Camera Labs

Hi folks! Installed the GTS 250 (1GB) card today. This is the default scenario with nothing tweaked:



The excellent (heatsink+fan) system is very silent. The fan seems to accelerate only during significant GPU usage. Tried some VERY demanding video modes and all went so smooth, I am amazed. Haven't tried any 3d yet, cause all the games I had been playing (while my earlier card was alive) got messed up after I had to do a win repair). I guess photography is gonna be on hold for a while...

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SX10IS
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You had to do a repair? for replacing the video card...

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

Not for replacing the card. Some things weren't running correctly for quite a while. Probably because of 3rd party "visual" enhancements or may be my HIPS or something else or a combination of all..... I didn't know. It was worth a format, but I got away with just a repair. That was good-enough atm...

BTW, the holy-grails of fps are running real smooth @ near-high specs in 1024/768@85hz

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SX10IS
Flickr Picasa

I thought you ment your HIPS like, on your body LOL!

Crysis? Yep, its still ripping rigs apart.

The new ATI card still can't bash it at 1920x1200. Roll on GT300 mwahahahaa

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

Yeah, my hips alright, just not a part of me
I think my 17" crt has 1 good thing after all - a native resolution of 1024x768@85Hz which is not too hard on resources - my crappy 677 MHz DDR2 RAM (2GB) in this case. The 1GB video memory can be a plus point though, should I go for a 22" LCD sometime... But I really miss RAM... and my mobo only has 2 slots Honestly, even my E6300 seems surprisingly outdated. Guess I need an all-new-PC...

About the GT300 - I'm not getting any new GPU for a while, but you may find this interesting... http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1137331/a-look-nvidia-gt300-architecture

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SX10IS
Flickr Picasa

That's an interesting article. I've always found the Inquirer to be biased against NVidia (NVidiots?) but if what they are saying is even slightly true, Nvidia is not looking good.

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Graham
Flickr

Yeah thats all BS. There's been a lot of places making a deal out of a few skimpy details coming out.

Stuff to do with Yields being under 2% or 3% but no one knew if that was a first run, final run anything. People just assumed worse case.

I'll happily place a bet on the GTX380 being faster than ATI's 5870, but surely anyone would guess that? They've had more time.

Plus have you looked at the 5870's benchmarks in crossfire...they are faster than the GTX285, sure, but its not any monumental leap.

Meh, as with everything, we'll see eventually. I still wouldn't buy an ATI card even if it was faster at the same price. Maybe i'm bias...

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Canon EOS 5DmkII + BG-E6 + Canon EOS 40D + BG-E2N + Canon EOS 33
Canon 17-40 F/4L USM + Canon 24-70 F/2.8L USM + Canon 28mm F/1.8 USM + Canon 70-200 F/2.8L USM IS + Canon 85mm F/1.8 USM
Canon Speedlite 580EX II + Canon Speedlite 540EZ + 2 x Nikon SB-80DX
Cactus V2s Wireless Trigger - 5 x Cactus V2s Wireless Reciever

MY FLICKR!

True that the 5870 performance isn't as big as the jump from say, the 9800GTX to the GTX280 but you have to take the price into account. ATI may have been aiming for the GTX295 (no easy feat) but here in Australia street price for the 5870 is the same as the GTX285.

Well the computer hardware market is so competitive that even if the GT300s are significantly inferior to the the RV870, Nvidia would price them more competitively and likewise for ATI if the RV870 underperforms. The GTX3xx launch will be interesting because ATI is already planning the 5890 for launch then.

Yes I think buying Nvidia even when they are slower is most definitely bias. I am not liking Nvidia so much at the moment not so much because of their performance but because of the crap that they put in my laptop and the very sloppy way that they dealt with it.

Sorry to take your thread off topic ROY.1

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Graham
Flickr

I think the discussion is very much on topic, so no need to be sorry, Graham

As far as "bias" is concerned, I did end up with (for the 3rd time) another nvidia-based card... in spite of having some *supposedly* better alternatives...

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SX10IS
Flickr Picasa

Congrats on the card! You'll be good with newer games for a while. I have the 9800GT, and overclocked it so it performs the same as the 250 GTS.

Here's the interesting history about the cards:



from: anandtech

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

I never understood why Nvidia does these funny name changes. 260 -> 260 Core 216 was the only one that made sense to me.

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Graham
Flickr

I do. A "new model" sells much better than "yeah we're selling you practically the 2007 model"

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

That's true Marijn but I've always thought of the people who pick their own components as having more sense than that. I would never buy a PC component without checking up it's background and a few benchmarks at least.

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Graham
Flickr

Neither did I, that's why I indeed bought the 9800GT when I built my PC
Still, not everyone knows nvidia's history with graphics cards, and hey, it still is a nice performing card

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Hi guys! Actually I did do a little research before settling for the GTS250 (1G). Although it is basically the same chip as the 9800GTX+, the design is totally new, and is actually a tad "shorter" than the 98's and also the 512MB variant of GTS250. It has a very robust cooling system and the power consumption is much lower, and the card is VERY silent - most of the time. Performance, as you expect, is of course good, but there's room for overclocking here too! Overall, I think it has quite an edge over the 9800GTX+. The next higher end cards - the 260s, are of course faster, but require more power - both from the psu and other components. I think That would have been an overkill for my current setup. Besides, the performance gains with the 260 cards aren't necessarily significantly higher. The MSI 250GTS 1GB cards are priced quite lower than the xfx/asus counterparts, and are cooler, less noisy, and use less power. At 1024x768/85HZ, crysis, cod4/5, l4d - all seem to not mind the high spec settings. The 1GB DDR3 memory can be a blessing if played at higher resolutions. Gaming aside, CS4 needs this

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SX10IS
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