Gainward GTS 250 2048 MBAuthor: Luka RakamaricDate: 29 Apr 2009
There was a lot of fuss over the ‘release’ of GTS 250 cards, as it is nothing more than a relaunched 9800GTX+. Granted, reference 9800GTS+ was a little bit different than the reference GTS 250 (the latter one is cheaper to make), but many manufacturers were already producing new, cheaper 9800GTX+ versions that the GTS 250 is a direct copy of. It has not been well received with the press, but the fact is that the card offers great value for money, a ‘feature’ that ATI has been dominating in for quite some time now. Today we will see how a different variation on the theme by Gainward will perform.Unlike the extreme Gainward cards that we have had experience during the last few years, with a tag Golden Sample or even Goes Like Hell, this card is extreme in a different way. It is equipped with 2 gigabytes of GDDR3 memory, more than GTX 295 and equal to 4870x2 card. We have been against putting too much memory on chips that cannot make use of it, which has been a practice of many manufacturers over the years, especially in the periods the chip prices were low. Since now is one such period, we were skeptical if this move is justified by performance gains. But we will see that when we come to the test results.As we said before, the GTS 250 is nothing more than a renamed 9800GTX+. The + in name was added to distinguish it from the older 9800GTX, which, while using the same G92 GPU, used its older, 65 nm version. The die shrink then made the GPU 55 nm, and with higher clocks it was put in the new, GTX+ model. Since the GTX200 GPU is quite complicated, but not revolutionary in terms of design, NVIDIA decided it is better to rebrand the product so it seems it is a part of the newest series, rather than to spend energy making a cheaper, cut down version of the GTX 200 chip, with the end result probably being in the same performance range. It is important to notice that users are not being cheated, since the new product brought the new, lower prices as well.The G92 GPU has 128 shader processors, 16 ROP units and around 750 million transistors. It is a successor to the G80, a 90 nm part that had more ROPs and a wider bus, but was much more expensive to make. The G92 was first manufactured in 65 nm, and the new version is built in 55 nm TSMC production process.Gainward’s card uses 2 GB of 1000 MHz GDDR3 memory, making the effective clock 2000 MHz. With a 256 bit wide memory bus, it has a memory throughput in the range of 4850 cards, but a lot less than the GDDR5 4870 and 512 bit GTX 280 cards.The fan of the Gainward’s card is massive, but we must notice that while it does cool better than the stock cooler, it is not all that quiet. That can advert possible buyers as silent PCs are becoming a lot more popular. In general, a graphics card will be quieter than your stock CPU cooler, but if you invest in a custom one with a 12 cm fan, it won’t be nice that suddenly your graphics card becomes your biggest noise problem.
There was a lot of fuss over the ‘release’ of GTS 250 cards, as it is nothing more than a relaunched 9800GTX+. Granted, reference 9800GTS+ was a little bit different than the reference GTS 250 (the latter one is cheaper to make), but many manufacturers were already producing new, cheaper 9800GTX+ versions that the GTS 250 is a direct copy of. It has not been well received with the press, but the fact is that the card offers great value for money, a ‘feature’ that ATI has been dominating in for quite some time now. Today we will see how a different variation on the theme by Gainward will perform.Unlike the extreme Gainward cards that we have had experience during the last few years, with a tag Golden Sample or even Goes Like Hell, this card is extreme in a different way. It is equipped with 2 gigabytes of GDDR3 memory, more than GTX 295 and equal to 4870x2 card. We have been against putting too much memory on chips that cannot make use of it, which has been a practice of many manufacturers over the years, especially in the periods the chip prices were low. Since now is one such period, we were skeptical if this move is justified by performance gains. But we will see that when we come to the test results.As we said before, the GTS 250 is nothing more than a renamed 9800GTX+. The + in name was added to distinguish it from the older 9800GTX, which, while using the same G92 GPU, used its older, 65 nm version. The die shrink then made the GPU 55 nm, and with higher clocks it was put in the new, GTX+ model. Since the GTX200 GPU is quite complicated, but not revolutionary in terms of design, NVIDIA decided it is better to rebrand the product so it seems it is a part of the newest series, rather than to spend energy making a cheaper, cut down version of the GTX 200 chip, with the end result probably being in the same performance range. It is important to notice that users are not being cheated, since the new product brought the new, lower prices as well.The G92 GPU has 128 shader processors, 16 ROP units and around 750 million transistors. It is a successor to the G80, a 90 nm part that had more ROPs and a wider bus, but was much more expensive to make. The G92 was first manufactured in 65 nm, and the new version is built in 55 nm TSMC production process.Gainward’s card uses 2 GB of 1000 MHz GDDR3 memory, making the effective clock 2000 MHz. With a 256 bit wide memory bus, it has a memory throughput in the range of 4850 cards, but a lot less than the GDDR5 4870 and 512 bit GTX 280 cards.The fan of the Gainward’s card is massive, but we must notice that while it does cool better than the stock cooler, it is not all that quiet. That can advert possible buyers as silent PCs are becoming a lot more popular. In general, a graphics card will be quieter than your stock CPU cooler, but if you invest in a custom one with a 12 cm fan, it won’t be nice that suddenly your graphics card becomes your biggest noise problem.
Here's a picture of the card:
Source :http://it-review.net
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