Nvidia GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB

Zotac GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB

Manufacturer: Zotac
Warranty: Five years (parts and labour)
UK Pricing: £210.68 (inc. VAT)
US Pricing: TBC


The GeForce 9-series appears to be a good time for a change of box design, as Zotac has also made refinements. The dragon has been swapped out for a character that looks like a cross between C-3PO and the T-1000 from Terminator 2 – and if that wasn’t freaky enough, its eyes are lit up for extra effect.

Along the left hand edge of the box, there is a good amount of information about the card, including memory size, memory bus width, display output support and the fact that the card supports audio over DVI (using the supplied HDMI converter). The card itself is packed some rather fetching pink foam, which should help to prevent the card from being damaged during shipping.


The box also advertises the fact that there is a copy of Lost: Via Domus – again, not the best game we’ve ever seen, but it’s relatively recent and will be to someone’s tastes. That someone might see this as a value-add if they hadn’t rushed out to buy it already, while many others will choose to ignore it or save it for a rainy day when there’s nothing better to play – not being a fan of Lost, I dread that day…

On top of this, the bundle includes a one DVI-to-VGA connector, one DVI-to-HDMI converter, an S/PDIF cable, two six-pin PCI-Express power connectors, a component and S-video dongle and a driver CD. All in all then, the Zotac GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB comes with a pretty complete bundle – there aren’t any real complaints to make, other than the minor ones we’ve already pointed out on the other partner cards.

Warranty

Zotac recently announced that it had extended the warranty on its graphics cards from two years to five years (parts and labour) in Europe – the warranty period in North America and China remains unchanged at two years. We heard rumours of this a long time ago now, so it’s good to see that those rumours hold true.

The company says that the retailer where the card was purchased is responsible for handling the first two years of the warranty, while the remainder will be covered by Zotac directly. Of course, if your reseller goes out of business or they’re not responding to queries for some reason, you can contact Zotac directly to resolve your RMA claim. Zotac requires the customer to register their purchase, but what isn’t clear is whether the warranty back dates for cards already sold – not that it matters for this particular card.