GeForce GTS 250: Nvidia's G92 Strikes Again

[cangelini]

You might have heard that the GeForce GTS 250 was a re-badged GeForce GTX 9800+ with 1 GB of GDDR3 memory. That's true. In the following pages, we'll evaluate how it compares to the GeForce GTX 260 and GTX 9800+ along with AMD's Radeon HD 4800-series.

GeForce GTS 250: Nvidia's G92 Strikes Again : Read more

 

[Guest]

i wonder what would be the stand of 4850 and 4870 with 1gb frame buffer

 

[thepinkpanther]

when the GTX4xx series i guess nvidia will launch the g92 refresh yet again, this time as an entry level graphics card.

 

[xx12amanxx]

Hmm no mention of the slower model's Nvidia is going to push instead of these cherry picked Oced model's.I heard these Oced model's were just for reviewers and that most of these cards will actually be slower model's with even less performance.

 

[johnbilicki]

"so long as performance goes up or sideways as price goes down, we don’t see an issue with the reintroduction of proven technology"

...which (in the context it has been applied) is the same as saying we don't mind nVidia renaming an 8800GT to a 9800GT and then a 9800GT to a whatever 2xx series...and so on and so forth. My point is simple: nVidia is pulling an extremely sleazy marketing scheme on consumers by renaming existing models. If you goof admit it and get on with life; that's why I appreciated the fact that when the first generation of Phenoms were botched AMD gracefully renamed unaffected quads with a 50 (IE 9650 instead of 9600). Trying to remember all the different names of the exact same model is like dealing with someone who IM's you from five different screen names, eventually you just end up blocking them out.

 

[Guest]

Good review, but i missed the noise and heat comparative

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]xx12amanxx[/nom]Hmm no mention of the slower model's Nvidia is going to push instead of these cherry picked Oced model's.I heard these Oced model's were just for reviewers and that most of these cards will actually be slower model's with even less performance.[/citation]

Cherry picked? It's a retail product.

 

[curnel_D]

Chris, it's a decent article, but why in the world would you use 512mb models in everyting aside from the 250 and 260. If you would have shown the 1gb 4870, along with a 1gb 9800+, it would have showed a clearer picture of how the 250 is identical to the 9800+/9800/8800GT.

Meh.

And there are MASSIVE rumours saying that Nvidia is hand-picking the review models sent to reviewers, even confirmed by HardOCP. Addressing that in this article would have been great.

 

[Guest]

If I'm not mistaken didn't the 9 series and the HD4XXX series launch at about the same time effectively putting them into the same class? So why does everyone love to compare the 2XX series to the 4XXX cards and on top of that usually giving the ram advantage to nvidia i.e. comparing 1GB cards to 512MB cards?

 

[sohei]

i think Nvidia want's to marry this card with us ...love with force is not possible ...we need a new "woman" from nvidia not other clothes ...Nvidia has enough experience with clothes ...they should enter in fashion business like Microsoft

 

[vaskodogama]

huh, anyway, I don't like the naming of GT200 cards anyway! AMD's got better price, and naming scheme!
[citation][nom]thepinkpanther[/nom]when the GTX4xx series i guess nvidia will launch the g92 refresh yet again, this time as an entry level graphics card.[/citation]
I Agree!

 

[nerrawg]

Conclusion in this article finally gets to the point, after having compared OCed cards against vanilla. Good article - yet "The Real Story" might be missing out on a few more valid points.

1. All of the AMD 4800 cards can be easily overclocked, especially the cheap 4830 which often OCs over 700 Mhz on its GPU clock. This will effect the value evaluation, because the 9800+/250 is gonna have to OC pretty well to match it bang for buck, and seeing as the tested cards are already OCed, well I really wonder if it has that headroom?

2. 4850s and particularly 4870s come in much hotter versions than the vanilla flavors - ex. sapphire toxic etc. The prices of these models will be important to consider.

3. The G92 architecture is from what I have seen sketchy performance wise in SLI compared to the 4800 series in Crossfire. I am not sure of this, but I would be cautious of using a G92 card if you where planning on using a multicard setup, atleast from the tests I have seen. It would be interesting to see direct tests between a GTX 250 SLI and 4830/4850 CF setup. I'd put my money on the CF solution and I'd love to be proved wrong for Nvidia's sake.

 

[Proximon]

Well, caveat emptor. If the average consumer can't be bothered to google up a benchmark and just assumes a new name equals a better GPU, then they get what they deserve.

A dual slot cooled video card that is just slower than a 4850 could be a good thing if they work the price low enough.

 

[trinix]

Not everyone is a tech person, they'll ask friends and family about performance and the tech person in the family might prefer the nvidia or the ati card and recommend that one over the better one.

Also at shops the knowledge isn't always better. I've seen people behind the counter, who don't know the difference between ddr1 and ddr2 memory and will just tell you they don't have it.

Rebranding is evil, but if that's the way Nvidia can keep making money and stay alive, I'd rather have that than the solo reign of Ati.

