I just received this card from Amazon. It arrived one day early; so, good on Amazon and UPS. I was able to easily track shipment all along the way. In fact, the UPS truck with my card on it actually broke down; and another driver had to transfer the deliveries to him. The driver pulls up in his own vehicle - non-UPS truck. wow! That's dedication!
Regarding packaging: there is a difference between OEM/white box/plain box and retail. The product I received is white box; and as such, does not include such things as a manual or a product warranty covered by PNY.
Being a system integrator...it doesn't much matter to me, as I have to support the system I'm building anyway. Having said that, I must say that the images depicting this product on Amazon.com - specifically, that RETAIL box packaging is being shown, and not the WHITE box, which I received -- could be interpreted by some as misleading. Personally, it doesn't matter to me. I'm happy to have the card.
If you've never installed one of these cards before, be prepared for confusing and misleading installation instructions. Regarding additional power requirements, the Quick Start guide included with this card provides a list of cards which require additional power; and a poor quality xerox copied image of the card shows the location of the auxiliary power connection. This same xerox copy entitled "NVIDIA QUADRO by PNY Additional Power Requirements Document" shows the model numbers that require "...auxiliary power to deliver full performance and operate reliably".
Guess what: The FX 4800 is NOT on the list; but the FX4800 card actually has an aux. power connection; and, an aux. power cable is included with the card. Hmmm...So, I went to the PNY support site; and, what did I find? I found that this card DOES require additional power, after all; but, the confusing documentation doesn't stop there.
Upon reading the online flavor of their quick start guide for the auxiliary power connector, I found that it states a power tap is to be connected to the aux. cable -- a power tap.. as in one power tap. Clear enough, right? Wrong! The aux. power cable has not one; but two 4-pin Molex connectors. OK, OK, OK, I know, I'm being over-analytical on the whole documentation thing. I can't help it. I was weaned on electrons; but, dang...a technical company like PNY could at least keep its technical documentation consistent, don't you think?
On the good side, PNY pre-sales support has been fabulous. They answered all my questions in a detailed and timely fashion. By registering the card online, you also get a 3 year warranty on the card. Windows 7 drivers are available for this card.
I already mentioned this -- but it is worth mentioning again -- Amazon.com and UPS shipping / tracking information was outstanding...this product arrived a day early.
Regarding performance, I'll have to leave that for others to address for now, as I am still waiting on other Workstation components to arrive. This card is being integrated into a high-end video editing dual processor workstation which will be running Adobe SC5 Master Collection.
- 1.5GB GDDR3 GPU memory with ultra fast memory bandwidth
- NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing processor
- Highest color fidelity
- Dual DisplayPort digital display connectors
- Single dual-link DVI-I display connector
