NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250

The latest product of NVIDIA’s renaming spree is the GTS 250, previously known as the 9800GTX+. Is this just another ploy by NVIDIA to push old parts on unsuspecting consumers?

Lately, Nvidia has developed the rather bad habit of renaming previous generation models and then trying to pass them off as part of the latest generation of graphics cards.

Previous examples include the 8800GS becoming the 9600GSO and the 8800GT being rebranded as the 9800GT, both of which resulted from the G92 chip spanning across the GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 series of cards.

The latest spate of renaming stems largely from Nvidia’s difficulty in getting a scaled down version of the GT200 out the door to cater to the lower segments of the market – where the majority of sales reside. Consequently Nvidia has no choice but to let the G92 (and its derivatives) live on even longer to fill in this part of the market.

We have no issue with allowing an architecture to live longer than would be expected, but Nvidia has plans to rename most of the GeForce 9 series according to their new naming convention (GTx xxx). Nvidia argues that the new names of the cards reflect their positioning in the current lineup of models.

Their argument, however, falls flat when you consider that price already serves as a pretty decent indicator of a model’s positioning in the performance spectrum. Nvidia is just trying to scrape more sales out of the bottom of the (shrinking) barrel, hoping that those who aren’t so deep into computer hardware will equate a newer model number with newer technology and better performance. But now that you’ve read this, that’s not going to happen.

Anyway, back to the GeForce GTS 250. It’s just a renamed 9800GTX+. The only thing that we can expect to change is power consumption, due to a redesigned PCB. Also, 1GB editions now officially exist as well.

Nvidia is launching the GeForce GTS 250 512MB at USD129 and the GeForce GTS 250 1GB at USD149.

The performance results for the 512MB version will be no surprise at all. The only thing of interest here is whether the extra memory actually helps the 1GB version, or is no more than a waste of a perfectly good 20 bucks.