中端显卡对比评测之--ASUS GTS 250 Dark Knight and Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor

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The [size=1em]ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark KnightIntroduction

The world of graphics is...interesting to say the least.  I know many of you would call the move from $1000 GPUs being the king of the proverbial hill to $250 cards dominating that space to be less exciting, but there is no arguing that it is more affordable.  We have seen our fair share of new graphics cards hit the market with one prevailing trend: performance is getting cheap; really cheap.

In March we saw the GeForce GTS 250 take over the space of the 9800 GTX+ while lowering the price and most recently the AMD Radeon HD 4770 brought the world the first 40nm GPU and a handy $99 price tag.  And the [size=1em]Radeon HD 4850 is still a dominant force selling for the $130 range.  Which brings us to today's article comparing a couple of new cards we had sitting around the office both of which are [size=1em]overclocked and offer more features than their reference sidekicks.  

The ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight 512MB

The ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight edition (no relation to Batman though) is a custom cooled version of the popular GPU that is slightly more attractive.

The cooler design is an open air design that uses a set of four heatpipes to transfer heat from the GPU to the fins across the card.

The clock speeds on the ASUS card are pretty close to reference: 740 MHz core clock, 1836 MHz shader clock and 2200 MHz GDDR3 [size=1em]memory speeds.  

The back of the card is pretty much blank as all the memory is located on the front.

The connectors on the card include a pair of dual-link DVI outputs, one of which supports DVI-to-HDMI adaptors (the yellow one).  There is also a connector that supports component HDTV output on the far left.

The GTS 250 DK uses a single 6-pin power connector.

The heatsink on the ASUS GTS 250 DK is actually only actively being cooled is the GPU - the memory is left to be passively air cooled.  The fan does push moving air over the memory chips and we didn't have any problems NOT having heatsinks on them.  

In the box with the ASUS card are all the various cables you should need to get running.  There is a digital audio cable to pass sound through the yellow DVI-to-HDMI adaptor, a DVI-to-VGA

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The Sapphire [size=1em]Radeon HD 4850 Vapor

The Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor also uses a custom cooler design in order to differentiate itself from the swath of HD 4850 offerings on the market.  

The larger fan on the Vapor cooler allows it to spin slower, and thus, remain quiet.  The clock speeds on the Sapphire card remain at reference speeds: 625 MHz core clock and 1996 MHz GDDR3 [size=1em]memory speed.

The back of the card is again bare - nothing to see here.

The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Vapor supports CrossFire configurations with up to four total GPUs - if your budget and [size=1em]motherboard can support the extra cards.  

The external connectors on the Vapor card include a VGA output, dual-link DVI output and HDMI output that supports audio output with the integrated audio codec on the GPU.

Just like the [size=1em]ASUS GTS 250 DK card, the Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor requires a single 6-pin PCIe power connection.

Inside the box with the Sapphire card are a power adaptor, CrossFire connections and a host of software including 3DMark Vantage and PowerDVD.

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Comparisons and Test System SetupBoth the [size=1em]ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight edition and the Sapphire [size=1em]Radeon HD 4850 Vapor cards are really more about better-than-standard cooling offerings that out-of-the-box [size=1em]overclocking, leaving the customer to pursue the avenue of clock speed increases on their own.  

ASUS GeForce GTS 250 DK 512MB


Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Vapor 512MB

For our benchmarks today we are going to be comparing both the ASUS and Sapphire cards to the recently released Radeon HD 4770 card and the 1GB version of the GeForce GTS 250.  The ASUS GTS 250 DK 512MB card will sell for about $130 while the Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor 512MB card goes for about $135

Test System Setup
CPU	Intel Core i7-920 @ 2.67 GHz
[size=1em]Motherboards	ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution X58 + nForce 200
[size=1em]Memory	Corsair 3 x 2GB DDR3-1600
Hard Drive	Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB
Sound Card	Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value
Video Card	ASUS GeForce GTS 250 DK 512MB Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Vapor 512MB [size=1em]AMD Radeon HD 4770 512MB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1GB
Video Drivers	NVIDIA: 182.08 AMD: Catalyst 9.4
Power Supply	PC Power and Cooling Turbo-Cool 1200w
DirectX Version	DX10 / DX9c
Operating System	Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Our thanks go out to Corsair for the memory for our test bed, to PC Power and Cooling for the 1200w beast of a PSU for the system and to ASUS for the P6T6 WS Revolution [size=1em]motherboard.

