OCZ wants a slice of the enthusiast graphics market

Sunnyvale (CA) - OCZ announced that it will expand its product portfolio from enthusiast memory into the graphics card space. The first device is a card based on Nvidia's 8800 GTX graphics processor with G80 core.

The new OCZ "GeForce 8800 GTX GPU" is identical with Nvidia's reference 8800 GTX board, using a 575 MHz core and 1350 MHz memory clock. There is also the same 768 MB memory installed on the card. However, OCZ claims that its cards will be different than the regular GTX cards as it "hand-selects" the cards to offer "more overclocking headroom."

The press release as well as OCZ product pages do not go into detail what and how much headroom OCZ will provide with its cards. Company officials were not reachable at the time of this writing.

"The graphics sector is currently the technology sector with the most direct impact on the gaming experience," commented Dr. Michael Schuette, VP of Technology Development at OCZ Technology. "It has become a logical step for OCZ Technology to get back in the game, and naturally, we are doing it with the highest end solution currently available."

OCZ's strategy in this segment - whether it will limit its offering to high-end and Nvidia or ATI/AMD products - is unclear. At least for now, the company is aiming for a share in a $149 million-a-year market that is dominated by firms such as BFG, PNY, XFX or EVGA.