The front of the packaging is very busy indeed. A fire spewing dragon dominates proceedings which perhaps in hindsight is not the most apt creature to portray a cool running card. Nevertheless, it does match the overall colour scheme of ZOTAC and the glossy, orange and black packaging does look very striking. The software bundle is listed to the right while the main feature set and headlining specifications are to be found at the bottom end of the box. As you can see from the sticker on the left, our sample came with a free copy of Assassins Creed Brotherhood (download code) which is great to see as even cards that cost triple this have been lacking a free game, especially one with such quality.



The rear of the box goes to great lengths to promote ZOTAC's 'Turbocharged gaming experience'. I do applaud ZOTAC for not using generic spiel on their packaging though as there is plenty of mention of GTX560 AMP! Edition rather than text which could describe any number of GPU releases.




To the right side of the box we find a short run down of the products specifications along with an NVIDIA feature list supported at the bottom by the ZOTAC product tag.



The left side of the box goes on to portray further NVIDIA technologies with the minimum system requirements found below. The main aspect you should consider is that you will need a spare, full size PCIe port and a PSU rated at 450w (or higher) which is capable of supplying 24A on the 12v rail. Interestingly, ZOTAC say that this card needs a minimum of 2GB system ram but I would wage the card would run quite happily, if somewhat restricted, on a system with less ram.



Upon opening the box we are greeted with a plethora of accessories for such a small package. I was however slightly concerned with the manner in which the contents were packaged as although the accessory tray was separated from the main GPU unit, the GPU itself had no further protection other than the cardboard box. Unfortunately there was no foam cradle as with most GPUs to hold it in place. So while the overall box is very sturdy, I have reservations regarding the protection it affords to the contents.



Lastly, we arrive at the contents which are very complete and more than enough to get your shiny new graphics card up and running. Along with the driver/utility disc you get a copy of Assassins Creed Brotherhood, 2x twin molex-6pin power cables, a VGA to DVI adapter, a mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter and three product manuals.

Overall a well presented product backed up by a good contents list. It does however lose marks for the poor protection granted to the GPU.

Let's take a look at the card itself...