When looking at the current segment of mid-range graphics cards you just can't look beyond the GeForce GTS 250 accelerator which is in essence a reworked GeForce 9800 GTX version but optimized towards reducing cost and increasing performance. And that is really what NVIDIA has done, with taking a look at the PCB and redesign it for optimal usage in support of the G92b graphics core and bundling it with some high performance memory. Of course for most it can just be seen as a simple rebranding, but it is more. The GeForce GTS 250 chipset is a replacement for these older GeForce 9600 GT and ECS has equipped its card with 1GB of memory and support for 3-way SLI mode. How does it fare? - t-break

ECS GeForce GTS 250 1GB Graphics Cooling Preview

The ECS GeForce GTS 250 video card ships in an eye catching red box with an attractive female character visible up front. Their card features a cooling solution that has the fan sitting close to where air is traditionally exhausted out of the case. Unfortunately, this means this card will contribute towards increasing your case internal temperature. The card will block two rear expansion slots. The first slot holds two DVI outputs and a video output. This GeForce GTS 250 has two SLI connectors and thus you can opt for a 3-way SLI setup. The card is rated as needing 150W under load so a single 6-pin power connector is all you need.

Thanks to its 3-way SLI support and 1GB of onboard memory, the ECS GeForce GTS 250 is a very interesting product. The decent amount of memory and flexible SLI support means you should be able to build a solid gaming machine without spending mega bucks for high-end cards. Comparing the GeForce GTS 250 to ATI's Radeon HD 4850 along with the older GeForce 9800 GTX+, the GeForce GTS 250 graphics card is faster overall. At the same time, it also sports a much smaller PCB size and lower cost, which makes it a great buy for those on a budget as well as for those interested in building a compact PC.

When it came to overclocking we found ECS' card quite good. Using RivaTuner to check its maximum stable frequency we hit a core frequency of 805MHz, with a shader clock of 1965MHz and 2250MHz on memory. The graphics card reported temperatures of 71°C under load when running at stock frequency. Now running overclocked, the card reported only a subtle 2°C rise when under full load. This is no doubt thanks to the cooling fan which ran at a faster speed. Of course the trade off is that the card became noticeably noisier when running overclocked.