• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Ordered Sparkle Low Profile GTS 250

S

SpeedyVV

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Sep 14, 2007
Messages
4,210
Had to share in my excitement of finally seing the GTS 250 low profile card for my HTPC.

My HTPC is connected to my Westy and sometimes I just feel like running a game on it, so now I think I got the fastest low profile card that does decent job for video\audio.

Will let you know after oldegg gets the card in my hands.

1st time I buy something without reading a review. Hope I did the right thing.

Sparkle GTS 250 1Gb
 
Looks like it's clocked significantly lower than the standard gts 250, i wonder if it will still be faster than the low profile 9800GT?
 
For sure... I just got so pumped had to say something... I have been waiting for it ever since it was announced about a month ago.

Does anyone know if the GTS 250 does 7.1 audio over HDMI?
 
3Aims said:
Huh?

UPC No.
4710710446772
GPU / VPU
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
Core Clock
600 MHz
Memory Clock
1500 MHz
Click to expand...

Normal GTS250 is:
core:shader:memory
738:1836:2200

This one is:
600: (unknown, but it IS linked to the "600" core speed, so it will be lower, presumably 1500, inline with the 9800GX2's core:shader ratio) :1500

EDIT: I think the memory clock is a newegg fault. The default memory clock for a GTS250 is 2200MHz, even at 9800GT at 1800MHz is faster then 1500MHz NewEgg is claiming. The 1500MHz makes more sense for the "shader clock" value.
 
FranklyShankly said:
Looks like it's clocked significantly lower than the standard gts 250, i wonder if it will still be faster than the low profile 9800GT?
Click to expand...


yes because the GTS 250 has more shader processors then the 9800GT.. so even with the lower clock speeds it will still be faster then the 9800GT..

and yes you are correct jeremyshaw.. 600mhz on the gpu would be 1503mhz on the shaders.. so newegg has it wrong.. basicly making it as fast as the 9800GT while still having more SP's thus still being faster then the 9800GT..

found some more numbers..


lowprofilegts250.jpg


image was rehosted by me but is originally from here

so it looks like the 1GB version memory is at 1600 while the 512mb version is running at 1800mhz.. either way it will be faster then the 9800GT..

stock 9800GT is 600/1500/900 on 112 SP's vs this low profile GTS 250 which is 600/1500/800 with 128 SP's.. though im sure the vram could easily be pushed up to 1ghz(2ghz)..
 
Last edited:
SpeedyVV said:
I have a 9800GT. I will bench the two once I get the card.
Click to expand...

Any chance for an update? And I would love to know how this does with Crysis on very high but at 1366x768, if you could find the time to check. I'm trying to decide if this card will be worthwhile

Edit: just clarifying, interested in mainly the gts250, but the 9800gt would be nice to compare too i guess
 
The reference GTS 250 1GB does terribly on Crysis all very high settings even at 1280*1024 (mid-20's average FPS, though the FPS improves markedly when dumbing down to High settings), so I doubt this little number would do any better..
 
Really? I thought it did better than that, especially since it is an updated and faster 8800GTS G92, which I had before and averaged that. I will have to check some reviews again I guess... I'm still interested in hearing SpeedyVV's first hand experience.
 
From the reviews on newegg, it seems good. Why did you give a 3/5 though? That's actually hurting it's rating on newegg at the moment, and with no apparent reason...
 
Damn. Only found a couple reviews that tested at 1280x1024 very high and you're right, won't be fast enough. Does anyone know of any upcoming low profile cards that might be able to handle it?
 
*B* said:
Really? I thought it did better than that, especially since it is an updated and faster 8800GTS G92, which I had before and averaged that. I will have to check some reviews again I guess... I'm still interested in hearing SpeedyVV's first hand experience.
Click to expand...

Yup. I had the PNY GTS 250 1GB (which has faster clocks than this one) before the my HD 5770 and my current HD 5850. The GTS 250 was pretty much unplayable at Very High at any res above XGA, whereas the 5770 (roughly equal to the GTX 260 and HD 4870) was just OK up to about 1680*1050 but still suffered a few nasty dips. 5850 is smooth as butter, but that's to be expected.

The GTS 250 is really just a 8800 GTS built on a newer process with a more efficient PCB to consume less power and operate on faster frequencies. For performance comparisons, it is simply an overclocked version of G92 8800 GTS, and since this one has lower clocks than reference I'd imagine the gap would be even smaller. I wouldn't pay more than $100 for one, though the Sparkle represents an interesting proposition in being low-profile and bringing decent budget performance to systems that have little or no other alternatives. Plus, seems like you get a crappy 550W PSU with it for a limited time from Newegg..

EDIT: Based on playing around with a GPUReview comparison between these two cards (to get the clocks of the reference GTS 250 down to Sparkle's 600/1800), the math says this one will perform worse than the G92 8800 GTS.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top