Tom's does RTX.10

[bsdgeek]

Right Here

Thought this might be interesting to some of you.

[mmp121]

Interesting, kinda....

Useful, not at all

I'm looking to buy an RT.X10 this xmas or a little after, and I was hoping for a GOOD review of it.

Oh well, I wasn't 2 impressed with the review.

[Indiana]

What do you expect from a Tom's (Mr. misinformation) review. At least it was not done by Lars Weinand (that's the guy who does the NVidia-biased gfx-card benchmarks and keeps boasting dual 400MHz RamDACs for the GF4, which is plain wrong [it has dual 350MHz] even though this error was criticized a few times now - I did send him an email with a polite correction myself with no effect, so I think this is a deliberate misinformation he likes to spread)

[Dr Mordrid]

Yeah...Tom isn't the one to check with on video editing products.

That said the RT.X10 is not that shabby, but if you have the financial means at all I'd go for the RT.X100.

I absolutely love mine, but you do have to follow those system recommendations; especially the part about avoiding VIA chipsets like the plague. Mixed AMD and VIA are likewise hopeless.

SiS 745, nVidia 420 or Intel chipsets are fine. AthlonXP 2000+ or better delivers the horsepower you need for the current drivers, but that speed may have to be upped if Matrox ups the number of video layers it can do in realtime (likely).

Dr. Mordrid

[Ted222]

I've got an RT.x10 and the only difference I have been able to come up with so far (between it and the RT.x100) are less effects (which are plentiful in the RT.x10) and less Chroma Key functionality (which I haven't used at all). It exports the DV it almost real time and near as I can tell the video quality is identical.

I don't use MPEG video except to encode it after I have finished editing. And I don't use Premiere for that.

Pretty happy so far....if I need a Lens Flare Effect, I will use my RT2500 and then bring it back home to the RT.x10.

(having lots of fun with it)

Ted

[Nethermancer]

Does anyone know who in Matrox I have to contact to get a review sample RTX10 (or RTX100)? I'm doing a review of video capture/editing cards including the ATI Radeon AIW 9700 and the Nvidia Home Cinema 2 and want to include one of Matrox's offerings. I know they're aimed at different markets but I always put a lot of video editing stuff into my tests. You can find evidence of this with my P4 3.06GHz review (www.hardwarereview.net).

I figure if Tom's Hardware can get one, so can I (LOL).

[Dr Mordrid]

Done. I sent your email addy from the website to an appropriate person.

UPDATE: message received and forwarded to Matrox UK.

Dr. Mordrid

[Nethermancer]

Thanks Doc.

Incidentally, I got a Promise SX4000 like yours from Promise in The Netherlands and was wondering what size DIMM you use. I got a 256MB one and am waiting for 2 more Maxtor D540X 160GB drives before running tests. It would be interesting to compare the results with your setup which will be virtually identical, for example to see if the onboard memory actually helps apart from an initial boost.

[Dr Mordrid]

256 MB works great for me. The purpose of the memory isn't necessarily to speed up the r/w operations but to buffer them. It may well speed up r/w's where the file is <256 megs, but most times in video we're streaming gigs not megs.

When you're setting up use the minimal PAM installation, just enough to get the options panel. No need for the remote management stuff. Once in the options panel turn off SMART but leave the cache turned on.

Dr. Mordrid