If for some reason further proof was necessary that AMD's purchase of ATI was a good decision, the company has confirmed today that XFX, long-time board partner of NVIDIA, will now be batting for the home team. XFX has been a strong brand in the enthusiast market for their overclocked cards and support of competitive gaming including their contributions to the Fatal1ty line of gaming products. XFX's CEO, Michael Chiu, said that superior performance was not the only thing that provoked the change of sides - multimedia functionality including video transcoding, HD playback and audio capabilities also played a part in the decision.

Not only is this good news for AMD as they will be getting a strong new board partner, it seems like pretty bad news for NVIDIA as well. Apart from ASUS and MSI, who have been selling video cards for both teams for a long time, the last major NVIDIA board partner is EVGA. It has been reported already that EVGA might be thinking of cuddling up to Intel's Larrabee when it launches in the next decade, as they have recently put an end to their exclusivity to NVIDIA products with the launch of their X58 motherboard.

Of course with the pending launch of NVIDIA's new graphics cards, the GeForce GTX 285 and GTX 295, we might see a swing by existing partners to take over XFX's former tier 1 position. All signs seem to be indicating that the upcoming graphics cards are pretty special, so this is a good chance for NVIDIA to promote other board partners and take advantage of the temporary success that will follow the launch.

Source: Fudzilla