Visiontek breathes life into PCI graphics

Though it may not be breaking any land-speed records, it appears that the good old PCI bus is far from dead. Some of you might remember the Matrox offering not that long ago, which allowed pretty much as many monitors as you had PCI slots (times two, actually). But aside from that, things have seemed pretty much over aside from a sound card or PPU.

However, Visiontek apparently hasn't been ignoring the old standard, and in fact proves that it can still live up to current-gen hardware. The company has released a new X1300 model for PCI with a whopping 256MB of RAM. For reference, we were already moving onto the AGP slot back when 16-32MB cards were popular.

Jeff Hoeft Sr., Director of Product Development for the company had this to say: "Everyone in PC industry has been saying the standard PCI upgrade for graphics cards was dead for the last few years. In fact, what we have experienced is growing demand for PCI graphics upgrades, because the PCI card works in all PCs, past, present and future."

The card is retailing for $135.00 USD, and can be found on the shelves of many US retailers. It is also available online for prices ranging between $130-150 USD. Visiontek are a US-only ATI partner so we will wait and see if any European partners announce a similar PCI part for UK / Europe.

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