BFG was founded last year with the bankruptcy of Visiontek. Many of the former Visiontek employees including the founder and CEO and the PR person were transferred to the new company. The old Visiontek concentrated on NVIDIA chips for their video cards, as does the new BFG. In an ironic twist, Visiontek has resurfaced under the guise of Hartford Computers Incorporated which now exclusively uses ATI cards.

Last year BFG introduced their first NVIDIA based video cards. Cards that were released on the BFG banner include the Ti4200 8x, the 5800 Ultra, the 5900 Ultra/Non Ultra, the 5600 Ultra/256MB 5600, the 5950 Ultra and the product being reviewed here, the 5700 Ultra. As BFG is a NVIDIA house, they've built cards based upon virtually every NVIDIA chip released in the last year.

NVIDIA announced the Geforce FX 5700 Ultra late last month to some fanfare. Based upon NVIDIA's NV36 chip, the 5700 Ultra is targeted upon the mid-range segment. By mid-range market, I mean the around $200 MSRP cards. While the high-end (399 and up) dominates the news when discussing graphics cards in a lot of ways, the fact is, most computer parts buyers don't want to spend that much. In point of fact most computer buyers never touch a standalone video card, open their case, or even update their drivers to the latest build.

According to Mercury Research, more than 95% of video cards sold today in retail are priced under $200. This barrier effectively becomes the mid-range market where most retail buyers won't cross, unless a product is exceptional or there's a compelling reason to purchase the card. That's what the 5700 Ultra is targeted at. BFG's card is priced at 219.99 with a $20 mail-in rebate, effectively fitting within the budget.

Asus has traditionally been an exclusive supplier of NVIDIA based video cards since the TNT days. In the past, they’ve made cards based upon 3dfx, ATI and other manufacturers. But today, Asus has switched to using both ATI and NVIDIA solutions. By this time next year, I believe every video card manufacturer (Abit, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Power Color, et al) will utilize chip sets from multiple sources (ATI, NVIDIA, Via, XGI). This is a good thing.

ATI announced their fall lineup on 2 separate dates, the 9800XT on October 1st 2003 and the 9600XT on October 15th 2003. The 9600XT from Asus was announced at the same time as the ATI chip was announced. The 9800XT from Asus was also announced at the same time. This marks the first ATI based Asus card. Asus also recently announced cards based upon NVIDIA’s Geforce FX 5950 and 5700 Ultra when NVIDIA announced it.