BFG Tech GeForce GTS 250 Graphics Card Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusions

The BFG Tech GeForce GTS 250 1GB performed roughly the same as the original GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB, which makes sense since both cards have the same ‘engine’ under the hood. The BFG Tech GeForce GTS 250 1GB’s larger 1GB frame buffer came into play when the image quality was cranked up or when running at resolutions above 1920×1200. In games like Call of Duty: World at War and FarCry 2 we were able to see a 10-13% performance improvement from the extra frame buffer. The GeForce GTS 250 didn’t put a world of hurt on the GeForce GTX 9800+, as many of you would have guessed without reading any of this.

The BFG Tech GeForce GTS 250 really shines when it comes to power consumption and thermals. NVIDIA has taken a ton of negative press in recent weeks about changing the name of the GeForce GTX 9800+ and doing nothing else other than releasing a ‘new’ graphics card with the G92 core that has been around for over a year now. The GeForce GTS 250 does indeed have the G92 core, but thanks to a die shrink and a 1.5″ shorter PCB it has become a very power efficient and coolly running card.

Something else that some of you might find interesting is that the GeForce GTS 250 will be SLI-compatible with existing GeForce 9800 GTX+ cards that are on the market today. That means you can mix and match cards (with the same frame buffer) and be able to run SLI with them. That said, there really isn’t much more to talk about as our readers know all about PhysX and CUDA support, which is something ATI graphics cards can’t do.

As mentioned in the introduction, the new GeForce GTS 250 will hit retail shelves on March 10th, 2009 and will be available in 512MB and 1GB models at $129 and $149, respectively. AMD adjusted the prices on their Radeon HD 4800 series the day before the launch of the GeForce GTS 250 in a nice little marketing move, so you can find the ATI HD Radeon 4850 512MB for $124.99 after rebate and the ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB for $149 after rebate. Either way you go you’ll end up with a killer graphics card for under $150, and that is hard to complain about!

Legit Bottom Line: The BFG Tech GeForce GTS 250 1GB is a solid performing graphics card with good power efficiency!