The high-end video card market is in a state of marking time for the next few months, until the first DirectX 10 video cards are released in the high-end and Microsoft releases their next Operating System, Windows Vista, late this year for corporate customers and early next year for the average consumer. In the meantime, however, the upgrade market for video cards is alive and thriving, with people upgrading from AGP to PCI Express, from Socket A to 940 (AM2) and to LGA-775 from Socket 478.
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The vast majority of video cards sold today are not of the high-end variety. High-end cards retail for $400-500, and less than 10% of the total standalone market for video cards come from the high-end. High end cards are worthy of bragging rights from NVIDIA and ATI, and help pay for the R+D necessary to bring high-end features to the mid-range and low-end cards. ASUS manufactures video cards, motherboards, notebooks and other computer components. A Tier-1 motherboard manufacturer, ASUS manufactures video cards on virtually every NVIDIA and ATI chipset, and has also announced a card based upon Ageia's new PhysX chip.
