Minor bankrupt GPU manufacturers of Korea: Suma Electron, Rextech, Evertop

Btw from now on I would translate some namuwiki page for computer parts only. I do not deal with KPop articles unless if they're related to PC parts. Some grammars are fixed, and I used google translate. Namu wiki's work is available under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 KR . (However, except for some documents and illustrations for which the license is specified)

namu.wiki/w/그래픽%20카드/제조사#s-4.11

All of these brand are defunct due to fierce competition in IT segment. I documented and translated this (sloppily) because we got a lot of Used Korean pc parts imported...

SUMA ELECTRON CO. LTD (슈마 일렉트론)

S/U/M/A/

(recreated company logo)

Founded in 1998 as Supermicro Systems Co. Ltd, with their first product being a modem. Listed in KOSDAQ in year 2002. It was known for making GPU locally (one of few of Korean GPU manufacturer) at least until February 2004 due to ending official partnership with NVIDIA for focusing to game development and this is why SUMA never made PCI-e GPU, all of their GPU is AGP.

This company also diversifies to PC Bang franchising system, attempted to make an MMORPG nicknamed Fusion Fantasy (and obviously hiring beta testers), and sponsoring Korean Esports team SUMA GO (Greatest One) before changing name to GO due to financial issues, then CJ Entus, and finally OGN Entus (has been disbanded, disbandment announced on 28th Nov 2020, 2 days later officially disbanded).

SUMA went delisted from KOSDAQ in year 2005 and went bankrupt in year 2006 due to fraud and other criminal issues done by CEO Seo Young-guk (which he bribed officials, paid debt collectors, and living lavishly in Gangnam district).

(Source: http://www.noteforum.co.kr/news/index.htm?nm=927 , https://www.etnews.com/200402100132?m=1 and saramin.co.kr/zf_user/company-info/view/csn/NUVsZUJLQmFpNEhYeWwzeGJzaWJRUT09/company_nm/(주)슈마일렉트론 recreated using summary to prevent plagiarism)

Edit 11 May 2022: This company had official presence in Indonesia : From counterstrike competition on magazine in 2001 . Website is memory.net, which is kinda confusing. At same time, distributors for Philips and AMD was Data Benua Persada. Universal Abit were distributed by PT Spectrum Utama, which then sells Vaikoo.

REXTECH (렉스텍)

It was famous as a distributor and also made their own graphics card as REXTECH Black Label. Rextech was a Palit and PCPARTNER OEM, and also distributed Sapphire graphics cards before Emtek did it, and was a distributor of XFX (some of their GPU is rebadged XFX units such as GTS 250 Black Label blower edition [1][2]). It went bankrupt around the same time as Evertop (possibly around 2011). They also sells "Built By ATI" GPUs (aka ATI reference design).

EVERTOP (에버탑)

Their graphics card was a Palit and PCPARTNER OEM product, and with this relationship, when PC Partner first launched ZOTAC, a high-end retail brand, Evertop became a distributor of ZOTAC in Korea.(During the launch of 8800 Ultra AMP at the launch ceremony of Zotac this is prevalent. The connection is so deep that the Evertop graphic card, which was made by PCPartner as an OEM, was also displayed in the corner where products including products were displayed.)

However, after that, series of what causes Evertop to fail is Evertop made a graphic card with a built-in TV tuner, but didn't work out nicely (Actually, it was just an RF chip mounted on the graphics card board, but it didn't work together, but instead has to be used by connecting a USB cable. Even the antenna was on the same board as the graphic card, so it looked like the antenna was located inside the case, so bad signal.), exaggerated advertisement of GPU power supply board, and eventually went bankrupt around 2011, so A/S is gone forever. It is worthy of being called the black history of the computer industry.