as oppossed to graphics chips manufacturers, i am going to get a new graphics card and have deciced on the 6600GT (unless anyone an get me a 6800GT for a similar price). i have found 2 likely candidates at the right price, but i wonder which would be the best deal should i go for the Gigabyte card or the Novatech, the later wins on specs but the former has more software (which i probably will not use). to be honest when buying a graphics card only the hardware is important, even a driver disc is often ell out of date by the time the card is shipped and the games/utlities supplied are usually old stock that if you wanted it you probably already have it. other than the colour of the board the main differeces seem to be the quality/size of the cooling fan and the clcok speed the card is running. The MSI G4 ti 4600 i am now using is still going strong after wel over 2 years, just that it is the only thing in my system that has not been updated and is probably holding the rest of the out fit back.any ideas/comments?Cheers

As you state, most manufacturers stray little from the reference design, hence there is not much of a functional difference between cards. Bundles are a matter of preference, but IMO cooling design is something you want to consider with the more powerful cards. My MSI 6800GT comes with a slider control on the card to adjust fan speed between 2800 RPM (quiet) and 4000 RPM (loud), so I set it to the low end and, bugger me dead, I can crank it up to Ultra speeds at this low fan setting. Noisy fans sure make the temps cooler, but with 3yr warranties (excepting overclocking stunts of course!) it's good to run it as quiet as possible.Gary

heers for your input, i think i'll go for the Novatech version, the Gigabyte doesnot seem to have anything different to justify the extra price, in fact novatech is a higher spec, that said it is not gaurenteed that is the card you will get, it is possible you may even get a higher spec card such as an MSI (as in one of the reviews).