Card II
The RAM's left bare on this Crucial 9800 Pro. Crucial may argue that the vast majority of users who opt for its cards are simply looking to run them at stock speeds. With that in mind, it makes little sense to further add to the cost of the overall package by specifying additional RAMsinks. Let's be abundantly clear about this; this card is aimed at those users who place value and service above gimmicks and looks.
The 128MB of on-board memory is provided by the lovely folk at Samsung. Its 144-ball FBGA design has become synonymous with high-end DDR-1 TinyBGA RAM. This model number's maximum frequency is quoted as 700MHz DDR, so 20MHz above specification. It will be interesting to see just how far it manages to go over and above its stock speeds.
The picture above was chosen for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we applaud the method by which Crucial now ship its cards. The card is firstly wrapped in an anti-static bag; it's then placed in a pink foam-ish wrap. Finally, it's then secured to a piece of cardboard by some film. The card's extremely secure and protected during transit.
The second reason was to highlight the bundle (or lack of it). Crucial supply a copy of Cyberlink's excellent PowerDVD XP 4.0 and a driver CD with the 3.4 Catalyst drivers, DirectX9, Adobe Acrobat and a few other utilities. Gaming software is conspicuous by its absence. A 6-foot-long S-Video cable, an RCA lead cable and extender, and a DVI-to-VGA dongle wrap up the hardware side of things. A simple guide helps one install and troubleshoot the card. Please note that the MOLEX pass-through is packaged with the card.
Let's play spot the difference.
