Asus Launches 5 GeForce GTS 250 Cards
Asus this week broke NDA with Nvidia and accidentally leaked details of the upcoming GeForce GTS 250 based cards. Although the original press release was removed just several before time of writing, we were able to save details of the release.
Technically, the new GeForce GTS 250s don't bring anything new to the table, since they're simply a relaunch and re-brand of Nvidia's venerable GTX 9800+ which again, was a die shrink of the GTX 9800. The point of the new card is to realign the 9800+ into Nvidia's current naming convention, so that customers clearly see where the card is positioned relative to the current GTX 2XX series.
One of Nvidia partner's informed us that the GTS 250 also gives way to a price drop--how much of a price drop, we don't know. Newegg is offering discounts on the GTX 9800+ cards, with an average price of roughly $149.99, so we can expect the GTS 250 to be in that range.
Despite the vague prices, Asus is launching its GTS 250 line up with no less than five flavors of the GTS 250, with the top one being called the ENGT250 DK TOP/HTDI/512MD3. However, Asus claims that its offering leaps ahead of other cards by 20-percent. We can't confirm these numbers yet, but Asus says its ENGT250 DK TOP/HTDI/512MD3 has overclocked core, shader, and memory speeds of 775 MHz, 1950 MHz and 2.36 GHz respectively. These are up from 738 MHz, 1836 MHz and 1.18 GHz reference speeds. Asus is also offering a board with 1 GB of memory, but doesn't come with the same speed increases.
All five boards are based on the Dark Knight theme, which is relatively old at this point. Ironically, the theme has nothing to do with the Dark Knight movie, but Asus is betting on the namesake to boost sales. Asus will also offer games a discount coupon, valued at $25 or up to 10-percent off a selection of games--300 titles are available to choose from says Asus. Asus says games such as Fallout 3, Far Cry 2 and Call of Duty: World at War are part of the selection.
No final pricing or availability dates are available at this present time. Last we checked, the original press release was no longer available on Asus' website, but should reappear again.
Update: We mistakenly wrote the GTS 250 as GTX 250. It's now been fixed. Thanks for the quick feedback guys.
+1 nVidia naming strategies!
some new builders will far for the naming thing while they could have better value card like ATI
and no im not a fanboy im just saying ati won this time
Also,it's a 9800 GTX+,not the other way around.
Seriously, its a much better choice to go for the hd4870 512mb which just dropped down to the same price of this card at $150. This card is just an old 9800+ with a new name. Asus just fell into a deep hole with this junky series.
but the renaming does get confusing but when you look at computers as a hole everything is confusing!
Um... Yes, if that makes you feel ok about the new naming scheme.
I want to see what idiot is going to buy such a old chip.
I think this was meant to be sarcasm?
8800GTX and 9800GTX were pretty much the same⦠and now they rename it to GTX250. They are three cards almost identical.
Nvidia hasn't been able to create a legit low-end 2xx series cards. In fact, the entire GTX 2xx line-up is only a single chip. The 260, 280, 285, and 295 are all the same chip. The only difference is clock-speed, included memory, and newer cards went through a die-shrink. Nvidia never bothered to create a new budget or economy line from this chipset. Therefore, their only option to stay competitive is to rebrand old technology, they have no new technology to market.
Nvidia just sat on their thumbs for too long when ATI wasn't able to compete, and now that ATI has better options, they're caught playing catch-up.
Don't buy anything less than the gtx 260 core 216 from Nvidia as the 4870 will beat them all for $149
LOL totally true, also look at the title "Asus Launches 5 GeForce GTS 250 Cards".
BTW yeah great "article" (scoff) ... wait, is that a nvidia add I see on the right ?
credibility plummets...
LOL yea it was supposed to be sarcasm.
I guess im just not being blunt enough...