GeForce any Viewpoints

[JasonD]

Well, I was wondering what the Matrox community thought of the news from Nvidia on there new chip and the fact that they have working product on auction at Ebay?

Best Regards,



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Jd

[agallag]

Does it have dual head? No? Don't care then...

[Himself]

It's a beta batch, it will be a good buy come Christmass or so when the drivers reach non alpha status. I can wait for the NV20 or other offerings to come along.

[IceStorm]

nVidia has never impressed me. 3dfx delivers on time. Matrox at least had the sense this time around to delay the MAX until the 5.2 drivers were ready (as if that was a coincidence). nVidia just announces chips and makes people wait for them to come out on boards. Then, when products do ship, they're slower than the original specs, and take months of driver tweaking to get right.

I'm not buying an nVidia-based product. Not now, and not in the forseable future. I'd rather get an S3 Savage 2000 than the GeForce 256.



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Primary System: PIII-540 (450@4.5x120), Soyo 6BA+ III, 256MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium G200 AGP, Millennium II, Voodoo2 SLI, Two Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u monitors, 3Com 3C905, SoundBlaster 32, Altec Lansing AC5 spkrs, 2nd Parallel Port, WD AC41800 18GB HD, WD AC310100 10GB HD, Toshiba XM-6102b CD-ROM, HP 8100i CD-RW, Epson Stylus Pro, Sharp JX-9400 LJ-II compatible, OptiUPS PowerES 650, MS SideWinder Precision Pro USB joystick, Logitech 3-button mouse, Mitsumi keyboard, Win98 SE, Belkin OmniCube 4-port KVM

Secondary System: PII-266, Asus P2B BIOS 1008, 128MB PC100 ECC SDRAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C590, ADSL Modem 640kbit down/96kbit up, 3Com 3C509, Mylex BT-930 SCSI card, Seagate 2GB Hawk, NEC 6x CD-ROM, Linux distro S.u.S.E. 6.1 (IP Masquerade works!)

Tertiary System: DFI G568IPC Intel 430HX chipset, P200MMX, 96MB of non-parity RAM, Millennium II, 3Com 3C900, SoundBlaster 16 MCD, Fujitsu 3.5GB HD, WD 1.2GB HD, OS of the week

All specs subject to change monthly.

[maxie]

I think GF256 will hurt both G400 and V3 and other chips.
GF256 exists today, and in 2 months you can buy it, ofcourse many people will wait for a chip that is so much better than everything you can buy today, why shouldn´t you?

I have always like and used 3dfx and matrox, and I have not been so impressed by nVidia, but I think we have to accept that in 1-2 months NVIDIA has a outstanding product. If not anything happens, I´m sure that I will own a GF256 at cristmas.
Ofcourse, we dont know what V4 will be, but for some reason I dont think they 3dfx can compete with GF256 (i hope i´m wrong). Users and developers want faster and more polys, not T-buffer.

But I think there will be heat problems with GF256, i mean, 23M transsistors and 0.22 mikron? I suppose there will be a new GF256 in 6 months clocked higher and with 0.18um...

[atysoe]

I have been waiting so long for the MAX to hit the shelves, and I will most likely buy this new nvidia card. I don't care so much about games as using 3d studio in NT.

what seperates the 250$ cards from the 2500$ is the geometry and lighting processor they carry which means that on high polygon work you get a far faster redraw and more workable desktop.

So the GeForce might not be as fast as a $2500 card, and I can live with half my games not running, as I am sure it will be considerably faster than the G400 in NT, particularly as Matrox have already confirmed to me personaly that they have a Mini GL driver in NT 4, which means it is game orientated with a lot of features missing for applications.

thats my 5 cents, allthough if you are a gamer I think perhaps the G400 max is still the better deal, next sept perhaps I will have another card, and IU would like it to be Matrox

[zodden]

Well for the people on Ebay-what are they buying? If its early silicon as I suspect then they are fools. Probably paying crazy prices for it as well.

