Final Words & Conclusion
The Verdict
There's really little to dislike about what ECS is offering here today. The product as presented, though clocked 100% reference, shows very decent potential with overclocking. Though not to massive extremes, you will push another 10% performance out of it fairly easy.
What we also like is the level of customization. The blue PCB, metal PCB cover and the custom cooler. Granted, the cooler will get a little noisy when you are gaming with the graphics processor heavily stressed, it's however nothing very extreme. So seen from an overall perspective, the product design and presentation is definitely very nice.
The trick with a product series like the GeForce GTS 250 is of course price versus performance. Where you had to pay 199-229 USD for a GeForce 9800 GTX+, you can now purchase the GeForce GTS 250 with 512MB of memory for 139 USD. At this price level it is competing directly with the Radeon HD 4850.
In-between the 9800 GTX+ and GTS 250 performance and features there just is no difference, you'll get exactly the same product. Even better as it is much cheaper and has lesser power consumption.
So sure, the price is the real reason that I like the GeForce GTS 250 as I believe that 139 USD is just a very fair deal. Should you go for 1024MB of memory? Well, I tend to say yes. The price is only ~25 USD higher and especially with modern DX10 titles we start to see the benefit of more than 512MB memory. Granted you need to play your games above a 1600x1200 monitor resolution though. Either memory configuration will be fine really, yet the 1024MB model will have that extra little bite and not easily run out of video memory.
The GeForce GTS 250 is an okay product series really. If you can pick up a product like what ECS offers as shown to you today at a fair price, heck, why not? It's a lot of bang for your bucks, and there's just nothing wrong with that. Just don't pay too much though, because at 200 bucks you can already pick up a GeForce GTX 260. ECS always has been king of pricing and as such we expect to find this product in e-tail for roughly 150 USD. Great value and a lovely product.
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