Bundle and extras
The card is pretty bare. Let's see if the bundle can make up for it.
A lot of the pertinent information is highlighted on the cover. NVIDIA's new-ish catchline - "The way it's mean to be played" seems to be spreading like a virulent infection.
The general guide, shown top-right, is for the A360 / A380 cards. It appears to cover every model in the range. We'd prefer a more model-specific manual. In its defence, it's written in an easy-to-understand manner and explains the various steps for graphics card insertion and removal (both hardware and software). Another information pamphlet regurgitates the information in the form of a quickstart guide. Again, it provides multi-model reference.
On the hardware side, a 3-foot-long S-Video cable isn't really long enough to connect it up to a compatible device. Leadtek also bundles in the ubiquitous DVI-to-VGA adapter, an S-Video-to-composite adapter and a composite extension cable. We're not quite sure what the molex extender is doing in this bundle; the FX 5700 doesn't require an external power feed. Perhaps it's a case of a generic bundle for a number of Leadtek cards.
Software-wise, gaming is taken care of by two full titles; GunMetal and Big Mutha Truckers. The latter does seem to be a poor title. It's not looked upon too favourably by the online games review press. The former is a recent X-Box port with impressive-looking graphics but mediocre gameplay. The bundle needs a killer title for anyone to sit up and take notice. An inclusion of such a title would have the obvious knock-on effect of pushing up the overall price.
The driver / utility CD carries Detonator 52.14 drivers (52.16 for Win9x), WinFast PVR recording software - which is kind of useless as the card doesn't feature VIVO, DX 9.0b, WinFast DVD v3.1, an electronic user guide, 3Deep and Cult 3D calibration software, and WinFox 2.0.
WinFox 2 provides a comprehensive range of options and information from a system tray icon. One can change almost every facet of card-related functions from this nifty tool. It's an amalgamation of the driver control panel and system information section in one utility. It also offers an card overclocking tool.
The Speed Runner can manipulate both GPU and memory clocks from this GUI, either in 2D or 3D modes. It also tests any settings to ensure that they'll nominally pass the inputted speeds. The ranges go up to 650MHz core and 1GHz memory. That's more than enough scope for our 450/552 card.
A decent enough bundle that seems generic in nature. We'd like another newer game to add a bit of spice. It's probably just above average as it is.
