TestBed

Motherboard: MSI P45D3 Platinum ( Provided By: MSI );
Processor: Intel Core 2 QX9770 Extreme edition at 3.6GHz ( Provided By: Intel );
Memory: Corsair Dominator 12800 7-7-7-24 ( Provided By: Corsair);
HDD: WD VelociRaptor 300G 10,000RPM ( Provided By: SmoothCreation );
Driver: AMD 9-4_vista32_win7_32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu.exe
          Nvidia_185.85_geforce_winvista_32bit_english_whql.exe
         
Vista 32 SP1

Futuremark Test

3DMark Vantage High test reports the Gainward GTS 250 2GB to be identical to the reference card. Still, this card packs potential and we expect it to shine in newer games, especially the ones yet to come as they’ll know how to put Gainward GTS 250’s large frame buffer to good use.


Gaming

Far Cry 2

The tables we’re looking at show that GTS 250 2GB is the slowest card coming from Gainward, but it still scores great compared to the GTS 250 512MB. At 1680x1050 we see 10% better results, but the 2GB frame buffer greatly helps in antialiasing and high resolution scenarios.

The fastest HD 4850 card is Goes Like Hell and it comes with 512MB of GDDR5. This Gainward’s special HD 4850 scores 17% better than reference HD 4850 with 512MB GDDR3. The same card beats Gainward HD 4850 GS 1GB GDDR3 card by 4%.

The HD 4850 GS GLH’s shortcoming however is in the 512MB of memory (despite it being GDDR5), because, as you can see for yourself, the card loses to HD 4850 1GB. We’re talking about 10 fps less, meaning that turning on antialiasing at high resolutions in FarCry 2 results in less than 26 fps.   






GTS 250 2GB card allows for gaming at 1920x1200 with antialiasing on, where it churns out 30fps, whereas the fastest HD 4850 card with 512MB of memory loses by 28% and the reference HD 4850 512MB by as much as 41%. The same resolution sees the reference GTS 250 512MB lose by even more embarrassing 48%.

Two Gainward’s cards are in the same range as HD 4890, namely the GTX 260 GLH and the GTX 275. Both of these cards are great for gaming at all the tested resolutions, and we see over 40fps at 1920x1200 even when AA and aniso filters are on.






World in Conflict

Unlike our previous FarCry 2 testing, this game doesn’t consider more memory to be an advantage, not even at high resolutions and antialiasing. Gainward GTS 250 2GB ended up lagging slightly behind the GTS 250 512MB card, whereas Gainward’s HD 4850 1GB was faster than the reference HD 4850 mostly due to higher clocks.

Nvidia still ends up faring better in World in Conflict, as GTS 250 emerges a winner versus HD 4850.









Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead is a nice game, and any of the tested Gainward’s cards will definitely strike your chord. All the cards achieve over 60 fps at all the tested resolutions. Unlike in FarCry 2, the HD 4850 GS 1024MB with GDDR3 is constantly taking a beating from the HD 4850 GS GLH with 512MB of GDDR5 memory. The core and memory clocks help the GLH card beat Gainward’s HD 4850 GS 1024MB by up to 19%.

Our today’s test subject – the Geforce GTS 250 2GB does well and is keeping up with HD 4850 GS 1024MB. It manages to score over 60 fps at 1920x1200 with antialiasing on.










HAWX

Similar to Left 4 Dead gaming tests, Gainward HD 4850 GS GLH is performing better than HD 4850 1GB. Note that all the tested resolutions provide a playable framerate.

You’ll notice how the GTS 250 2GB scores nicely with no antialiasing on, but the scores duck considerably when antialiasing is turned on. The reason for this is the HAWX game, where we turned on DirectX 10.1 for Radeon cards, which is not supported by Geforce cards. That however didn’t stop Gainward GTS 250 2GB from beating the reference GTS 250 512MB by 33%, mostly thanks to the additional memory. So, this is another game which puts memory to good use.