Some time ago, our test lab received another specimen of a mass graphics card, Gigabyte RADEON 9600 PRO. The company’s specifications list it as GV-R96P128D. As we promised in our FIC R96P Review, this time we are going to investigate the influence of full-screen anti-aliasing (FSAA) and anisotropic filtering (AF) on the performance of mass-market graphics cards. But first, let us take a closer look at Gigabyte’s product.

The Gigabyte GV-R96P128D came to us in full dress, in its retail package. To my taste, however, the creative potential of the designers was asleep when they made the thing. Well, it follows the company’s “ancient civilizations” theme, but is too insipid. In fact, it resembles the package of Gigabyte Maya II R9200 cards a lot, save for minor details.

I guess they could have presented the ancient Maya theme more esthetically. Anyway, the package enumerates all the main features of the product, including the memory amount – 128MB. Having opened the box, I found the following:

• Gigabyte GV-R96P128D graphics card;
• User’s guide;
• DVI-I-to-D-Sub adapter;
• S-Video-RCA universal cable;
• CD-disk with the drivers;
• CD with PowerDVD XP;
• CD with Serious Sam: The First Encounter;
• CD with demo-versions of Oni and 4x4 EVO games.

Unlike ordinary “no-name” adapters and cables, the DVI-I-to-D-Sub adapter and the universal TV-out cable from Gigabyte have the company’s name on them:

Besides, the DVI plug is covered with a protective lid. It is a trifle, of course, but nonetheless a pleasing one. The cable is rather unusual, too. Many graphics cards come with an S-Video-to-RCA adapter and two respective cables. Gigabyte accompanies its GV-R96P128D with a cable, which has an S-Video connector on one end and then splits into two tails with S-Video and RCA connectors. This is handy, since you don’t have to worry about adapters. The drawback is that one of the tails is always unused and is just hanging aimlessly. The software bundle is not too huge, but includes a few games. That’s better than nothing.

The drivers CD turned to be a recorded CD-R disk, because we have got a pre-sale version of the product. This is not critical, though. The GV-R96P128D will be coming into retail with a printed CD, while we are going to use the latest official Catalyst driver from ATI.