Looks like we're out of luck with the G800

[chip]

I sure love my radeon 64 vivo!
toooooo bad matrox.-i could not wait no longer.gaming is EVERYTHING to me and my best customers.by the way-we are all over 35 years old-we be BIG kids.hehehe

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IT'S NEVER FAST ENOUGH!

[Joel]

Matrox would be a great company if they were public because then they'd get off their stupid asses and put out something competitive once in a while.

Matrox already is a great company. And when they do release products, like the G200 and the G400, they are competitive. That I don't think will change. But I think what most people here fail to understand is that the 3D gaming market is but a very small part of Matrox's overall business. Unlike nVidia where that is their only mainstay. That's not to say that they are giving up on the 3D gaming market but as I have said elsewhere it will not be their main focus. You see most OEMs and integrators don't care about how many fps you can get in Q3 or what your score is in 3DMark2000.

I'd be playing few new games and the ones I'd be playing would be too choppy to enjoy.

So far that has not been a problem and I do play some of the latest release. I am also big into checking out every demo I can get my hands on.

I think where Matrox have gone a little wrong is in putting so much effort into the G450, they should just have released it as they did with the G250, a quiet OEM/busineess affair which is what they said they were going to do.

And that is so true. The time spent on that line is probable one of the main reasons for the delay in the G800 or whatever their next card may be.

Joel


[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 24 November 2000).]

[Damien Green]

I agree Joel - 3DMark 2000 scores are just another way of saying my dick is bigger that yours! I just feel that the G400 has had its day, every roundup of 3D cards which include a Matrox produce (G450 mainly nowadays) all say the same thing - it's getting long in the tooth - and too slow. Yes it still does perform pretty well in Quake III etc, but it does not perform as well as the other cards, and having used some of the latest products from Nvidia and ATI, I like the extra performance - but I do not like the drop in image quality.

On my Eizo 21" Monitor, running at high resolutions - no card can match my G400 Max for image quality, some say that it is barely noticable between cards - I have to disagree, Nvidia = fuzzy text at high resolutions - and the colour always looks somewhat bland and lacking in contrast.

Come on Matrox, hurry up - please!!!!!!

[This message has been edited by Damien Green (edited 24 November 2000).]

[Oracle]

hey hold on a min the g400 a fine and dandy card but money's money's aint it ??? even if the gaming market is a smaller area its still a very import area and if ati can now beat matrox whats going on huh ????. They need to relase the g800 soon i mean come its taking the mickey somewhat is it not ????

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P3 600e @ 660 (6*110)
128mb 100mhz sdram
abit be6-2
Radeon 32ddr (biding time till the g800
voodoo 3 2000 pci (166)
soundblaster 16pci
4.3gb seagate udma 33
15.3 wd udma 66
creative modem blaster 56k ext
win me
ie5
direct x 8.0
4013.71

....................

[Joel]

ati can now beat matrox

ROTFLMAO

Thanks, I needed a good laugh today.

Joel

[Greebe]

Hey SteveC... care to enlighten this puppy (Oracle)? He lives in your neck of the woods.

[SteveC]

Oh Guys, oh guys, oh guys.

The gaming market is minute for Matrox. Let's just take the three manufacturers mentioned here, and how important the 'gaming' market is to them:

Matrox - Sell only a few cards on the street to these 'gamers'. Then they go and get a contract for thousands upon thousands of graphics cards in Compaqs and IBMs and Dells. God - we've been bying in Compaq Deskpro's at work now for over 2 years - they STILL come with an 8mb G200 Millennium SD. What does that tell you? How much has matrox made on those cards? extortionate amounts!

Ati - have thier fat little fingers in both pies - but I see them still as mainly an OEM company, especially dealing with notebooks and integrated solutions. I think that they're loosing their OEM deals though and beginning to be forced onto the public & gamers markets.

Nvidia - Survive on sales to joe public. They sell cards, made by everyone under the sun - this is where they make their money - selling their chips. I have to this day never seen a business machine, mass produced, like the Compaq Deskpro, containing an Nvidia chipset. They're always Ati or Matrox.

However, I think that now Nvidia have got their (no doubt) lucrative X-Box deal and they're doing the motherboard chipsets, I think that they're trying to follow Matrox' lead and be a supplier to OEMs...

So, overall, I see Matrox sitting still on their nice OEM deals, trying to be be copied by Nvidia (who I reckon will fail and go 3dfx' route - i.e. die), then nvidia will be replaced in the gamer's market by Ati.

