uses the company's own design. Certainly the GeForce GTS 250 is a re-spin product of the NVIDIA's 9800 GTX+ accelerator based on the same 55nm G92b core and similar specifications.

Gigabyte's first accelerator sports the Ultra Durable PCB construction. The PCB consists of 2 oz (56.6 g) copper layers that help spread heat and minimize ground electrical noise. It also consists of the all solid-capacitor, ferrite choke, low effective RDS on MOSFETs design.

The daunting feature of this card is its cooler: a Zalman VF1050. Heat is drawn from the GPU-contact block using four heatpipes that convey it to a dense array of copper fins, nucleated by a PWM-controlled fan. The clock speeds on this card remain close to the reference speeds: 740/1850/2000 MHz (core/shader/memory). We expect it to be in the stores around the 10th of MArch, and we'll probably review this unit.

Next week on the 3rd, starting at CeBIT. Geforce GTX 250 will be launched, we'll be sure to cook up a review for you guys, so you know what you can expect (or not).