The video card market is defined today by the battle between NVIDIA and ATI, the last men standing from a group of over 30 video card companies back in 1996. Companies like 3DFX, Evans and Sutherland, S3 (the original S3), Rendition, Trident, Orchid and many others are now nothing but a distant memory in terms of video cards. Other companies like Matrox and XGI have minimal presence in the video card market.
Today’s video cards are marketed on the high-end of the spectrum and the mid-range of the pricing spectrum. NVIDIA high-end cards include the 9800GTX and the 9800GX2 cards which retail for $299 and $599 respectively. Their mid-range cards are the 8800GT and 9600GT cards that retail under $200. The divide between the mid-range and high-end is drawing ever closer.
XFX builds graphics cards based upon NVIDIA based video chips. They have built slews of cards based upon the GeForce 8 generation that includes the 8800GTX, 8800GTS, 8800GT, and others. NVIDIA launched their 8800GT last year to a wildly successful reception. The 9800GX2 is based upon the same chip as the 8800GT (G92) but has two of these cards operating together in SLI mode to offer better performance.