 

[curnel_D]

[citation][nom]Proximon[/nom]Well, caveat emptor. If the average consumer can't be bothered to google up a benchmark and just assumes a new name equals a better GPU, then they get what they deserve.A dual slot cooled video card that is just slower than a 4850 could be a good thing if they work the price low enough.[/citation]
Yes, I agree with that totally if we're talking about the demographic these forums target. But that's absolutely absurd if you count everyone.

The "average joe" is usually a hobby gamer who has a full time job, if not two, a wife, kids, generally lower pay compared to the white colar IT job market, and just doesnt have the time for all of the 'homework'. And even then, alot of people still wouldnt know what those benchmarks mean, or even where to find them on google if they know what the word benchmark means at all.

It'd be the same if Ford released a new Mustang called Mustang GTX250. But in reality, it was identical to the Mustang GT with a different name and better tires. Ford would catch all kinds of hell for it, which is exactly why they dont do it.

But Nvidia apparently think's they're above the average consumer, and hopes to get a one-up on them to get rid of all of their oversupplied chips.

Dont sell yourself short, but dont give these companies credibility for doing what they're doing. Nvidia has been very anti-consumer lately, and they shouldnt get any reason to excuse it.

 

[jeverson]

I'm just curious... When nVidia launched the 9800+ you were able to SLI it with the regular 9800 series. Does this mean you will be able to SLI the GTX 250 cards with either a 9800 or 9800+? Would be nice to know.

 

[salem80]

Why Tom's Hardware use GTS 250 Overclocked version ?????????????

 

[Pei-chen]

Chris, you should really consider sending Kevin, Tuan and Jane to training. Kevin and Tuan can't keep facts straight and Jane is simply blogging.

Using GTS 250 as example, Kevin and Tuan reported that 250 is using 512 bit memory bus. I almost went over to Anand to check the spec. before clicking on this article.

 

[nerrawg]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Nvidia-GTS250-Twintech,7150.html

As stated above, found it at the bottom of article, 512 bit is listed as only difference between 9800+ and 250 - but its not in this article - I trust Chris on this one

 

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]xx12amanxx[/nom]Hmm no mention of the slower model's Nvidia is going to push instead of these cherry picked Oced model's.I heard these Oced model's were just for reviewers and that most of these cards will actually be slower model's with even less performance.[/citation]

[citation][nom]Curnel_D[/nom]…. And there are MASSIVE rumours saying that Nvidia is hand-picking the review models sent to reviewers, even confirmed by HardOCP. Addressing that in this article would have been great.[/citation]
Are you two idiots? GTS 250 is the same as 9800+ GTX. If Nvidia can sell retail 9800+ at 738MHz why would they need to cherry pick GTS 250 at the same clock?

If every GTS 250 is running at 850MHz vs 738 on 9800+ you can say Nvidia is binning better chip for 250 but they are running at the same speed.

 

[curnel_D]

[citation][nom]Pei-chen[/nom]Chris, you should really consider sending Kevin, Tuan and Jane to training. Kevin and Tuan can't keep facts straight and Jane is simply blogging.Using GTS 250 as example, Kevin and Tuan reported that 250 is using 512 bit memory bus. I almost went over to Anand to check the spec. before clicking on this article.[/citation]
I actually prefer jane over kevin and tuan both. She might be blogging, but most of the time it's interesting, and never misleading or downright untrue.

Both Kevin and Tuan are total morons IMO. Are they college kids doing a practicum or something? Because there's no way they actually have any journalism credibility. They're even the laughing-stock of other forums on a consistant basis.

 

[sublifer]

I know you guys have to use and test what you're given but it irritates me to no end when I see the OC'ed versions of cards tested against reference versions of cards. I always end up wondering "what if this card or that were overclocked, how would it look then?" Even using all overclocked versions isn't a bad idea as it can give you an idea of the max performance of the product lines (of course ymmv for any given product) but really we ought to be seeing reference cards vs. reference cards.

 

[romulus47plus1]

One six pin power connector, compared to 2 of the GTX+.

 

[morpheas768]

How is it that the radeon 4800s have 640 & 800 stream proccesors and the NVs have from 128 to 240 (mostly high-end nvs) and they are close to performance?? is it the ROPs? or nvidia GPUs have something else better that makes up for that? I don't get it.

 

[sublifer]

I do feel sorry for the average joe consumer... someone who has an 8800GTS and thought they'd be getting a huge performance boost by skipping a generation and got themselves a GT250.

Seriously, I understand NV wants to have a logical lineup of low to high-end cards, but if there is only a minor change, then it deserves a minor name revision like 8800GTS -> 8800GTS b -> 8800GTS c
Its their own backwards thinking that had them go from 9800 series to a 200 series and cause the problem... if they had anyone smart in their marketing dept they might have come up with a 10k series so it followed logically but was a much shorter name than 10000 series which I know they wanted to avoid. Name the cards GT 10k1 through GT 10k99 or however... that way they wouldn't have had to rename the 9800 series to keep it logical.