According to a DigiTimes report, Intel is planning to move into the mid-range graphics card market for desktop PCs, positioning the products as direct competitors to AMD's ATI Radeon and Nvidia's GeForce series of cards. Although Intel's roadmap reportedly remains vague at the moment, sources from multiple graphics card vendors have confirmed Intel has approached them to lay down their GPU market entrance plans.
Reception to the news is generally positive with one graphics card vendor stating that it will almost certainly support the Intel line with new products, while most of the others are all waiting for more information before they make a decision.
Intel has built a strong lead in the graphics market, holding over a 50% share of the integrated graphics market (IGP) in the first quarter of 2007, although this is will not guarantee Intel success in the discrete market its entrance into the GPU market should benefit customers, considering the company has the resources and aggressiveness to compete with AMD and Nvidia in terms of technology and costs.