We received the 64MB version of the Evil KYRO for this review. The card came in a box (gasp!) and, in the box, we get the usual PowerColor bundle: a fair manual that details not only how to install the card and the included software, but also explains some of the features of the card and a CD with drivers for Windows 98/ME/NT4.0/2000 and versions of both WinDVD (for playing DVD's) and VCD PowerPlayer SE (for playing VCD's). Also included is the full version Test Drive 5, a popular game that's getting quite old by now.

The card itself seems very much "quiet" when compared to the other cards in our test lab. While other cards are very busy with chips, capacitors and the like all over their PCB's, the Evil KYRO had a very clean design. A small-sized heatsink/fan combo was mounted onto the KYRO chip itself and a generous amount of thermal paste provided sufficient heat transfer. Prying off the heatsink gives us an up-close and personal look at the KYRO chip itself.

I did find some things quite peculiar about this card, as there were two sets of jumpers on the board to set the card into either AGP 2X or 4X mode. Although it comes default at 4X, most other cards nowadays don't have these jumpers and depend on the motherboard for setting the AGP setting. This could be useful for troubleshooting.

There were 8x8MB M.tec 7ns. SDRAM chips surrounding the KYRO chip operating at 125MHz to provide the Evil KYRO with 64MB of video memory.

Installation & Drivers
Installation was pretty much uneventful as all that was required was to unplug the old AGP card and plug in the new Evil KYRO. As Windows boots up, it will detect the card and ask you to insert the CD whereupon you can choose the correct driver for the card. You can also choose to install the included PowerColor toolbox that gives you information about your card (such as driver versions) and monitor and allows you to change settings such as resolution and refresh rate. Unfortunately, the included toolbox does not include a tab with which to set the core/memory clock speed for overclocking purposes.

The included drivers were reference KYRO drivers provided by STMicro. Because of how much I've worked with NVIDIA's drivers, it took some time to get used to the new interface but after I got used to using it, I was able to access many of the card's advanced features.

Below are some screen shots of the driver settings themselves and of PowerColor's toolbox:

On to: Test Configuration