The first thing I noticed when opening the box of the AOpen Aeolus 6600GT card was the length of the video card. Most high performing video cards today are at least 2 inches longer than the PCI Express slot. The AOpen 6600GT is only a scant inch longer than the PCI Express X16 slot, making it an easy fit into any computer including small form factor computers like the AOpen Qbic computer and the Shuttle XPC computer.

There is an 8-fin cooling fan covering the graphics chip on the card. This fan provides sufficient cooling for the graphics chip as I noticed no heat issues with the card during everyday usage. AOpen went the extra route with cooling on the card. Few manufacturers include memory heat sinks covering all the memory chips on their cards. The Aeolus 6600GT has 2 memory heat sinks covering the 4 memory chips on the front of the card.

The Input and Output ports found on the board include one D-Sub port, one DVI-I port and a TV-Out port. You can use two CRT monitors with the included D-Sub to DVI-I adapter, but two DVI monitors need a different video card. One thing the 6600GT doesn’t require is extra power other than that provided by the PCI Express X16 slot.