It seems like when it comes to graphics cards, you only have two main options which is an Nvidia card or an ATI card. Now I know they're pretty much the best of the best but I was just wondering, are there any other graphics card manufacturers out there? I was actually shopping for a new card and most of them are pretty expensive and I was thinking maybe there are some Chinese companies making some cheap graphics cards that can get the job done or something.
Intel offers basic GPUs, but Nvidia and AMD (Radeon) are the kings in this space. A handful of other companies produce graphics cards, but the reason you haven't heard of many of them is that they don't compare well to NVidia or AMD. Both companies have almost the ENTIRE GPU market cornered if you don't count Intel's integrated graphic cards. I wouldn't trust any company other than Nvidia and AMD to be honest. It's not worth the hassle, or the lower quality graphics and processing power.
Well I don't Intel HD is a real graphics card, I mean those things are pretty under powered. Yeah I guess you're right, I mean if they're really out there it sure to be selling high in the markets but still, I think I saw this one card, I'm not sure if it's still Nvidia but it had a different name it's called "Palit" and it had the standard GT and Geforce names Nvidia has. They're pretty cheap but I'm not sure if they're just a rebranded reproduction of what Nvidia has.
I suggest just sticking to the reputable brands. The brands made in CHina aren't popular for a very good reason: they aren't very reliable. Even though they may be very cheap, there is always the question of how reliable the manufacturer is. You never know when one will fail, but if you're just using the computer to word process or something like that, then sure, go ahead and buy one of those cards.
I'm not sure if this is a thing or if it even exists from where you live but in here we have some sort of ODM graphics cards. I think they're called Palit, again I'm not sure about this but these Palit cards are pretty much the same as Nvidia cards, I think they're rebranded or just plain rip off's but they're there.
There are a range of 3rd party manufacturers (Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA) who take the prototype cards produced by Nvidia and AMD and improve them with better coolers/faster overclocks, they really don't come into play.
I never heard of them making cards, are the cheaper than the main guys or are they more expensive? I'm guessing they're more expensive since they made some tinkering with it?
I think there are some third party GPU's out there but I wouldn't bet 100% that they're independent. Graphics cards or any other computer parts are not really for everyone so you can't expect a lot of companies making they're own and I think that even though there third party GPU's they would still have that Nvidia or ATI logo stamped in somewhere.