Package and Accessories

Like a majority of serial graphics cards we have tested, the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX came to our test lab in its full rig – package, accessories and all. The box looks rather plain and unimposing. There are no fantastic creatures, space ships or robots here. Silver or gold inserts don’t catch your eyes. All we have here is just a modest mix of light-green and dark-blue, the name of the product and a list of the product’s parameters like the amount of graphics memory on board and the interface.

This simplicity has its own appeal amongst gaudy packages from other manufacturers. It just looks like there’s a serious product inside. The text on the box reads “NVIDIA authorized solution provider”. EVGA, along with XFX and BFG Technologies, is really manufacturing graphics cards only on chips from NVIDIA.

Take a look at the back side of the box for detailed info on the technical characteristics of the e-GeForce 7800 GTX. There’s also a small window here through which one can see the graphics card lying on a special plastic tray. The box has two EVGA seals on both sides. It’s impossible to open it without breaking a seal, so check them out to make sure you have an original EVGA product. The folded plastic tray inside holds the graphics card (in an antistatic bag) and various accessories:

• User’s manual
• Two DVI-I to D-Sub adapters
• VIVO switch unit
• S-Video cable
• Power splitter (two Molex connectors to one 6-pin power connector)
• CD with drivers and trial software from SnapStream and Ulead
• CD with CyberLink PowerDirector Pro 2.55 ME
• Two EVGA stickers

The user’s manual isn’t very detailed, but it does describe the basic steps you should take to install the graphics card and the ForceWare driver in the system and adds some troubleshooting info. The language of the manual is English since the product is mainly intended for the U.S. market. The manual, CDs and stickers are packed into a small cardboard parcel with an EVGA logo. The text on the parcel says the card may also come with optional CDs with a software DVD player and demo versions of various games.

The VIVO switch unit connects to a 9-pin mini-DIN connector via a well-screened 115cm cable. The unit has 6 connectors, four of which are video outputs (three RCA outputs for devices with a component YPbPr input and a four-pin S-Video output). The blue connector that outputs the Pb component can also work as a composite video output. The remaining two connectors (composite and S-Video) are located on the opposite side of the unit and connect to video sources. There’s a place on the case of the VIVO unit for a sticker, but the sticker is missing among the accessories, so you don’t have much freedom in placing the unit. The S-Video cable included with the e-GeForce 7800 GTX is well-screened and flexible. The power splitter and the DVI-I to D-Sub adapters are quite ordinary.

So, the accessories to the EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GTX aren’t really gorgeous, but you do get everything necessary to use the card.