Package
Being a reference board from NVIDIA, and not a retail vendors product, the package sent was a little sparse. Check the available board vendors product offerings, as they are likely to feature a different range of product bundles and prices.
Even though this was a reference board from NVIDIA, it looks as though they still wanted a little fun with the packaging. The board arrived in tin, resembling that of an old cinema film reel casing - a little play on the "Cinematic Rendering" marketing line of the CineFX architecture. Beyond the board within the tin, we received the latest set of GeForce FX drivers and a CD containing the demos featured at the launch.
Installation & Drivers
Because of its size and power requirements, GeForce FX 5800's have two elements that stray outside the normal hardware installation routine for a graphics card. The first of these is that you have to make sure that the slot under the AGP connector is free, as the 'FlowFX'* cooling on the reference board requires the second slot for air intake and exit. The second is the power connector that’s required to power the board. Following on from ATI's Radeon 9500/9700 series power connectors directly on the boards are becoming more of a familiar concept, and are probably likely to stay for high-end boards at least. GeForce FX 5800's connector differs from the Radeon's in that it uses the full size Hard Disk/Molex connector, which feels a little sturdier than the smaller floppy connector currently employed by ATI.
* This is the reference Ultra board, but it seems as though many vendors may ship (assuming the board becomes readily available) with the full FlowFX cooling as specified. Images taken of BFG's standard board also indicate that although the FlowFX cooling isn't required, a double height heat-sink/fan is, meaning that two slots are still needed.
Being an NVIDIA graphics board with their UDA driver architecture, naturally GeForce FX uses the same drivers as all the rest of the NVIDIA range, so the controls will be familiar to many of you who have used the Detonator 4x.xx series. Of course, the extra FSAA and texture functionality means that a few new options, currently specific to GeForce FX, are available.
