NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 graphics card: specifications, review and reviews

In 2009, GeForce Company released its new GTS 250 card. However, many people remember that in fact it was far from any breakthrough of technology and almost not a new device in a series of video cards, it's just a renamed 9800 GTX + video card that did not have Almost no difference.

What are their differences?

In fact, the GTS 250 has almost no difference from its predecessor, and the only difference between the two is only that in this case the length of the board itself is less. Even the video chip has not changed.

History of G92

The video chip called G92, used in this video card, was released back in 2007 with the 8800 GT graphics card, the GPU of which was performed in accordance with the 65 nm process technology, and it included 112 shader processors, 16 rasterization blocks, 56 blocks of textures, as well as a 256-bit memory bus. This video card is firmly entrenched in the history, as a real breakthrough in its field, since the Radeon HD 3870, which for it at that time was a direct competitor, could not even approximately be compared in terms of technical characteristics.

A couple of months later, the company released another card called 8800 GTS 512 Mb, which was based on this chip, but it also had less memory and rasterization blocks, as well as more texture units, shader processes, core frequency and shader domain. Thanks to a large number of specialized function blocks, as well as a higher operating frequency, the new card completely outperformed its predecessor. Thanks to these advantages, as well as a much lower price, this card has become a real hit among the majority of gamers of its time.

9800 GT Edition

In the spring of 2008, the aforementioned GTX 9800 GT appears (which eventually became the GTS 250). The difference of this device from the model 8800 was that there was a longer PCB, as well as a large number of power connectors and higher core frequencies. Due to higher frequencies this device became equal to the current flagship of the company called GeForce 8800 Ultra 768 Mb.

Flip for NVIDIA

At that time, the company, without having released the GTS 250, was dominant in any of the video card market sectors, and there were no prerequisites to the fact that this situation would somehow change in the near future. AMD company did not endure the best of times, as its processors significantly lost to Intel solutions, and these video cards overshadowed its solutions in the current market. Already released devices lineup HD4xxx, which used the chip RV770, but the new cards no one believed.

However, it so happened that the video chip RV770 eventually proved to be very, very successful, so it was next to the 9800 GTX, while the older "Radeon" model HD 4870 significantly outperformed the GTX 260. And this is all against the background of the fact that the cost of the new Cards was lower in comparison with competitors almost twice, presenting to the world very, very serious videochip. The most vivid impression of such cards was the forcing of full-screen anti-aliasing in various games. Especially these impressions were emphasized by the fact that the previous series of video cards of the manufacturer were, to put it mildly, a failure.

It was at that time that the GTS 250 was released, which in fact was the fourth name for the same video card.

9800 GTX

The fate of this card can hardly be called happy. Model 9800 GTX was designed to bring the company a serious profit, conquering the heights in the price range from $ 349, but in fact, almost immediately this card had to compete with a serious opponent in the form of HD 4850, which was originally a much cheaper solution. Thus, a huge number of unnecessary elements appeared in the map, which eventually turned into shortcomings.

Before it was released from NVIDIA GTS 250, the company initially decided to significantly reduce the cost of its card, even though it was at a loss, but in fact the prime cost of the reference device was already quite high initially, and it did not Allowed to solve the issue with performance. Despite even the price parity, the HD4850 looked much more attractive compared to its competitor in the eyes of modern users.

Answer from NVIDIA

It is for this reason that the only thing that NVIDIA could do is to squeeze the most out of its chip, resulting in the emergence of the 9800 GTX +, and then the NVIDIA GTS 250, which we are currently considering. In comparison with its predecessor, these devices are distinguished by higher frequencies of the graphics core. It should be noted that if we compare the 9800 GTX and GeForce GTS 250 models, ATI presented here another present - it is a much lower cost of the new card, as their competitors simply had to switch completely to a more subtle technological process that reduces Total cost price.

Despite all its advantages, the very first drawback that will immediately catch sight of any modern user is that there is no programmable tessellation unit in the device from NVIDIA, and there is no support for DirectX 10.1

Equipment

Given the cost of new cards, the kit was provided with them extremely modest (the company had already lost a lot of money), but everything is absolutely there to fully use the device in its computer, providing it with appropriate control.

The presence of an adapter that allows you to switch from a standard 8-pin to a 6-pin connector in a power system may seem strange at first glance, since the connectors themselves are mechanically incompatible, but if your unit only has a monolithic 8-pin connector, then You will be useful.

In general, the GTS 250 package includes a driver, an adapter, the necessary cables, a small manual and a disk with an auxiliary utility. Thus, this set is appropriate for the tasks, because initially the G92 did not represent the flagship chips, not to mention how they look today. The only unpleasant moment is that the GTS 250 driver was turned on, but they did not add the utility as a video player. On the other hand, such a modest bundle, again, had a positive effect on the overall cost of this device.

Board design

For this family, a completely unique design has been developed, which also went to the GTS 250. The price of this device has not changed much compared to the previous model, but the board installed in it is much shorter than the original 8800 GTX model, so the problem With the installation of devices in small cases was completely solved. In this regard, it became possible to form a fairly compact gaming systems, which in their performance were not inferior to platforms located in the full-sized ATX buildings. In particular, this was achieved due to the fact that the 384-bit memory bus was completely eliminated, which significantly complicates the layout of the GTS 250 board. The price and compactness are also provided by the use of a new chip, which is much more economical compared to its predecessor.

Is the fee still high?

Surprisingly, the developers still decided to use a fairly large fee, despite the much larger compactness of new solutions. Given the modest bundle, in which only the NVIDIA GTS 250 driver and all other necessary components, at a lower cost of the board, it could be expanded.

There are a huge number of examples of other video cards that, according to their characteristics, completely correspond to this model, and at the same time they worked productively and stably even under the most severe conditions, but they had an order of magnitude shorter order. From this manufacturer, for example, we can also mention the GeForce 8800 GTS 512 Mb device.

Cooling system

The GTS 250 video card features a unique cooling system, however, in fact, it is only conditional, because this design is typical for many modern graphics coolers.

In fact, there was an additional variation on the reference cooling system, and the only difference here is that the radiator, assembled from thin aluminum plates, is an order of magnitude smaller and therefore does not rest on the mounting bar. The radiator combines with a copper base with the help of specialized heat pipes, thanks to which it is achieved as much as possible even warming up. There is also a standard axial fan blowing not only down, but also in different directions. Most likely, the developers tried to make sure that a certain part of the heated air was completely thrown out of the housing through the holes in the fixing bar, but because the fins of the radiator simply do not reach these holes, and the device does not have the profile casing of the required configuration, In fact hot air will constantly circulate inside your system.

In general, such a design of the cooling system does not differ by any visible advantages in comparison with the reference one, but even the original version is considered one of the most efficient cooling systems of the cards of its time. To fully determine the advantages and disadvantages of this device, you will need to check which temperature mode in your device can be stably supported. In particular, this allows you to make the driver provided to the GeForce GTS 250.

Energy consumption

Since the devices began to use a new core, the power consumption of them is quite interesting for most users, because it allows to understand how profitable it was to switch to such a thin technological process. In order to obtain this information, experts conducted a standard measurement procedure on a specialized test bench.

In this case, the difference GeForce GTS 250 compared with the old version is quite significant, and is almost 34 watts. This is a clear demonstration of how practical it is to introduce a more advanced technological process for each user.

Special attention should be paid to the fact that NVIDIA GTS 250 graphics card works almost silently, but in standard conditions it's safe to say that it will not be heard at all.