• Call of Duty: World at War
• Crysis
• Far Cry 2
• Left 4 Dead
• 3DMark Vantage

[size=1em]Call of Duty: [size=1em]World at War

Call of Duty: World at War (DirectX 9)

Call of Duty: World at War is a WWII-based shooter built on the Call of Duty 4 engine with a little flair added.  The game is unique in the genre as it sets the game at the Pacific stage rather than the much more common, and less controversial, European front.  

Call of Duty: World at War settings

For our testing with CoD: WaW we ran through the level of the game shown above while recording in FRAPS to get our frame rate comparisons below.  The game plays almost exactly like CoD 4 (a good thing) so our testing methods were reliable and repeatable.  

Between the Sapphire and ASUS cards being tested today the ASUS card gets the VERY slight performance lead though the 1GB version of the GTS 250 wins overall.

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Crysis

Crysis (DirectX 10)

Without a doubt the most breath taking game I have seen yet, Crysis is from the developers of Far Cry, yet another title that was ahead of its time.  This game will bring any system to its knees, but look good doing it.

  

Crysis Test Settings

There is a clearly evident waterfall-effect here with the first three cards in our benchmarks - the [size=1em]ASUS GTS 250 DK followed by the Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor and then the [size=1em]Radeon HD 4770.  The 1GB GTS 250 is also a strong contender though it actually is a bit slower than our ASUS 512MB offering.


Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 ([size=1em]DirectX 10)

Far Cry 2 is the spiritual sequel to one of the best selling and longest living [size=1em]games on the PC though this title was developed not by Crytek, but by Ubisoft directly using a completely new [size=1em]engine as well.  The game is set in Africa and you have malaria - what else do you need to know?

Far Cry 2 settings

Far Cry 2 includes a great benchmarking utility that allows us to setup for in-game testing of all varieties and includes both the ability to benchmark based on time (variable frame count) or based on speed (fixed frame count) - we went with the time-based option to simulate real-world gaming and allowing for apples-to-apples comparisons.  

This is the only benchmark that clearly shows use of the 1GB of frame buffer as opposed to the 512MB frame buffer - the GTS 250 at least sees a increase in [size=1em]performance for the first time.  The other three offerings do have some trouble with Far Cry 2 at these resolutions and image quality settings so it would be wise to turn these down during your normal gameplay but our scores are useful for performance comparisons none the less.

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Left 4 Dead

Left 4 Dead (DirectX 9)

[size=1em]Developed by a new team of Valve's, Left 4 Dead is a single or multi-player game that encompasses the most automatic story for a shooter: zombie apocalypse.  The team aspect of the title, based on Valve's Source engine, really makes this a unique gaming experience that I think all PC gamers should be required to play.

  Left 4 Dead settings

The Valve: Source engine supports in-game demos that can be played back as fast as possible (fixed frame count) or in real-time (variable frame count) to simulate a more real-world experience.  I chose the last stage of the Farm House "movie" and played through the cornfield section to get the majority of the level in the FRAPS run through.  

Left 4 Dead clearly favors the ASUS GeForce GTS 250 DK card over the Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Vapor card though both play the game great at 2048x1536.


3DMark Vantage

The 3DMark Vantage [size=1em]test puts all these [size=1em]cards on a pretty equal [size=1em]performance ground - though our real-world [size=1em]gaming results were a bit more decisive and we'd always recommend considering those first.

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Power Consumption and Final Thoughts

The [size=1em]ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight is probably the best performer of the bunch test here today but it also uses the most power in our testing.  Under a gaming load it uses about 30 watts more than the Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor 512MB card and about 25 additional watts at idle.  

