Bundle and accessories
We mentioned that a decent bundle can be one of the factors that swings the potential buyer's purchasing decision in favour of a certain AIB. When the cards are based almost exclusively on the reference design and have reference clocks (412MHz / 730MHz engine and memory, respectively), the differentiating factors become acute enough to allow small features to dictate buying policy. Let's see how PowerColor does in this regard.
PowerColor's packaging was good. The box illustrates the salient points. Of special mention is the included copy of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness and the ubiquitous HalfLife 2 coupon, redeemable when Hell freezes over (a joke, BTW). The internal packaging was also good. The card was held in firmly via a foam support. The rest of the bundle was securely positioned underneath.
The PowerColor 9800XT 256MB card is accompanied by the usual suspects. Cables-wise, there's a generous length of S-Video cable and a shorter RCA lead. There's also a handy S-Video-to-RCA convertor, DVI dongle, and molex-driven power cable. It arrived pre-attached to the card. Two full games are included; Tomb Raider: The Angel Of Darkness and Big Mutha Truckers. The latter is usually found inside Leadtek's NVIDIA-based bundles. HalfLife 2's coupon is currently only worth the paper that it's printed on. The actual game, sadly, keeps getting pushed back further and further into '04. To satiate gamers and perhaps lure them into spending more money, PowerColor bundles in a 5-in-1 demo bundle, comprising of: Splinter Cell, Warcraft III, Breed, Colin McRae Rally 3, and TOCA Racing Driver. Wouldn't it be nice if all the titles were the retail versions ?.
The manual devotes around 40 pages to the English section, which is one of five languages covered. It's written in passable English and covers most of the important points, especially with regard to hardware and software installation. The driver CD contained the Catalyst 3.8 drivers (driver, control panel and HYDRAVISION). DirectX9 was included too. One omission was the lack of a software overclocking utility. The 9800XT is extremely fast, but users will want to explore its limits. WinDVD4, which seems to be in almost every bundle we lay our eyes upon, is a natural inclusion.
HL2 is a moot issue, Tomb Raider TAOD is passable and BMT is barely average. PowerColor's bundle is another case of keeping up with the rest. We can't knock that approach if pricing is keen. We've seen it at an online vendor for around £320, which, more importantly, is £110 more than the company's 9800 Pro (albeit 128MB). Therein lies one of the XT's biggest problems, that is, the user having to justify a 50% price hike for a card that currently offers not much more than 10% performance gains over the 9800 Pro 128MB. It's an issue that affects every 9800XT AIB partner.
