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XFX R7 250E Reviewed


Bosco

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It's nice to see low cost gpu options reviewed here once in a while. Some folks can't afford a $200+ gpu and some like me just want better graphics than an onboard can offer. In my case though it's usually that onboard gpu fails, so I toss an add in card to keep the company computers running.

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It's nice to see low cost gpu options reviewed here once in a while. Some folks can't afford a $200+ gpu and some like me just want better graphics than an onboard can offer. In my case though it's usually that onboard gpu fails, so I toss an add in card to keep the company computers running.

 

It is sad that the performance per dollar is not worth it most of the time though.

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It's crazy to see power consumption numbers though. With the card it was compared against, it uses more power during idle, about the same during load, and delivers worse performance. Additionally, it runs hotter, lol. Obviously the price difference is somewhat substantial, but I would think that a card that fails to deliver the same performance would have reduced heat and power consumption.

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Yeah but most people looking for these cards want to see settings that are playable do they not?

That's kinda my thoughts.  It's one thing if these cards were being reviewed in with the big performance cards, but they have their own review and should really have a different set of performance metrics to stand up to.  I will say I do like that testing is at 1080p though.  1080p seems to be the go to talking point these days and chances are people in the market looking for a card like this would be interested in that metric.  Seeing that BF4 is a 15 fps slideshow on ultra however I'm not so certain anyone gets anything of value from.

 

Personally when I bought my 750 Ti for use in my HTPC (it still hasn't made it in there btw) I was interested in what settings WOULD be playable.   For example similar to how sites like AnandTech do it.  That's not to say go copy their test methods, but to point out that those numbers tell me a LOT more about what the cards can and can't do.  

 

Another critique might be to look at the cons section...there aren't any. I can think of some.  The competition delivers better performance per watt and per dollar.  Retail on the 250E is $99.99 @ Newegg and TigerDirect at the moment vs $114 for a 750.  Prices if you factor in rebates moves it to $89.99 vs $109.99.  That's a con. Not listing such things gives a misleading idea that there's not a negative to this product vs others out there for someone taking a quick glace at the review.

 

While I'm at it the price is listed as $75 in the review yet  I don't see it below the $89.99 after rebate at Newegg.  

 

Those are my opinions.  You can take it or leave it but I KNOW OCC can do better reviews.  

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It's crazy to see power consumption numbers though. With the card it was compared against, it uses more power during idle, about the same during load, and delivers worse performance. Additionally, it runs hotter, lol. Obviously the price difference is somewhat substantial, but I would think that a card that fails to deliver the same performance would have reduced heat and power consumption.

As far as power consumption goes yes it is less efficient than the latest tech from NVIDIA that we know is extremely efficient after seeing it not only on the GTX 750, The GTX 750Ti and just recently on the GTX 980. 

 

As far as temperatures are concerned did you look at the cooling on the GTX 750 vs the single slot solution used on the R7 250E. Before you judge the cooling look at the comparison. What XFX has is a small single slot cooler. There was no expectation that it would out perform a dual slot,  multi heat pipe cooler.  If you used the same on both cards it would be inadequate to say the least on the green card as well.

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