Manufacturer: Gainward Tech: PCI based 3Dfx Voodoo2 with 12Mb EDO Bundle: N/A Price: $129

Not many mainstream gamers have ever heard of the Taiwanese manufacturer known as "Gainward". Specializing in video accelerators, Gainward has made strides of late by adopting a more "gamer-specific" marketing campaign and focus. With products based on 3Dfx's Voodoo and Voodoo2 chipset, as well as a host of other video chip manufacturing companies (S3, 3Dlabs, Real3D, etc) Gainward offers almost everything under the sun to suit someone looking for a cheap/fast video upgrade.

Here's the company's "official" bio:

"Founded in 1984 with a commitment to developing advanced graphic accelerators, Gainward has risen to become the #1 producer of graphic accelerators in Taiwan, and among the top five worldwide, with over 2.5 million units shipped in 1997, and a projected 6 million units in 1998".

Whoa, easy there tiger! Number one in Taiwan and number five worldwide? Who're they selling all those cards to, China?

The answer lies in several global OEM PC vendors, not necessarily the biggies like Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc, but a ton of smaller system builders who swear by Gainward's products.