Foxconn releases first graphics card

Foxconn officially announced one of the worst kept secrets today – that it is to start producing and selling retail graphics cards.

Initially it will make Nvidia Geforce 6600s and 7600s, aiming its cards at the mainstream, non-performance hungry market. At Computex it was demonstrating a working Geforce 7950 GX2, although said it didn’t know when it would start mass-producing high end cards.

The Nvidia cards come out in August, although Foxconn was at pains to remain vendor neutral, and said ATI cards would follow within a month. However, it did not indicate which ATI graphics processing unit it would use. Although again it will follow the same strategy and focus on midrange cards.

With so many established companies already enjoying good reputations for making graphics cards, Foxconn has a difficult job ahead to build strong market share, especially as it is bending over backwards not to upset existing partners.

A Foxconn spokesman accepted this was a crowded, tough market it is moving into, but said the company thought it had the potential to be a success.

The company is better known for its motherboards, and it is pushing harder here as well, particularly around those using Nvidia’s Nforce 5 chipset.

Already in mass production, but again announced officially today, it is now making an Nforce motherboard under the Foxconn brand, rather than the Winfast name it usually uses for AMD-based boards.

The SLI-ready C51XEM2AA board was co-designed with Nvidia, which has said it is the best – and fastest – motherboard using its high end 590 series chipset.

Supporting AMD’s AM2 processors and with dual channel DDR2 533/667MHz memory, S/PDIF out, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and Dolby Digital Live, this will be the only AMD/Nvidia board that uses the Foxconn name, the company said. Others will continue to sell under the Winfast brand.

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