Gigabyte X700 Video Card Review :: Introduction

Gigabyte is one of the biggest Taiwanese manufacturers of computer components. I've had the pleasure to review several of their video cards, motherboards, and DVD players over the years. With an employee base of over 6,000 people worldwide, Gigabyte as a company has grown from its inception in 1986 to become a first-tier OEM.

Last year, ATI had an interesting year in the mid-range graphics card segment. The 9600XT AGP was the mid-range part till the middle of the year, when ATI announced their X600XT for the PCI Express platform. The X600XT was the PCI Express equivalent of the 9600XT and did fine as an OEM card for ATI. Later in the summer of 2004, ATI announced the X700XT card. Unfortunately, due to the release of the X800XL, ATI never released the X700XT to retail.

ATI announced the X700 Pro at the same time as the X700XT. This product reached retail shortly after launch, unlike the X700XT. With a retail price of $199 USD, this competed with NVIDIA's GEFORCE 6600GT for the mid-range market place. Today, the card has supposedly been replaced by the X800 card, but most X800s are higher priced than the MSRP.