As to how it effects the G400 Max, well for the month of September at least it will be the fastest card out there. The Nvidia card sounds very impressive and might do what Voodoo 1 did for 3dfx if they and Matrox and S3 can not counter it. I personally think that they will all counter, as the days of the Voodoo 1 are over, and parity is the name of the game these days.

I for one will enjoy my G400 Max for the rest of this year. Next Febuary or so I will probably look to upgrade with an AGP 4x Vid card and Motherboard. There is no hurry to upgrade to the new Nvidia card right now. First off the Max is fast, it has more mature drivers, will have its features incorporated into the Christmas 1999 3D games.

Later

[Spike!]

I'd like to know what R0M thinks. He was snooping the GeForce IRC chat yesterday. Asked a couple of pointed questions on textures. I'm still not sure DOT3 BM is better than EMBM, but it is more realistic.

As for me, I'm going to wait the extra month for the GeForce. The T&L should help my dual Celeron setup and the NT drivers should be decent enough to play Q3 on because they are unified drivers for TNT/TNT2/GF256. Time will tell whether this is a mistake or not.

The sad part is that had the Max been available in June, I would have bought it.
I'll revisit you guys when Matrox announces their T&L board. Hope Matrox learned something by then about ramping availability...

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Kissing my S3 Virge bye bye in October (I hope)

[atysoe]

I too have been waiting 3 months for the G400 Max to come out, I guess I can wait another 2 to see if the GPU works in NT 3DS Max. And by april everyone will have GPU's in any case.

If matrox didn't release their stuff so late I'd be a lot happier. But that is life...

[Scytale]

Nice, very nice marketing. The Net is full of it...

The product itself is not much of a surprise though. We've been talking about this for ages now. Maybe this is not the ultimate 3D rig we've been waiting for but it definitely is a milestone on the road ahead.

Come back in a year...

[stingray]

I have always been a Matorx fan...being Canadian and all. My previous card was a G200. I never did get the Open GL in time. I ended up getting a Banshee and then a TNT2 Ultra. I REALLY wanted a G400 MAX, but to this day, no one in this city, Vancouver has any idea where to get one off store shelves....hmmm.
If GeForce is out by the end of Sep, that could still be before G400max. Why on earth would I get a it then. I use multi-display, but just use an old PCI Banshee card.
I would love to stick up for Matrox, but they just took WAY too long. My next card will be a GeForce.
I am no longer "in love" with any chip company. My loyalties lie with whoever has the best chip at the time. Period.

[Scytale]

Well stingray, first, loyalty is a consumer's worst enemy. Even when dismissing this, loyalty is where loyalty goes. Noble as it may be, being supportive towards a local company favoring the US market seems slightly unbalanced to me.

Wait a bit and see, but don't forget the complete picture shows price/performance, drivers and support.

[stingray]

Huh?
I will not speak in riddles. Quite simply, I will buy whatever is the best product at the time.

[cpld005]

Well if they ever get off their asses (Nvidia) and produce a card that's as good in 2D as it is in 3D then I might consider it. Matrox has never let me down when it comes to 2D quailty and Nvidia's products have always sucked big time. If this chip isn't as much better at 2D then it is at 3D then i'll pass and wait for the next Matrox card, or 3DFX card at least 3DFX can do 2D decently Nvidia cannot.

[GD]

OK I think the gf will beat the max. Although I doubt about it when compared to Savage 2000. S3's new chip seems to be the one that will change the way we think about S3 right now. anyway why is Matrox ALWAYS one step behind others and why do they announce a product 2 weeks before it hits the shelves? a poll @ sharkyextreme revealed that only a small percentage (3-4% i'm not sure) of potential buyers consider a matrox card. nearly 60% would buy an nvidia product though. I don't really like nvidia's policy (the aim at the gamer market as well as 3dfx). I loved the features of the G400s though (dualhead, EMBM).

I wonder how the Neon (powerVR) performs but it seems that videologic only cares to make it work for dreamcast... i do not expect much support for PC users

anyway nvidia is currently the only independed chip manufacturer... Matrox and ATI produce the printed circuits as well.. the same seems to be happening with S3(diamond) and 3dfx(STB) as well...

cya all... (i hope you understand what i write here..my english is awful and i didn't have much time)