice added value.

Another aspect we found impressive were the temps. What we are all interested in though is the performance of the card, and how it fits into a market where we have some impressive products such as the Radeon HD 4850 overclock edition. The GeForce GTS 250 performs at a level similar to an enhanced Radeon HD 4850 in many cases although it does tend to perform better in very demanding games. Of course we also have the benefits on an NVIDIA card of CUDA and PhysX. For some time now we have been enjoying PhysX and as Mirror's Edge shows the technology can really improve the gaming experience.

So in terms of CUDA we have seen some great use of the functionality such as Badaboom which allows us to significantly reduce video encoding time. Yes, a very impressive mainstream card which performs well in gaming tests but also enhances the overall computing experience through the use of CUDA. We have yet to receive confirmed pricing on the Gainward GeForce GTS 250 but we have been informed that the release price should be around the $150-160 mark.