Review: Two overclocked GeForce 8800 GTs go head-to-head

Palit packaging and bundle

Palit packs its overclocked GeForce 8800 GT Sonic 512MiB in a shiny green foil box with a cyborg frog looking as menacing as a frog (cyborg or otherwise) can. Stickers highlight the card's features, including its increased core and memory speeds, HDMI function through a DVI-to-HDMI dongle with S/PDIF sound passthrough.

Palit also bundles the Tomb Raider Anniversary game, which is nice. No mention is made of the cooler or of the noise level of the card – so there is a missed opportunity there, we feel, but otherwise the box is well-presented for bricks-and-mortar retail.

Palit’s bundle is a touch more generous than ECS', containing all the video-out adapters you would expect, including a DVI-to-HDMI dongle and a S/PDIF cable that plugs into your motherboard or soundcard's RCA S/PDIF-out and redirects it into the mini-DIN TV connection, to allow both audio and video when the HDMI adapter is used. Phew!

There are, however, no instructions for setting up the HDMI/S/PDIF connection, so novices may have to do a little digging to see how it hooks up. There is also the option of running the S/PDIF off an internal header, but no cable is supplied for this. In addition, the bundle contains a full version of the well-received Tomb Raider Anniversary to get your gaming started.

But just like the ECS, there's no DVD/Blu-ray/HD DVD playback software, which, again, is a disappointment, especially when the card is otherwise excellently set-up for media playback.

Warranty