The motherboard guys are not focused enough on graphics and we all know that ATI lacks some strong partners and competition among them. When it comes to ATI partners, Sapphire is predominant, and Asus and MSI might give it some competition, but every other committed partner is too small to seriously threaten Sapphire’s dominance.

The runner up in this sales game are Power Color and HIS, but both of them are small and they cannot affect the market the way ATI would like to. At the same time, Nvidia has at least 10 strong and committed partners that are doing a fairly good job.

Gainward is a newcomer that is supposed to get more of ATI's attention. Since it is a company owned by graphics giant Palit, it has volumes, capacity and know-how, and it looks that ATI wants to make it happen. We learned that ATI is pushing Gainward, creating some decent competition for the uber-dominant Sapphire.

Sapphire will remain the strongest and the biggest, but Gainward might get some decent market share of the other partners. Competition is always good and ATI still controls the prices.