With ATI and Nvidia a dead-end for real-world information on the supply of their cards, we moved on to question the manufacturers of graphics cards.

We found, however, that the opinions of graphic card companies are divided. Companies such as BFG and PNY consider the current situation as a favorable scenario for their business. "Demand is always high for the best products. We are selling them as fast as we can get them. Demand is great," said Nancy Larson from PNY. John Malley, spokesperson for BFG, believes that there is no unusual shortage of chips in the market: "I think it is consistent with GeForce 3, GeForce 4 and GeForce FX, supply at the high-end is always outweighed when the product launches."

Malley reassured us that history will repeat itself: "a look at history will tell you things will get better as the product life cycle matures." The problem is that these products have not just been launched; they are already a third of the way into their life cycle - especially given accelerated product announcements from ATI and Nvidia.

Gigabyte, one of the largest Taiwanese manufacturers of graphic cards, disagrees with BFG and PNY. The company said that all ATI and NVIDIA card partners do not receive as many chips as they request, and do not get sufficient feedback about when availability may improve.

Like Gigabyte, PC manufacturer Alienware believes that the major technology transition at both companies can be blamed for the shortage of chips. "It was a painful shortage for the entire industry," said spokesperson Joe Olmsted. "With Intel's launch of the PCI Express chipset, everything changed. Suddenly, there was a complete change of multiple technologies from the processor to the mainboard." He also noted that more users than ever before are willing to pay significantly more money to own higher-performing graphic cards.

A representative from Gigabyte agreed, but hinted that neither ATI nor Nvidia were achieving the yield rates the companies had hoped for: "most high-end graphic chips have a yield rate issue or shortage." Sources at another company told Tom's Hardware Guide that current yields for high-end graphic chips do not exceed the 20 to 30 percent range.

Gigabyte believes that the current chip shortage is serious enough to have damaged the firm's graphics business "a lot", the representative said. "We do lots of marketing for the channel, but the end user can't buy the products in the channel market." The company said that it "will be hard to recover from" and that it does not believe it can provide volume quantity until 2005.

Olmsted is slightly more positive, expecting that high-end cards may be easier to get by Christmas.