Performance

Throughout our performance tests, the one card that clearly came out ahead of the pack were the two GeForce GTS 250 cards, the reference 1GB and the ASUS Dark Knight edition 512MB.  In most cases though the performance gaps between the ASUS GTS 250 DK card and the Sapphire HD 4850 Vapor were relatively small and only in one case do I feel that the performance differences would make a noticeable gameplay advantage - that was in Left 4 Dead.  

In reality, for the price, any of these cards, including the recently released [size=1em]Radeon HD 4770 and its 40nm GPU design, is going to offer really good gaming performance for the price.

Pricing and Availability

Speaking of the price, things got a bit more interesting during the time from testing to write up with these two cards.  The ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight 512MB card can now be found for as low as $109 after mail-in rebate.  The Sapphire [size=1em]Radeon HD 4850 Vapor 512MB is pretty hard to find today, but the 1GB model is for sale for about $145 after a mail-in rebate.  Unfortunately for Sapphire that price discrepency puts the GTS 250 Dark Knight card, even though it has half the [size=1em]memory as the HD 4850 Vapor card available today, the better value.  In fact, it is one of the least expensive GeForce GTS 250 cards available, period.  

This is also a concern for the [size=1em]Radeon HD 4770 cards on the market today - the lowest we have seen them for sale is $99 and it would struggle to keep up this ASUS GTS 250 that is selling for only $10 more.  Even worse, Newegg shows NO HD 4770s in stock as of this writing; is [size=1em]AMD having problems getting the availability needed for demand with TSMC's 40nm process?

Final Thoughts

The market for sub-$150 [size=1em]graphics cards is still just as crowded and confusing as it was before this article, but if you are considering a GPU in the price range then we do have some final recommendations for you.  Easily the best performing card in our testing today was the ASUS GeForce GTS 250 Dark Knight 512MB card though in a couple cases the 1GB model stood out above it.  The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 Vapor 512MB  card still had some great gaming performance for a $140 card or so and if you are an AMD die-hard or have existing HD 4000-series technology you want to expand with CrossFire technology then it is the better choice.  However, if I were to go for an AMD solution today, I would likely pick the HD 4770 - if you can find them that is.

淘宝买悍马

E文，看不懂

Michal

GTS250-512 说实话这东西也叫250就是把买家当250，NV干脆全系列250好了

nukualofa

有什么好比的，98GTX+和4850在公版频率下前者游戏性能略强，所以250比4850也是如此。
如果价格也是699-799，那还是比较有吸引力的
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用索泰98GTX+首发版的飘过

Travis_rage

不信，250竟然全面领先4850和4770，谁来给个合理解释？

你是我的温柔

当初250刚出来的时候，众多测试里是踩着4870的啊。还有本坛某版的对比测试，A卡都有一个致命缺陷，即MIN FPS，那是比250低很多，为啥到这测试里，这两片卡的曲线基本重合呢？

不喝孟婆汤

般大辛苦了。。。   9800GTX+默认下确实要比默认的4850要强。。
测试很切实际，很详细。不过一直有个疑惑，为何有些游戏中1G的250反而最大帧数不如512的呢？（如Crysis）..

hansomehy

般大辛苦了。。。   9800GTX+默认下确实要比默认的4850要强。。
测试很切实际，很详细。不过一直有个疑惑，为何有些游戏中1G的250反而最大帧数不如512的呢？（如Crysis）..
不喝孟婆汤 发表于 2009-6-9 10:47

同问。大显存反而落后了。

lswq1978

我需要一个翻译

leiren82

结论能搞成中文的么?

aylwyn

当初250刚出来的时候，众多测试里是踩着4870的啊。还有本坛某版的对比测试，A卡都有一个致命缺陷，即MIN FPS，那是比250低很多，为啥到这测试里，这两片卡的曲线基本重合呢？
你是我的温柔 发表于 2009-6-9 09:59

那你的意思是觉得250是应该跟4870比的？脑进水了？

Mia

结论 G92依然强劲

Floweriness

G92宝刀未老啊。。。