Graphics card buyers guide

Two manufacturers

Today's market for single graphics cards is dominated by two companies, ATI and nVidia. There are other players on the market, for instance S3, but these companies are not able to keep up with the speed that ATI and nVidia release new cards. It is no surprise that cards from companies other than ATI and nVidia are quite rare.

Both ATI and nVidia do not sell cards themselves, but only produce the 3D chips that form the heart of a card. Both companies, however, will produce a "reference-design" of a card, on which partners base the actual retail versions. A large number of brands will produce cards of either company, such as ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and Club3D. Next to these there are a few exclusive partners per company. Point-of-View, XFX, Leadtek and EVGA only sell nVidia cards, while Sapphire, HIS, PowerColor and GeCube only produce ATI cards.

ATI chip-based cards can be recognized by the name "Radeon", whereas nVidia based cards will go by the name "GeForce". Both companies have cards in all price categories and market segments.