Graphics card maker eyes PCIE market in RP

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

WHILE the Philippines is still a market of predominantly AGP (accelerated graphics port) users, video card maker PowerColor is expecting a major market shift from the outdated graphics port to the new and faster PCI Express (PCIE) standard, particularly as it introduces a new range of graphics cards.

The company recently introduced in the Philippines the PowerColor ATI Radeon HD2000 series, all of which are now on the PCIE port. The new graphics cards emphasizes the high-definition market for graphics, particularly the high-end video gaming sector.

PowerColor Asia Pacific marketing manager Kevin Ho said in an interview that there is now a replacement market for PCIE graphics cards as prices of both graphics cards and motherboards go down and as demand for intensive graphics becomes apparent.

“We’re now at a period where users who owned legacy AGP motherboards are replacing their PCs with boards that have PCI Express slots. This allows users to buy newer cards that are also competitively priced as their old AGP cards,” Ho said.

Ho said that PowerColor intends to aim for the low-end and mid-range graphics card market in the Philippines where most buyers are on a budget. Most graphics card purchases range between P3,000 to P15,000 while high-end units are from P16,000 to P30,000.

Stil, Ho said the market is still good for the high-end graphics market in the Philippines, even though it is only a fraction of the total sector.

“Most buyers in the Philippines would still be in the entry-level and mid-level markets and that’s where PowerColor hopes to dominate,” Ho said.

PowerColor will be the first Philippine OEM (original equipment manufacturer) provider of cards made by ATI. The Radeon HD2000 series is composed of the entry-level HD2400, the mid-level HD2600 and the high-end HD2900.

All of the cards have been tested on the new DirectX 10 graphics framework, Microsoft Vista, and are compatible with either Blu-Ray and HD-DVD optical drives.

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