Hardware Bistro

First of all, Thanks Galaxy for spending their valuable time for allowing us to make this e-interview happen. Here are the couple of questions that we believe our readers and ourselves are interest to know more about Galaxy in term of company background, product, marketing strategies as well as future plans.

 

Hardware Bistro: As we know Galaxy is one of the leading computer graphic card makers and we would like to know what is the top priority when designing/producing a new product; power, cost, design, unique feature or other? What makes Galaxy's products unique than others?

Galaxy: Hello. Let me first introduce myself. I'm Edward Chow from Galaxy Microsystems Ltd., and I'm the product marketing guy for Galaxy's global market. Back to the question, as you may know, Galaxy is famous for its unique design. Not only for the cooling system, but also PCB layout and software etc. Actually our full range of products is designed in-house (exclude the GTX 295 of course). 

Whenever we speak of custom-designed PCB, terms like cost-saving and cost-down always come to mind. Honestly, cost-saving is one of the main reasons for ABPs (Authorized Board Partners) like Galaxy to design their own PCB, however for Galaxy there is always something else that is at least (if not more) as important as cost-saving. What distinguishes us from other ABPs is Galaxy's uniqueness. When designing a new product, we ask ourselves a very simple question: What do users want? What features or specifications are missing in the market? Because many of us are also hardcore DIY users, this allowed us to input many new ideas into our products. For example, Galaxy is one of the first manufacturers to implement dual BIOS design into graphics cards. We are also one of the first manufacturers to release Low Power series graphics cards, and we are still the only manufacturer to offer Low Power Low Profile version of GeForce 9600 GT, and GTX 275 / 285 using Digital PWM circuitry. Here are just a few examples.

 

Hardware Bistro: What is the time frame for Galaxy to produce a brand new graphic card? On the same day with NVIDIA announcement date or need to have some additional weeks or months in order to produce a better or improved version (overclocked, low power or higher performance cooler)?

Galaxy: For a fast-moving industry like graphics card, time to market is one of the successful key factors. Unlike other ABPs which will first release products based on reference design, in order to meet NVIDIA's announcement date, Galaxy often releases products based on its own design on the first date NVIDIA's announcement is made. This is possible because all our works began months before NVIDIA's announcement, and we work very closely with NVIDIA for engineering support. We have a very large research and development team in China, and our own manufacturing facilities allow us to test and fine tune our designs easily. Of course, we always revise our product line up from time to time, in order to maintain competiveness. Whenever we find ways to improve our product, we would release a new version. 

 

Hardware Bistro: We would like to know what kind of graphic cards does Galaxy focus the most; entry, mainstream, performance or extreme? For those non top priority products, will galaxy make some necessary actions to boost the sales (maybe overclocked version, better cooler or bundled with some gaming software)? 

Galaxy: Galaxy's sales network is all over the world, and depending on geographical location, products focus varies quite differently. Of course, we focus our R&D resources mostly on our upper end products, because this is the segment which high end users concern about special features and design. For entry and mainstream products, which customers are more cost-concerned, we will make sure our products could maintain required level of performance at the most reasonable price. We also work with local distributors and medias on marketing campaigns and product reviews to increase our exposure. Bundling is also a good marketing idea; our cards have been bundling trial version of Badaboom for a while, for our users to experience the power of CUDA. We are also working on our own version of 3D Vision Discover glasses to bundle with 200 series graphics card for free.

 

Hardware Bistro: Next question is a very basic question where most of the customers and reviewers like us would like to know. Is there any chance for Galaxy to start producing ATI based graphic cards in the near future since it should definitely help Galaxy to conquer more market share and increase brand awareness among the end users.

Galaxy: The answer is no at the time being. There are still no plans to produce ATI based graphics cards. 

Hardware Bistro: Besides graphic card, will Galaxy start to chip in other product arenas like water cooler graphic card, motherboard, cooler or maybe PSU since there is a trend for such similar graphic card makers to expand their product range. Is there any plan for doing so or Galaxy would like to further concentrate on graphic card sector before move into other area.

Galaxy: Graphics is and will still be our main focus area; however we are also very keen to join other markets. For example we have just released our own HDMI cable. For other components such as cooler and PSU, we are still evaluating our possibilities of joining.

 

Hardware Bistro: Last but not least, many thanks to Edward for explaining all these information to us which is pretty useful and we hope Galaxy will continue  succeed in the graphic card arena; don't forget to launch more existing & unique products as plenty of us are waiting for that !

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