Is matrox winding down for a new card?

[raptor666]

Do you think this whole thing about getting a G400 MAX. Is that they have reduced the amount they are making because most OEM's are happy with a vanilla G400 in their systems.

I personally think Matrox is spending most of it's time and resources on it's next gen card.

What would happen to Matrox if they did what No 9 have done and not used one of their own chips for their next gen card?

Peter

[Joel]

Probally the same thing that happened with the m3D, which used the PowerVR chip by NEC. A product that is not up to Matrox's standards of excellence.

Joel

[rickn]

I doubt Matrox is winding down for a new chipset. They seem to work on a yearly basis for new chipsets, which would mean spring 2000 for something new to be announced.

[Ant]

I agree with Rickn, I think Matrox will stick to their usual schedule and announce their next generation product in the Spring. I don't think we've seen the end of the G400 yet, there will certainly be a true AGP 4X model out soonish I'm sure.

I don't think we will ever see Matrox use a third party chip again, if they went that route it would be the end in the current climate. Matrox must remain as an independent chip producer.

[Himself]

While it's great to speculate, I don't see that there is much to speculate with when it comes to Matrox. You were more likely to know about the Russian military hardware back in the cold war days than you are to have a clue what is going on with Matrox hardware.

Personally, I don't see anything interesting in video cards coming along with the sole exception of the vapourware products from GigaPixel and BitBoys. NVIDIA is fast but tends to trip up a lot for modest yardage gains, S3 drops the ball too often, giving it to the other team, 3dfx is wondering why they lost the last game and are trying to replay it again, ATi is using crutches and trying to keep up, and Matrox is just sitting on the curb outside the ballpark waiting for the next bus while reading a book with headphones on, ignoring everybody.

[Gavin]

According to this link, MATROX are working on a new chipset: http://www.3dconcept.ch/cgi-bin/show.cgi?show=290&kt=3D

Its name: TL800

[Ant]

Matrox ARE working on a new chip, they'd be pretty dumb not to be

[mathew]

I think that Matrox will be looking long and hard at what the competitors are up to before they bring out their next generation chipset.

Looking at what the rest have done lately it looks as if they are going for the brute force method,which in the short term looks good but what we really need is more technologic reserch and innovative design over the amount of memory they canget on the PCB !!

Voodoo 4 being the prime candidate in the near future"I mean have you seen the price of their top graphics card to be released next year!!!! $599.00!!!! what ever next.

Why don't they spend some more bucks on chip development instead of just putting 4 of their chipsets on one board,Heh they even need a seperate power supply...

Matrox on the other hand will I hope buyed their time and bring out something as innovative as the G400 but utilising all the best features of the other manufacturers,TL,Texture Compression,Full Screen Anti Allaising and abit more memory would just about do it :P

Well I have said my bit and lets just hope that some developer is browsing on this forum and decides to use some of these suggestions......."and please keep the price down" Laterz Matt {:O)

[Dyre]

I Want some Quad Head action!!!

4 monitors! YEAH! hehe : ) j/k.

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</list>
PIII 450 @ 464
generic BX6 motherboard
G400 MAX : )
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 33
Maxtor 13 gig UDMA 66
Creative 36x CD-ROM
HP 2x2x6x CD-RW
64 megs PC100 RAM
Intel 10/100
Soundblaster 32 AWE
DiamondMAX 56k
Logitech Wireless Desktop (best $50 ive ever spent)
4 large fans.

[Opus]

"please keep the price down"

Yeah, I wish they would. It's funny how graphics cards seem to be the only comp peripherals that are increasing in price in real terms rather than dropping.

Okay with SCSI cards, Adaptec don't seem to be interested in reviewing their prices every quarter but look at HDD prices. Even RAM has dropped in real terms. I remember looking at the £300 price tag on an old Millenium a number of years ago and wishing I could afford it (well it was the best 2D card then). That Voodoo4 charge is just plain ridiculous.

Sure they have to recoup their development cost somehow (and some greedy marketing guys may say that can be achieved by restricting supply and retail outlets to say their online stores ...) And if they plan to develop and introduce new cards every year will be see prices rise? I wonder when the consumer/market will be able to influence RRP and not the manufacturer.

Will we get to the point where superceeded cards (decent ones, not crappy S3 or i740's) mysteriously disappear from the market (a la Intel processors? Remember when you used to be able to pick up a 486 for £15, now once PII/III's drop below £100, gone!)

Whoops sorry for o/t rant. Better finish up now.

Cheers

[rob_b]

So my G400MAX, advertised as 2X/4X compatible, is not really a true 4x card ??
I thought all I needed was a 4X agp motherboard ? ... Rob_b

[Jammrock]

rob_b,

The G400 is AGP 4x voltage compatible. This means that you can put a G400 into an AGP 4x slot without having to worry about voltage problems. As for AGP 4x write modes, no. I don't think the AGP 4x specs had been finalized when the G400 was made. The only video card that has AGP 4x read/write modes is the GeFarce 256.

As for a new Matrox card...I sure do hope that they don't have production and driver problems next time around. I went onto another forum and raved about my new G400 and everyone thought I was smoking crack or something. It wasn't until a forum admin came on to back me up that anyone believed me, because of the initial G400 problems.

Jammrock

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PIII 450@something higher, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB on 2 WD Expert drives, Abit Hot Rod UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening in it, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverSmack addict.

[IceStorm]

Why does everyone have a problem with a multi-chip video solution? If it work, if it gives us raw framerate at high resolutions, if it looks good, who cares how many chips it uses? I for one am buying the V5-6000 when it comes out.

As to Matrox's next part, I'd love to see it run as fast as 3dfx's next part, but I seriously doubt it will run as fast as Napalm or Rampage. They'll be schism in my machines soon, with Matrox going on the work boxes, and 3dfx's parts going in the game boxes. They're the only two companies worth of my money, in my humble opinion.

Just my $0.02

[rob_b]

So will I be able to flash my bios or do a
driver upgrade to make my g400max card
AGP 4X enabled? or will it be a whole new
card ?

[cjolley]

Look for G400s running parallel and a separate T&L chip all on one card.
remember "Rendering Array"?
chuck



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ABit BH6 w/ Celery 333@500, 128mb gh@cas2, 10gb IBM@7200, SB Live Value@3.0, noname CDRom@40x, Mitsumi CDRW@2x2x8, Zoom@56k, Princeton EO75@1024x768x32x85hz, USB mouse,Matrox G400 MAX!!!!