Packaging and Accessories

Gainward GeForce GTX 570 GS GLH

Many manufacturers prefer to use a unified design for their product packaging to make their brand more recognizable. Gainward is no exception and the box with the GeForce GTX 570 GS GLH is overall similar to the one of the GeForce GTX 460 GS GLH:

This box is bigger, though, because the card itself is rather large. You won’t get much information from the box, as with most other modern graphics cards. The only thing you can learn is that this product hails from Gainward’s elite series “Golden Sample/Goes Like Hell”. The card is of course pre-overclocked by the manufacturer, yet you cannot find the specific GPU and memory frequencies on the box.

The card is protected properly with a sheet of foam rubber. It should come to the buyer unharmed unless gets run over by a warehouse loader.

The accessories are rather scanty, especially for a product belonging to Gainward’s special “golden” series:

• DVI-I → D-Sub adapter;
• 6-pin PCIe → 1x8-pin PCIe adapter;
• Brief installation manual;
• CD disk with drivers and utilities;
• Super LoiLoScope discount coupon.

Besides drivers and a user manual, the disc contains a copy of the popular media converter Badaboom which uses CUDA technology, yet the accessories overall are far from gorgeous. On the other hand, this version of the GeForce GTX 570 does not need additional cables and adapters as it has a full selection of interfaces natively. As for software tools and utilities, every user has his own preferences about them, especially when it comes to overclocking.

So, the product box has an appealing and restrained design and contains everything you need to use the graphics card. We can’t find any fault with the Gainward GeForce GTX 570 GS GLH in this respect. Let’s now take a look at Zotac’s version of the same model.

Zotac GeForce GTX 570 AMP!

The Zotac GeForce GTX 570 AMP! is shipped in a box that is designed similarly to the one of Zotac’s other GeForce GTX 570 version that we tested earlier. It is a black-and-orange box with a handy window.

The difference from the ordinary version is indicated by the “AMP!” suffix in the model name and by the caption “Overclocked Extreme Performance” instead of “HDMI” in the bottom of the box. The part number is different as well: “ZT-50201-10P” for the card we tested earlier and “ZT-50202-10P” for the GeForce GTX 570 AMP!.

There are no changes inside, of course. The fragile contents are protected with foam rubber that fills the whole box. A transparent plastic cover lies on top. The card comes with the same accessories as its cousin:

• DVI-I → D-Sub adapter;
• Mini-HDMI → HDMI adapter;
• Two 4-pin PATA → 1x6-pin PCIe adapters;
• User manual;
• Brief installation guide;
• CD disk with drivers and utilities;
• CD disk with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands game;
• Zotac logo sticker;
• Power connection layout poster sticker;
• Zotac Boost Premium marketing leaflet.

Such accessories are typical of Zotac products and we don’t have any complaints about them. There’s everything necessary to run the graphics card and you also get a free copy of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. Perhaps not the best demonstration of the substantial 3D rendering capabilities of the GeForce GTX 570, the game features beautiful visuals and, most importantly, is free for the buyer of the card. Other manufacturers, for example Gainward, do not include any games at all with their products.