There are rumours going around Computex Taipei 2003 exhibition in Taiwan that a number of graphics card makers are seriously considering manufacturing of graphics cards powered by XGI Volari graphics processors. The list of the companies includes the names of tier-one manufacturers, even though there are no official comments from any firms mentioned.

As we managed to find out, ASUSTeK Computer, ABIT, Gigabyte Technology, CP Technology and Club3D plan to support XGI in an attempt to successfully enter the graphics cards market this year by adoption of XGI Volari V5 and V8 GPUs.

Everybody in the graphics cards market is very interested in the third provider of GPUs since the fierce competition between today’s leaders NVIDIA and ATI is not only exhausting for chip companies, but also has a negative impact on their add-in-board partners. Furthermore, only two GPU companies that have practically equal resources may result in a rise of the GPU cartel that totally controls the graphics processors market. Even though it is practically impossible for a new player to enter the market, AIB companies want to give XGI a try. In case XGI manages to be competitive, everyone will benefit from this.

Note that the information is totally unofficial and no formal decisions concerning actual graphics cards have been announced yet