Galaxy GeForce GTS 250 1GB review

Item: Galaxy GeForce GTS 250 1GB review
Author: Mark Mackay

Written by Mark Mackay

August 26, 2009 | 11:01

Tags: #geforce #gts-250

Companies: #galaxy #nvidia

Results Analysis

While the Galaxy boasts double the memory of a stock card, it runs at 100MHz slower so it was interesting to see how the difference in the memory quantity and frequency stacked up against a reference card. For example, the Crysis results don’t look so hot for the Galaxy, as there's precious little difference between it and a standard, 512MB GTS 250. Working our way up the resolutions saw it able to overtake the stock card, but the Galaxy never puts any real distance between itself and a standard card. If anything the extra megahertz are more beneficial the extra megabytes. Regardless of which one was fastest, as you'd expect, neither card could play Crysis at a smooth minimum of 25fps with all settings on high and in DirectX 10 mode.

In contrast to this outcome, the equally demanding S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky preferred the Galaxy. The extra memory helped it achieve a few more fps more at all resolutions we tested in. At 1,680 x 1,050 and 1,280 x 1,024 the card produced practically identical results to a Radeon HD 4870 1GB which now costs about £20 mores a solid effort form the budget card.

Other games produces more mixed graphs. For example in Fallout 3, the reference card with its faster memory was faster than the Galaxy at 1,680 x 1,050 with 4x AA. However, cranking up the AA and/or resolution saw the extra memory of the Galaxy card take back the lead. The minimum Call of Duty: World at War at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA saw a massive improvement with the Galaxy over the reference card. Having a 33fps minimum frame rate over a 24fps minimum frame rate will make for a considerably more enjoyable gaming experience and ensure that you don't see slowdown when there's loads of explosions and body parts flying all over the place.

Folding@home performance of the Galaxy was one result that stood out like swollen red line against a load of smaller blue ones. However this is more down to luck of the draw as occasionally the application will perform differently depending on which project Folding dishes out at a given time. One thing that doesn’t depend on specific project is power consumption and the Galaxy sucked more from the wall than all other cards on test, albeit by a small margin.

With the custom cooler spun up and ready to roll, we were expecting some decent overclocking results from the card. Thermal performance tests showed that under load, the Galaxy cooler shaved 6°C off the delta T of the stock cooler while the card idling the difference was just 1°C. This may well have gone some way to helping the overclock which is the best we've seen from a GTS 250 to date. We used EVGA's excellent Precision overclocking tool for the job. The core was happy to increase from 738MHz to a much more respectable 785MHz, while the shaders maxed out at 1.950GHz. We also managed to crank up the memory to what it should have been in the first place, 1.05GHz (2.1GHz effective). The clock speed increases netted us a few extra frame rates in Crysis and made a smoothly playable minimum frame rate of 25fps at 1,280 x 1,024 with no AA. However, 1,680 x 1,050 with 4x AA was still too much for the card which means that 1,920 x 1,200 was out of its reach altogether.

Conclusion

The Galaxy GTS 250 1GB is a decent rendition of what is frankly, an ageing GPU. The custom cooler wasn't ground breaking but shaving 6°C off the temperature with the card under load isn't a bad effort either. It also helped us overclock the Galaxy more than any of the GTS 250s we've seen to date and that overclock meant the difference between Crysis running at a playable 25fps minimum frame rate at 1,280 x 1,024 compared with a stuttery 22fps at stock speeds.

Cards such as the Radeon HD 4770 and other low-end Radeon cards were below the Galaxy in pretty much every test we performed but then they’re all cheaper so again this isn’t a particularly miraculous outcome. The Galaxy holds its own in the price-to-performance ratio and was even punching above its weight and keeping up with the Radeon HD 4870's minimum frame rates in some tests.

If how a graphics card runs Crysis is especially important to you then you would actually be better off with a slightly cheaper reference card and its faster memory. You can bag one fromTekheads for as little as £75, saving you £15 on the Galaxy. For almost all other games though, the Galaxy will get you more performance though and on a few occasions such as Call of Duty: World at War at 1,920 x 1,200 with 4x AA is there's truly significant improvement over the reference card. Another £20 will net you an ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB and access to higher resolutions at playable frame rates but if you're looking for decent performance at under £100 then the Galaxy is a good bet.