Now, where does the G800 fit into this? I think that the G450 will sit in OEMs for a good couple of years again (like the G200) and the G800 will replace the G400 as being their 'flagship' product. By 'flagship' I mean their most public card (i.e. giving faith in the company to all) - NOT their most money-making card.

Anyone else agree with me?


------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[SteveC]

oh, and oracle - if you came to the shop where I work weekends, and wanted a new PC, I'd probably sell you one with either an S3 or a geforce.... (how's that for loyalty!! )

------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[Oracle]

oh id love that a fantastic s3 card with that world reknown 2d quality also known as jittervison hehehehehehehe
no but seriously maybe i was a little off
but i dont want to see matrox go the way of s3 (not dieing but losing credablity) it seems such a shame as the gxx series kicked
ass or arse whatrever

where do u work then perhaps i know the place

------------------
P3 600e @ 660 (6*110)
128mb 100mhz sdram
abit be6-2
Radeon 32ddr (biding time till the g800
voodoo 3 2000 pci (166)
soundblaster 16pci
4.3gb seagate udma 33
15.3 wd udma 66
creative modem blaster 56k ext
win me
ie5
direct x 8.0
4013.71

....................

[This message has been edited by Oracle (edited 24 November 2000).]

[Ant]

He's a jellied eel seller on Southend pier, you'll see him there most days.

Matrox usually survive losing credibility, can you say G200 OpenGL ICD anyone?

[paulcs]

The videocard market is an odd one. I've been harping on the "gamers and hobbiests only make up a tiny fraction of the market" line for a long time. But they are an elite, sexy part of the market and function as opinion makers.

I suspect this is why NVIDIA has made such headway into ATI's OEM market. They appear to have hurt ATI badly, and ATI didn't help matters by first botching and then sticking with the Rage 128 chip. NVIDIA has gotten great press and word of mouth over the last couple of years.

The G450 looks to me like an attempt to circle the wagons: a defensive posture. Now, oddly enough, we know that John Carmack and the Amiga guys have seen a G800 prototype of some sort. This was a while ago, so I wonder what happened. Maybe, and I'm speculating here, it wasn't fast enough or it was too expensive to produce, and it's back to the drawing board. (For the record, Amiga is still claiming they'll be using Matrox's "next generation" product.)

I think Anand is taking a lot of heat here, and none of this is his fault. Nearly every major site came back from Comdex with the same news. I suspect this is because they are all reporting what Matrox told them there. If anybody is blowing smoke, it's most likely Matrox. They've done it before.

Matrox does not have to worry about stockholder perceptions and so their business dynamic is a little than NVIDIA's, 3dfx's, and ATI's. They can make a reasonable profit from existing product, without worrying about stockholders punishing them for not putting out a shiny new product every six to nine months. It appears they are still making money off the now ancient G200 chip.

In addition, Matrox is more diversified than the other chip manufacturers. They produce products for the video, engineering, and medical markets as well. I'm willing to bet these are all low volume, high margin parts, and we've always heard that this portion of Matrox's business was very lucrative. I suspect they aren't as dependant on either the retail or OEM markets as their counterparts.

However, the possibility of having a sizable portion of your power user market jump ship is bound to have a trickle down effect on the OEM market. Two years without a high end product is excessive, and if this is all true, I think it will make Matrox look silly and second rate.

Worse, I think it'll make them look like Number Nine.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Galvin]

And most retailers don't carry matrox, wonder why. That's why I had to buy from matrox online store in 99. Matrox was cool I originaly bought them because they ruled in 2D and had awesome NT drivers, if I wasn't an NT user I probably would of never bought matrox. Looks like I am buying a nvidia card, I don't go higher than 1024x768 and everyone says the 2D quality is exceelent. I'll probbaly be lucky if I can get 50 bucks on ebay for my G400.

[paulcs]

Dell, by the way, uses some NVIDIA boards in its machines. My old Dell shipped with an STB RIVA 128 (ick!) and some some of their high-end desktops ship with a GeForce 64MB DDR. I believe Creative makes them for Dell.

Elsa's Quadro 2 will be offered with both HP's and Compaq's workstations, and Compaq will be offering the GeForce2 MX with the consumer Presario series. They also have wins with Sony and Gateway. NVIDIA's mobile solution won Best of Show at Comdex, which must have really tweaked ATI's nose, and Toshiba has already signed on.

Then there's that XBox business.

They must be stopped!

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[good health to all]

Oh NO!! You know what were starting to sound like?

The guys over at the PowerVR forums.

[Joel]

Dell, by the way, uses some NVIDIA boards in its machines.

In their low end cheapo celeron units they do. But buy a high end Percision 420 workstation and it will come with a Matrox G400MAX.

Joel