GeForce GTS 250 Roundup (ASUS, Gigabyte, Sparkle, EVGA)

EVGA GTS 250 1GB Superclocked

Manufacturer Product Page: EVGA | Products
Product Number: 01G-P3-1156-TR
Warranty: 1+1 Year
Price: Click here to compare prices


The packaging for the EVGA GTS 250 1GB Superclocked is basically identical to nearly every other EVGA card we have looked at…and there isn’t anything wrong with that. We happen to like the understated civility of a black box with a small dash of color. The protection around the card is well done with the GTS 250 being suspended in a plastic clamshell.


The accessories included with this card are a bit disappointing but the basics are there. You get a driver CD, a single DVI to VGA dongle and a Molex to 6-pin adaptor. MIA is the HDTV Out cable, a DVI to HDMI adaptor and the S/PDIF cable we saw with some other cards.


You may remember that when the initial reviews of the GTS 250 were published, reviewers received cards with plain green PCBs. That has changed with the EVGA Superclocked edition sporting a black PCB and a heatsink which looks a lot like those seen on older 8800 GTS 512MB cards. It also seems that EVGA has begun widespread implementation of their new heatsink sticker design which interjects a bit of red onto a plain black design. All in all, we love this understated approach to heatsink design.


Cooling is done by way of a single 80mm fan which draws in cool air, forces it over an internal fin assembly and then pushes it out the end of the card. As such, the EVGA Superclocked is the only card in this roundup that doesn’t dump all of the core’s heat right back into the interior of your case.

This card uses a single PCI-E 6-pin connector which is par for the course with most 55nm-equipped GTS 250 products. On the other hand, there isn’t any sign of the S/PDIF header we have seen on some competitors. Personally, I think the omission of audio pass-through is a great step towards lowering the overall cost of this card especially considering very few people will use it (sorry to the few of you who actually use Nvidia’s somewhat lame method of transferring audio signals to an HDMI connector).


The selection of output connectors on the Superclocked Edition are what we have come to expect with a pair of DVI connectors and a single TV-out port.


The actual PCB of EVGA’s entry is the exact same length as the ASUS Dark Knight at 9.5” but due to a slight bevel in the back of the heatsink shroud, it becomes about ¼” longer than the non-reference ASUS card. One way or another, the Superclocked Edition still shorter than the somewhat oversized 9800 GTX+ 512MB.