Tech ARP :

Hi, David! Why don't we start with an introduction of Palit? Do also tell us a little about yourself and what you do in Palit.

Palit :

Hi, Vjeran and thanks for the opportunity to explain a little about Palit.

Palit has been building graphics cards since 1988. Palit is well-known in China and somewhat in the EU (European Union) but didn’t start selling cards in the Americas until the end of last year.

Most people want to know if we’re a big company and that’s a tricky question to answer because the next question is always HOW big. Depending on who you ask and what types of products you mean, i.e. discrete graphics, mobile graphics etc. Palit can be the #1, #2 or #3 largest NVIDIA partner for discrete graphics cards.

Another way to describe size is in terms of manufacturing capacity. Palit can produce more than 2,000,000 discrete graphics cards per month and that’s just ridiculously huge.

Palit has offices all over the world but I only work in support of the Americas as the consumer marketing manager. I started working at my hometown computer store back in 1997. I was a huge computer geek back then and continue to be one to this day much to the disappointment of my wife who often refers to herself as a computer widow.

I’ve worked for a few different manufacturers over the years and I’ve always been very active in the LAN party scene. I do my own case mods and can hold my own in CoD4 and QW:ET. If anyone doubts that just keep your eyes open for My[LIT]tlePony.

Tech ARP :

What products does Palit produce and what do you consider are your best products?

Palit :

The manufacturing focus of Palit is on video cards but we also have a line of motherboards. We haven’t yet brought the motherboard line to the Americas so there isn’t a whole lot I can tell you about them. We are a dual partner and build cards that feature both NVIDIA and AMD-based GPUs.

Tech ARP :

I have seen some new innovations in your new graphics cards, like four display outputs, improved 3-phase power supply, etc. Please tell us what they are and why they matter to the end user.

Palit :

Palit makes every attempt to build cards to our own design rather than simply turning out cookie cutter clones of the GPU manufacturer-provided reference design. This makes a really big difference to end users because we do things better than the reference design.

A reference design is just that, a reference. It’s the GPU manufacturer’s way of saying, you can’t do anything less than this. The reference design is really good for smaller card manufacturers that don’t have a design team. It allows them to build a card without having a whole engineering staff.

But Palit goes beyond the minimum requirement when we design our own cards. We introduced three-phase power first with our GeForce 8800GT series and have continued that into the GeForce 9600GT series. Three-phase power provides cleaner and more stable power that also runs cooler than the generic two-phase solution on the reference design.

When you overclock your card, stable and clean power plays an important role in keeping the card performing correctly. Everyone knows video cards keep getting hotter and hotter so reducing that heat is good not only for the video card but for the rest of your system as well.

Innovation is one of our core goals at Palit which is why we included a DisplayPort output on our GeForce 9600GT Sonic edition. Many people still haven’t heard of DisplayPort but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. For those that don’t know what DisplayPort is, it will be replacing DVI over the next couple of years.

Currently Dell has two LCDs you can buy that have a DisplayPort input. Samsung and a couple other companies have announced monitors with DisplayPort inputs coming out within a month or two. As far as I know, Palit is the only company that has released a video card with a working DisplayPort connector.

Heatsinks are another thing to which we pay close attention. We spend a lot of time in the design lab to come up with fantastic cooling solutions for our own designed cards. If you look at the 3DMark scores by card you can see our GeForce 8800GT (in an SLI configuration) is currently in the #2 spot out of all GeForce 8800GTs. It got that score with stock cooling on the graphics card.

Stay tuned for Damulta to take over the number one spot within a few days. Wile E, another TeamPalit overclocker, also just took the #1 spot for a GeForce 8800GT 1GB in 3DMark Vantage.

Tech ARP :

How many firms or brands are there under Palit?

Palit :

More than even I’m aware of. Most of the other brands are regional in China but we also have a couple in the EU. We also do some manufacturing for companies we don’t own but I’m not telling who.

