While ATI Technologies has dramatically improved its workstation products in the recent years, NVIDIA Corp.’s Quadro-series of graphics cards is still the choice of majority of designers and other workstation users, according to Jon Peddie Research (JPR) research firm.

JPR recently reported that over 633 thousand units of branded professional graphics hardware shipped in the second quarter, yielding $240 million in revenue. The company also said that workstation vendors supplied 503.8 thousand branded workstations in the second quarter of 2005, accounting for almost $1.3 billion in revenue. The difference in the number of professional graphics cards and computers outlines that the retail market of workstation add-in graphics boards is pretty strong.

NVIDIA Quadro product line is the most popular family of workstation graphics cards commanding 69% of the units and over 73% of revenue, according to JPR. ATI and 3DLabs continue to jostle for market share, but while ATI has seen a surge in its lower-end products thanks to major OEM wins, NVIDIA’s results are most noteworthy in the upper end of the market, where higher prices are yielding substantial revenue, despite lower volumes.

Jon Peddie Research reported in the latest installment of its Workstation Report series that the year 2005 would be a solid year for the workstation and professional graphics market.