 So after many trials and tribulations, you can actually click here to see how I got my GeForce GTX 480 on launch day. I finally have one. Today I have the PNY Accelerate Performance Edition GeForce GTX 480. These cards are rarer than hen's teeth, but I did manage to get my hands on one, so I'm going to be opening it for your unboxing pleasure. So let's start with what's on the outside of the box. First of all, down at the bottom you can see that this has 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. This is Nvidia's first video card with GDDR5 on the high end. Now they actually have a low-end GPU that uses it, but it doesn't make a difference at that point anyway. So this is the fastest memory card from Nvidia ever. You've got 3D vision surround, so if you actually have two GTX 480s, you can not only run surround with three monitors, but you can do it in 3D with the Nvidia 3D glasses. Next we have support for physics and CUDA. These are nothing new, but they're still being continued with. And obviously Nvidia SLI support. Now let's... oh yeah, PNY also includes five free bonus movie downloads from PNY.com slash movies, so you should check that out. That's something that I don't think anyone else is offering with their GTX 480. On the back we've got the basic specifications and key features as well as minimum system requirements. So there's going to be some interesting stuff in here. First of all, specifications, can you get a look at that so that people can just read it and freeze the frame if they want to? Is that good enough? Let's just call that good enough. Okay, key features. DirectX 11. This is Nvidia's first DirectX 11 card. Everything else here is pretty much stuff I've already covered at the front or stuff that's just being carried over from previous cards. Minimum system requirements. This one's interesting because Nvidia actually recommends a minimum 600W or greater system power supply with a minimum 12V current rating of 42A. So that means that if you're running just a barebone system other than that, you will need to have at least 42A on your 12V rail. You should be using a modern power supply with this card if you're not, then that's absolutely crazy. Alright, let's keep on moving. And package contents. We'll get to that when we actually open the contents of the package. So I am breaking the seal on the GTX 480. Here we go. Peel that back. And there's a paper sleeve. Oh no! Hey, check this out high class. That is a cardboard sleeve, not a paper sleeve. You can tell it's a premium card when. Okay, the next thing we find inside is a little scrap of paper. I'm guessing that's nothing. Then we have an installation CD. You should download the latest drivers off Nvidia.com. Don't even use this. Next, we have a GeForce graphics card quick start guide from PNY. So, let's see, they're just showing you all the different basic kinds of connectors that you might find on your video card. And they're giving you some instructions on how to install them in your case. Alright, thank you PNY for covering that for us. Next, we have a 2Mollex to 1PCI Express 6-pin adapter. Although frankly, if you don't have a power supply that has the required connectors for this, then you should just buy one. Because you don't want to be running something like this with a lousy power supply. If your power supply blows up, it can take a lot of other stuff with it. Then we have a mini HDMI to HDMI adapter. So, I'll show you why you need that in just a second. And then one DVI to VGA adapter. Alright, so let's get the foam off here and let's get this baby opened. There we are. So, the first thing you notice about it is that the whole front of the card, I mean this is not shiny plastic. This is metal. This is heatsink here guys. This is one hot card. So that means that you've got all of this extra surface area that you normally wouldn't have on a video card, dedicated to dissipating heat with any incidental airflow that comes over the card. Not only that, but compared to ATI's Radeon HD series, which I happen to have one of here, you can see that the back panel uses the full length of the adjacent PCI slot for cooling and ventilation, versus ATI cutting off half of it. Alright, the next thing we've got, okay well here, I told you I'd tell you why you need a mini HDMI connector. That's why. Now you can only actually connect two of these three at a time, so each card can output to two displays, but this way you can do HDMI and DVI or DVI and DVI. Alright, let's go around to, why don't we do the top of the card next. Those are thick heat pipes. I have never seen a heat pipe this thick on a stock cooler for a graphics card. Not one, not two, not three, but four heat pipes coming out from right over where the GPU core is. So you can see right here, that's where that large GTX 480 chip is, and that's where all of the heat pipes go, because really, there's nothing else on here except maybe the voltage regulators, and is that, wow that's actually stuck on there, bizarre, except the voltage regulators that actually needs a lot of cooling. So let's go around to the bottom of the card. This is still a standard PCI Express 2 card, so that means it's going to fit into any PCI Express 1.0, 1.1, 1.1A, or PCI Express 2.0 motherboard. Around the back, you see we find some of the voltage regulator regulation components, and the rest of them seem to be sitting down in, see under the fan right there? So those are actually getting direct airflow right from the fan when it's spinning. Nvidia's using their standard kind of fan they've been using since, wow, the 8800 series, I guess they've been using this particular blower fan. Okay, another thing that I want to point out about this card right off the bat is that this is again in line with the power requirements. It requires not only one PCI Express 6-pin connector, not an additional PCI Express 6-pin connector, but a 6-pin and an 8-pin PCI Express connector, so you need a serious power supply to run this card, and I think that pretty much does it for my unboxing. Oh, you know what else I should mention? PNY has actually just added lifetime warranty to their tick boxes on the outsides of their cards, so the GeForce GTX 470 and 480 from PNY both feature a lifetime warranty. Thank you for checking out my unboxing.