Since launching the GTX 200 core one year ago, nVidia have continued to enhance and develop their existing 9000 series, refining the G92 core that began life in the latter part of their 8th generation cards. But other than the fact that prices continue to fall as newer, faster revisions of chips are created, and you can now get a GTX 260 for less than half the price it launched at last year, there have been no new mid-range or low-end cards introduced to round out the bottom of the 200 series model line. Instead we've seen such cards appear as the 9600GSO, 9800GTX and 9800GTX+ to take up these slots.

A few months ago I took a look at the Leadtek PX9800 GTX+ Limited. With a smaller 55nm die, 128 processor cores, a 738Mhz clock speed and 512Mb of 1100Mhz DDR3 memory, the 9800 GTX+ represented the top of the 9000 series evolutionary chain. It seems nVidia decided it's time for a new naming convention, and has basically re-released the 9800 GTX+ rebranded as the GTS 250.


XFX is quick to launch their version of the GTS 250, titled the Core Edition, and is available either with or without game bundle and with either 512Mb or 1024Mb of DDR3 memory. The one I have for review today is the 512Mb GS-250X-YDFU, which bundles the Call of Duty 4 game with the card. There is also a key to register and download a free copy of Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage Advanced Edition benchmark. Even though not much has changed on paper since the 9800 GTX+ let's have a closer look at the XFX GTS 250 and see if there's anything else to the new name.