The Bundle
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The box itself is pleasingly illustrated with all the pertinent features highlighted above including TV-Out, DVI, and 128MB of on-board RAM. One aspect to note is the 3-year warranty offered by ASUS, a rarity in the fast-paced world of computing, this alone may convince users to seriously consider the ASUS brand.
As we've identified that this is indeed the Pure variant, we're not surprised to see a lack of bundled extras. ASUS, however, don't seem to believe in manufacturing an OEM-type video card. We're presented with a quick-start guide that highlights the product's strengths and then delves into a reasonable amount of detail on general installation of card and drivers. A driver CD is naturally included and houses drivers, utilities in the form of ASUS Digital VCR (not relevant for this model) and ASUS' in-house overclocking utility. ASUS also bundle their own DVD software, aptly named ASUS DVD 200 v1.83. As you can no doubt see, ASUS had the care and attention to bundle a DVI-to-VGA adapter with the V8460 Ultra. You can either hook-up a VGA source or go for another DVI outlet. This is something that manufacturers should not neglect. Credit to ASUS on this point. The games selection includes full versions of the impressive-looking Aquanox and the playable Midnight GT / Rage Rally combination. Further demos are included to highlight the power of the Ti 4600 GPU. The 2D quality exhibited by the ASUS V8460 was subjectively excellent at all resolutions on my Sony 21" G500 monitor, far exceeding the capabilities of the Geforce3 series of cards. I've mentioned this before but feel it warrants reiterating. The Geforce4 Ti 4600's 2D is as good as anything that I have previously used. The ASUS V8460 is indistinguishable from the quality shown by the reference design and all other retail Ti4600s, something that I am extremely pleased about. Dual TMDS' present on all Ti4600s allow you to use dual displays without undue problems. We connected up two monitors and quickly effortlessly nView, NVIDIA's dual display program. The quality of the second, external TMDS ensured that both displays were crystal clear at high resolutions. The bundle, whilst offering value, isn't quite as all-encompassing as the MSI's we reviewed recently. Still, considering that this is supposed to be the value card in ASUS' range of Ti4600s. it's praiseworthy. |
