According to rumours given voice by Digitimes this week, PC hardware component manufacturer ASRock is planning to venture into the wild world of graphics cards. Unnamed 'market watchers' have stated that ASRock will debut their first graphics card this April, and that the graphics card range will be solely powered by AMD GPUs.

ASRock made a name for themselves by producing some well respected designs in the highly competitive motherboard market over the years, but historically struggled to gain market share over entrenched giants GIGABYTE and ASUS. However 2017 has been a strong year for the Taiwan-based component manufacturer, who made inroads in mid-to-high-end motherboard markets as well as riding the Crypto wave via purpose-built multi-GPU mining 'boards. Industrial and server solutions have also performed well, diversifying their product range substantially.

The move may be an attempt by ASRock to position themselves as a brand synonymous not only with high-performance consumer hardware but also cryptocurrency, building on their mining 'board successes.

Demand for GPUs from cryptocurrency miners remains high, potentially making expansion into this market quite lucrative but with high associated risks. However, with AMD GPU supply constrained at source, adding another brand into the market is unlikely to have a significant short-term impact. It's also possible ASRock will chose to rebadge AMD reference PCB and cooler designs, or partner with existing GPU cooler OEMs, in order to mitigate costs.

SOURCE: Digitimes.com