There are two kinds of people in the PC gaming world: those who use test using FurMark and those who say, “Fur… what?” If you tell the latter that FurMark is a program that “creates a giant furry doughnut”, they might end the conversation right there. I would stick with the description that FurMark is the most aggressive graphics benchmarking tool available. Not only can it provide information on framerate and temperature, it will also give you a comparison score or even push your card to 100% for stability testing. Best of all, it is a free tool. Just be sure to read the warnings and perhaps watch a youtube video or two about FurMark testing gone bad. Our GTS 250 never got past 63°C during the tests.

The GTS 250 65nm version performs very well under the stress tests of FurMark. It can actually put the GTX 260 Core 216 to shame here. This is why I always say that Furmark is only for comparing a single card at different speeds. Don’t attempt to compare your Furmark score with scores from other GPUs.

FurMark Settings

Resolution 1680×1050
Anti-Aliasing 16x
Fullscreen no
Options Post FX, Benchmarking

FurMark Benchmarks: 60 seconds, 196.21 and 197.34 drivers

Clock Total Frames Average Min Max
Stock 197.45 driver 2633 44 38 57
Superclocked 197.45 driver 2683 45 39 66
OC 197.45 driver 2902 48 43 71
Stock 196.21 driver 2045 34 30 46
Superclocked 196.21 driver 2101 35 31 48
OC 196.21 driver 2246 38 33 51

Solid Tip: Don’t use Furmark to compare one GPU to another. It is only reliable when comparing scores from the same card. See why in this Furmark article.