Suffice it to say a lot more people own graphics cards that were actually built by Palit than may be aware of it. What is important to know about owning other brands is that these other companies are separate entities and pretty much get to do things their own way.

Gainward is a good example. While Palit owns them, they are able to run their own business the way they want. They provide their own support and distribution as well as their own marketing programs. So I’m not familiar with their products (since they don’t sell in my region), I don’t know anyone over there and I can’t speak for them.

Tech ARP :

What are Palit's plans for the future?

Palit :

That’s a really big question so I will just focus on the consumer side of things. The short answer is we will continue to do things in new, creative and relevant ways. Creating our own card designs will always be at the center of what we do because this has a tremendous impact on the overall experience that consumers have when using a Palit card.

For example, in virtually every review of our 1GB cards, reviewers point out that they found no significant advantage in having 1GB over 512MB when they ran their benchmarks. We think that is very short sighted and will continue to produce a 1GB flavor of every card we make.

New games coming out feature new functionality that isn’t available in games that are out now. Age of Conan is coming out May 20 and will allow you to dramatically increase your draw distance. Simply put, the more memory you have on your video card, the further you will be able to push out your draw distance without suffering a loss in frame rate.

Other yet-to-be-released titles will be better able to address the larger 1GB memory space. All this means that people who ignored reviewers and used their common sense will be able to use their 1GB card longer than people went with the 512MB version. Obviously there are exceptions to that and there are certainly some folks that will be fine with 512MB which is why we offer both versions.

LAN parties are one of the most fun aspects of gaming and case modding and we have started the development of a website to support them. But we’re doing things a little differently. Where most companies target large LANs with 500 or more attendees, www.palitlan.com is a community resource for small LANs with less than 100 attendees.

All of the content is being developed by community members and Palit is just covering the cost of site development and hosting. There is one ad on the front page and that’s it- no ads, popups or blinking text. We are sending our video cards, t-shirts and other fun swag to these small LAN parties in the same way larger LANs have been getting stuff for years.

We have a gaming team at www.teampalit.com made up of a great bunch of guys. They provide community-based tech support and general chat forums, game servers and do some random product contests and giveaways on their site as well as in the game servers.

They also have a group of overclockers that participate with HWBot and provide help to other overclockers. I particularly like the way they are willing to tell anyone how they achieved a particular score. Most (not all) OC teams keep the important stuff to themselves to avoid having other teams use that info to beat them.

I think Palit is unique in how we support the gaming team and the overclocking team in that they aren’t required to win tourneys or post the fastest scores in the world in order to maintain their sponsorship although it sure is fun when they do. These are great people doing really fun stuff and sharing it with the gaming and enthusiast communities and THAT is what we’re trying to support.

At the end of the day people game, OC and mod their case because it’s fun and if you get to be ranked in some way that’s just icing on the cake. We are trying to empower the average Joe to do cool stuff and have a good time and there is no real need to have the top CoD4 player because (whoever that is) they are just too good and not that much fun to play with. Having the fastest card typically means liquid nitrogen which means that machine never gets gamed on so what’s the point?

Engaging with the community is a big part of our plan. I’ve spent years reading forums, talking to marketing reps about many different products and building community websites and I’ve always been frustrated by double talk and marketing FUD and general crap in the way questions get answered. I don’t believe in doing that and if you look around for forum posts by Palit_Guy you’ll see right away that I’m not afraid to explain the REAL reason why we do what we do.

The best part is that Palit is okay with that. The truth is everyone is a little nervous about me because of that but they are willing to give it a chance. So far the response has been pretty good. Most companies have little or no presence in community forums because they are afraid what some forum troll may say.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that sometimes I have to walk away from the keyboard after some idiot goes off on some pointless rant just trying to make us look bad i.e. fanboi. I think that people are free to disagree with me and if they don’t like our cards or don’t like the way I explain why we did something they are free to buy someone else’s card. To me it’s more important to be accessible and provide real answers to real questions instead of being afraid of what someone may say.