X-bit labs

MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E Graphics Card Review (page 2)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 07/22/2005 | 12:33 PM ]

Package and Accessories

We received the device in its retail package. The bright and colorful box is as large as some boxes from ASUS. MSI seems to have taken in the monumentalistic ideas in an attempt to grasp the potential customer’s attention.

Although very large, the box is easy to carry around. With its plastic handle the box is not unlike a small suitcase. The front panel has a flap cover. For the cover not to open up during transportation, it’s held with a small sticker underneath. There’s a window under the cover through which you can have a look at the graphics card as it lies on its nest of foam rubber. The design of the cover is too gaudy to our taste, but it certainly makes its job – catching the customer’s eyes – done.

The box contains a tray made of transparent plastic. The NX6800GT lies in one of the hollows in the tray, the following accessories resting nearby:

• Installation Guide
• User’s manual
• MSI sticker
• DVI-I-to-D-Sub adapter
• Power splitter (two Molex connectors to one 6-pin connector)
• Two Molex splitters
• 14 CDs with games and software

Strangely enough, there are no cables or adapters for connecting the graphics card to a TV-set. It’s not quite right, even though the card is equipped with a standard S-Video output and you can easily find an appropriate cable. It’s also strange to see only one DVI-I-to-D-Sub adapter here. All graphics cards with two DVI connectors we have ever met were equipped with two appropriate adapters.

The multilingual installation guide contains just a brief and general description of the installation process. The user’s manual is written in English but is far more descriptive and covers all graphics card models from MSI that belong to the NX6800 and NX6600 series, describing their installation and connection, the pin layout of their DVI-I and D-Sub connectors and the settings of the ForceWare driver. It also tells you how to update the drivers and the BIOS via MSI Live Update 3.

The number of discs you receive with an MSI NX6800GT is truly astonishing – 14 CDs is an absolute record! Even ASUS doesn’t add so much software to its graphics cards. So, MSI offers you the following here:

• Two CDs with Price of Persia: Sands of Time
• Four CDs with XIII
• One CD with URU: Ages Beyond Myst
• One CD with demo versions of various games
• MSI Media Center Deluxe II CD
• 3D Album and Photoshop Album SE (trial version) CD
• One CD with InterVideo WinDVD and Foreign Language Learning Machine
• MSI 3D Desktop CD
• One CD with Virtual Drive 7 Pro and RestoreIt 3 Pro
• One CD with drivers and exclusive software from MSI

As you see, the software bundle includes applications that range from data backup and virtual drive programs to a foreign language tutor and games. Even if you won’t ever use all of this, it’s nice just to have so much software included with a graphics card.

We’d call the accessories to the MSI NX6800GT perfect if they included just a single S-Video cable which is a really necessary thing sometimes. Well, these are only accessories – let’s get closer to the device.