Bundle, accessories and warranty
The EN8800GTX is dressed up in the usual ASUS retail fare, which consists of a box larger than most motherboard's. For once ASUS can justify it, as the card is rather porky.
Along with the card itself, ASUS bundles in the necessary drivers, a copy of 3DMark06, so you can see the EN8800GTX make short work of the iffy benchmark, and a couple of full-version games in the form of Ghost Recon and GTI Racing. There's a multi-language guide on a further CD and a faux leather wallet to store your CDs in. Everything you need to get you started, really.
The hardware bundle's a little sparse. We're accustomed to seeing ASUS bundle in the proverbial kitchen sink. Here, though, there are a couple of dual-Molex-to-6-pin connectors, a single DVI dongle (should be two, really) and S-Video-to-component connectors for analogue HDTV output.
Warranty considerations
ASUS' graphics cards are backed up by a 3-year warranty that starts on the date of purchase, as per the customer's sales invoice. The warranty is based on the card and not on the individual initially purchasing it, so as long as the original invoice is kept and handed on over to subsequent buyers during the 3-year period the remainder of the warranty is valid.ASUS quotes a maximum turnaround time of 14 working days for a SKU that's found faulty and guarantees to replace any defective hardware with a part that is at least equal to, if not better than, the original spec. Warranty claims are handled by ASUS U.K. and all returned goods are sent back to a U.K. address, rather than to H.Q. 14 working days translates to almost three weeks, which, in our opinion, is too long to be without a graphics card.
You always need to factor in the quality of a warranty when evaluating similar products; that's just common sense. ASUS's 3-year transferrable warranty and U.K.-based service centre makes it one of the best currently available, we reckon, although the lengthy turnaround does take some shine off it.
