PNY VCGGTS2501XPB GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Retail

Reviewed By: on 2/9/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

Pros: The pipeline! This card out performs more expensive cards. One of Nvidia's best, in my opinion. This card has everything except DX11, and that's not important for atleast another year. Card dosen't make a sound.

Cons: Drivers that came with the disc wouldnt load on my Vista 64 bit OS. PNY's website didnt help much either. PNY has a horrible website. I got the newest drivers from Nvidia's website, the card runs smooth. I think I may have done something wrong because my Windows is telling me that the card is only a 5.9?

Other Thoughts: PNY had an offer on the box that said 'buy this card and choose 2 free digital download movies', the movies we're from a pool of movies that no one watched even when they were new releases. What a joke. PNY is a company that is doing everything right, even if their presentation is poor. Also, before you install the card, write down the serial number so you can register it.

Runs WoW on Ultra settings with tripple buff, vsync, and settings turned up to Quality>Performance.

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Possibly best for price?

Reviewed By: Th3 PatRi0t on 2/3/2010

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Where to start about this card....? 1 gig ram is more than a GTX 260 core 216! I had this installed in conjunction with an Athlon X2 6000+ and 4 gigs of DDR2 800 ram. It ate up ALMOST everything i threw at it. ALMOST. Crysis ran beautifly MW2 on highest settings and 1680 x 1050 drops frame rate a bit almost frustratingly at intense fighting times. Plays Blu-ray better than anything on earth, fantastic. Ran cool, fan was very quiet

Cons: Shattered Horizons would barely play on lowest settings. That probably was because my aging Athlon X2 was bottlenecking it. MW2 also frustratingly dropped its FPS quiet a bit.

Other Thoughts: For the price, you can't get any better, I had an ULTRA brand mid-tower and it fit in perfectly, Just watch out on your motherboard that the end of the card doesnt cover up your SATA ports. Make sure you have a powerful enough power supply (i had a 600 watt) and a fast enough processor/ram to avoid bottlenecking.

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Love this card! Fan noise though....

Reviewed By: losiglow on 2/2/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: For the avid gamer this card does just about everything you'd want it to. With a good case and decent airflow, it will stay pretty cool as well. Mine idles around 38C, load at about 50C. Plays everything I throw at it at the highest settings.

Cons: The card started making this high pitched noise, almost like a ringing in the ears sound, at about one month of use. I narrowed it down to the fan. When I unplugged the fan the sound stopped. It was strange; when I scrolled up or down the ringing sound would fluctuate. I've never seen this in a video card before. I removed the fan and installed a standard 80mm case fan and used an extra port on my Scythe fan controller to control the speed. That solved the problem. Still, docking an egg for the goofy problem. I can't stand wierd noises in my PC.

Other Thoughts: Excellent card overall. I've used two others in gaming builds and both clients are very happy (they haven't commented on any high pitched ringing noises. Maybe I'm half dog....)

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