Part Four: The Retail Package
With so many cards exhibiting the same levels of performance, increasing importance has been placed upon the 'bundle' i.e..What you actually get!
Included in the retail package for this card is : -
1x Abit driver and utilities CD-ROM
1x Abit Siluro GF3 Ti200 manual
1x Video-Out cable, Split cable, TV-Out cable.
The driver CD includes the exceptional Win DVD V.3 DVD software. This is not the trial version we recently saw bundled with the KR7a RAID, rather this a full version with a unique CD key. This is a more than pleasing inclusion as, from my experience, WinDVD produces a far sharper playback than it's main rival Power DVD.
The drivers included with the card were the 21.83's
which have been nicely branded by Abit. It's great to know
the full power of the card will be available straight out
of the box. 'CoolBits' was enabled by default for the overclocking
community which was also a nice feature of these Abit drivers.
Lets look at Abit's packaging design choices, an important
factor especially in a high street type situation.
The striking feature is the carry case type design
and while reminiscent of a 'Happy Meal' box it certainly makes
for a nice change from the usual square box. More important
to me though was the graphical ideas displayed upon the package.
I'm rather annoyed these days when companies produce the constant
skull or beast type images. The graphics I refer to are employed
by companies like Elsa and show nothing in the way of imagination
or artistic merit. It's great therefore to see Abit's design
based upon Egyptian styling and not the usual beast motif.
The box image eludes class while still implying quality and
speed. A great design.
My only problem with this package is the lack
of a bundled game however this can be forgiven if we factor
in the full WinDVD license as I assure you that this will
be your preferred choice of DVD player in a vary short space
of time; it's truly excellent.
But, the packaging makes little difference to overall performance;
lets run this card through the usual benchmarks in an attempt
to determine just what we get for our hard earned money. (But
just ahead of the tests I need to inform you of a small driver
situation...)
Page Four: Drivers
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