Graphics card maker ELSA recently joined hands with ATI Technologies, introducing new graphics cards based on ATI’s Radeon 9800, 9600 and 9200 chip series (including PRO and non-PRO versions). Shipments of the graphics cards are set to begin this month, the manufacturer said.
Given that ELSA is generally seen as a card maker dedicated to the high-end sector, industry observers believe that ELSA’s cooperation with ATI will help ATI consolidate its position in the top-end graphics card market.
Hoping to transform itself to solely supply graphics chips, ATI has gradually shifted its in-house proprietary manufacturing to third-party partners over the past two years. At present, ATI-manufactured cards still account for a large portion of ATI’s business in North America, but in the Asia-Pacific region, ATI has handed almost all of its operations to its AIB (add-in board) manufacturers. Despite the increasing number of partners, ATI has not been able to quickly grab market share due to the lack of more established brand operators.
As a result, one of the major goals for ATI’s newly established Asia-Pacific marketing team is to seek cooperation with more graphics card companies that already have well-known, reputable brands.
ELSA’s adoption of ATI chips, however, has triggered market speculation about ELSA’s relationship with Nvidia, which it has worked with in workstation-use graphics cards for years. The relationship between ELSA and Nvidia is thought to have weakened ever since Nvidia gave competitor Leadtek Research exclusive rights to manufacture and sell workstation-use graphics cards based on Nvidia’s Quadro4 chip in the Asia-Pacific region. Still, at present nearly 70% of Nvidia-based workstation-use graphics cards sold in the region are made by ELSA.
ELSA has stated that Nvidia-based graphics cards will remain its primary products for the workstation line. As for other product segments, ELSA will offer graphics cards using both Nvidia and ATI chips while adjusting the proportion produced according to market demand.
________________
Source:
DigiTimes
