Product Listing

Copper Boost - Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250

By Kenny Yeo - 21 Mar 2009

The Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3

The Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3

What makes the Gigabyte GTS 250 unique is its Ultra Durable VGA printed circuit board (PCB) which packs two ounces of copper, double that of traditional PCBs. This, Gigabyte claims, provides the card with many benefits. Chiefly, Gigabyte says it'll reduce the card operating temperatures by as much as 10% (since copper conducts heat better), which in turn results in better overclocking capability - anywhere from 10% and up. Lastly, it reduces circuit impedance and improves power efficiency.

Secondly, the Gigabyte GTS 250 employs the use of Japanese solid capacitors which offer better electrical conductivity. To complement this, it also sports ferrite core chokes for lower power loss, and low RDS(on) MOSFETs for lower switching resistance and faster electric current charging and discharging. All of this goes toward reducing temperature and increasing power efficiency. Additionally, the Gigabyte GTS 250 also claims to use first-tier Samsung and Hynix memory that have been tested for maximum performance. We're interested to see if that gives it any tangible gain in performance, but what you can surely infer is better reliability.

Apart from the additional copper found in the PCB, solid capacitors and ferrite core chokes, the Gigabyte GTS 250 also has a Zalman ZF-1050 custom cooler. This ZF-1050 Zalman cooler closely resembles that found on the earlier reviewed Gigabyte GeForce 9800 GT, but with a more intricate and aggressive-looking heatsink that comes complete with four thick heat pipes. This should keep things running cool. It also helps that the card comes with reference clock speeds; 738MHz at the core, 2200MHz DDR at the memory and 1836MHz at the shader units. We also examined the memory chips and found them to be from Hynix.

Like the ASUS GeForce GTS 250 reviewed earlier, the Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 comes with a rather cool and fierce-looking custom cooler.

The cooler employed is a Zalman ZF-1050; look at its thick heat pipes and intricate fin patterns.

Our card came with Hynix memory that has a rated latency of 0.8ns.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 gives you a choice of three video outputs: goold old VGA, DVI and HDMI.

The GeForce GTS 250 is specified to come with either 2 or 3-way SLI. This one has only a single SLI connector, meaning you'll need to find another GeForce GTS 250 with two SLI connectors to make 3-way SLI work.

The GeForce GTS 250 now requires power from a single 6-pin connector and this card from Gigabyte is no different.

Also, this is what the Gigabyte GTS 250 came with:

  • Quick installation guide & user's manual
  • Driver CD
  • 1 x Molex to 6-pin PCIe power connector
  • 1 x HDMI to DVI adapter
  • 1 x S/PDIF cable
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