Appearance

The Palit GeForce 9600 GSO is a dual-slot videocard, and a vented cover on the card makes this fact blatantly apparent. The metallic cover reveals a Palit- branded fan in the center, as well as Palit's robot frog avatar pictured on the top.

The rear of the card has two DVI ports and an S-Video out as well, like many other cards. I was disappointed not to find any HDMI or DisplayPort connections built into the card, but the HDMI dongle remedies this issue.

The opposite side reveals a single six-pin PCI-Express power connection. Only the high-end models of the GeForce 9x00 family require the eight-pin connection.

The side opposite the PCI-Express connection reveals some of the heatsink's copper heatpipes. Not many videocards come standard with copper heatpipes and a massive heatsink. Also visible here are the unit's SLI connection and a SPDIF connection for running audio through the HDMI.

The under side of the card reveals some of the circuit board and various serial and product numbers, but also the heatsink's mounting base. Compared to other cooling solutions, this base seems massive.

Before installing the card, again, let's look at the card's features and specifications to get a grasp on the hardware at hand.