EVGA NVidia GeForce GTS 250 Video Card Review

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The performance of this card has been great, and it made a very noticeable difference in my games. For example, I was able to nearly max out all the settings in Crysis and it still run smoothly, whereas before with my 8600 GT I had to keep everything turned down just to make it work. Battlestations Pacific went from jerky to smooth, and now it is even more playable than before. Somewhat older games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, didn’t seem to run much better, but they were already as good as they could get. Left 4 Dead showed some improvement when I turned up the anti-aliasing settings. Ghostbusters: The Video Game also looked much better with the new card.

The EVGA brand seems to be pretty reliable when it comes to all the various manufacturers of video cards and other PC components. I bought the card from NewEgg.com for $124.99, and part of the reason why I chose it was that out of almost 150 customer ratings, the card had an overall rating of 5 out of 5. For the price and features, it was the best deal for the amount of money I wanted to spend. I have previously owned two other video cards from EVGA and had no problems with them.

Installation of this card took a little work. On my HP desktop, the SATA drive connectors on the motherboard are located directly in line with the PCI Express x16 slot where this video card connects. Because this card is so gargantuan, part of the card presses down on the SATA connectors. I debated whether or not to take a pocketknife and trim down the plastic, but I was able to get it to work. I am applying pressure to the connectors and probably not doing them any good, but it still works. Before you buy this card, take a good long look at the inside of your PC case and make sure that the card will fit. My HP brand PC is a pretty average size desktop and this card just barely fits.

After you've installed everything, be sure to visit Nvidia.com to download the latest drivers, as they are updated quite often.

This video card can be a little on the noisy side when playing a very graphic intensive games. When it needs to work, I can hear the fans spin up. I also noticed that it took a while after I quit playing the game before the fans spun back down. I suppose that once it gets hot, it stays that way. The size of my PC probably has something to do with it. EVGA included software to manually control the speed of the fans, but I would not recommend playing with it unless you know what you’re doing. You might cause your card to overheat.

The bottom line here is that with a two year old desktop PC and this GeForce GTS 250 high-end video card from EVGA, I can run most any game off the shelf. It currently retails at NewEgg.com for $124.99 after a $10 mail-in rebate.