Impact Hardware flames the Parhelia!

[mikeul]

I hate doing this, especially here, but I found this while browsing x3dfx and I checked it out. It is true :

Impact Hardware (http://www.inpact-hardware.com) wrote a long article flaming the Parhelia...

Translation from Babelfish (remplaced 'chard' by 'card' for better comprehension):

Today, the NDA on the various tests of Matrox Parhelia is finished. Tom's Hardware Germany has just published its article which is more complete. Nevertheless, if it is read, one is astonished enough by the results...

Indeed, Matrox carried out a very significant media beating on this product in the universe of "Gamers". It is enough to buy any magazine of plays vidéos to realize it... But in this article, a thing is clear:

Parhelia 512 is not a card for Gamers!!!

As shown in the benchmarks, the Ti 4600 of nVidia and even Radeon 8500 of ATI arrive in front of (even rather largely) the new baby of Matrox. But that is not most serious...

Indeed, one can almost speak about manipulation on behalf of Matrox!!!

In the various magazines one can read slogans such as "Matrox overthrows nVidia" or "Parhelia: The return in strength of Matrox ".
That could be taken for pure enthusiasm badly placed if one did not read this "the pretests with a chip of 250 MHz slightly reveal a score above GeForce 4 Ti 4600: More than 500 points under 3d Mark 2001"!!!
Insane imagination of journalist under the influence of illicit substances or card modified by Matrox?!

One can find a brief reply by looking at the results of Bench SharkMark de Matrox:

[image]www.inpact-hardware.com/image/News/parh3.gif[/image]

Finally one can be dismayed by the marketing methiods of the company:
1. We were first of all bludgeoned with blows of band-width of 20 Go/s (double of GeForce 4 Ti 4600), of architecture 512 Bits, a number of transistors, Hardware displacement mapping on the sites of Hardware.
2. Then, advertisement of the compatibility of Surround Gaming with 80 % of the gamess and articles of the magazines of video games which promoted the product.
3. When the results are published they announce that this card is designed for image quality...

Can someone explain to me something : a card with astonishing capacities on the paper, which uses functions made for the games and compatible with the majority of them which admittedly allow a clear increase in the quality but which is not able to exceed in the majority of the current games a Ti 4600 or Radeon 8500 and which is not made for the gamers, then what is it's use?!

To finish, I make a point all the same of stressing that technologies like FAA 16x or displaying on 3 screens are nevertheless great innovations and that the current games do not exploit it yet but for 400 $, Mr. Matrox, make a card which is intended to somebody...

[thop]

i haven't read the article and while i might even agree with some of the things they say all i can say is: who cares about impact-hardware.com? it is the first time i have ever heard of them. maybe they hope to attract some visitors if they scream the loudest.

[mikeul]

Impact Hardware is an extremely popular French hardware site. They're far from being unknown in France.

[Joel]

I don't care about his opinion. I have been testing the card for a couple of weeks now and most of what I have seen so far is complete BS from fps crack whores.

Joel

[thop]

then they probably had too much cidre this evening sorry i didn't want to insult anyone at that site or any from their readers with my above post.
their language is a bit strong though, and i bet it sounds even worse in french

[mikeul]

"most of what I have seen so far is complete BS from fps crack whores"

In what way?
So many reviews and benches can't be wrong.
The card is expensive.
Anisotropic is limited to 2x in drivers so good bye image quality.

[Joel]

Wish I could be more specific but you have to realize that how the test are setup can have a big bearing on the outcome of those test and most of these reviewers have been very hard on Matrox for years.

Joel

[[Ch]amsalot]

So what chip do they recommend? S3 Virge DX?

-[Ch]ams

[YngwieM]

I'm a bit disappointed mostly for the not so god AnisotropicF features...

I hope this can be fixed on further drivers(I have a 8500 and couldn't live without AF anymore), and at least want to be sure thar ALL games that I play will be playable at 1024x768 w/ FAA16x and Anisotropic (64-tap)...

Otherwise, I'll wait for a MAX version...

So many great features, but for the price it gotta worth..

[Snake007uk]

well after seeing the reviews and waiting for this card to arrive i was hoping for better, it is a serious let down to me and robably other but that doesnt mean this card hasnt got a use for someone else but just not for someone like me "semi gamer"

so i just went out and bought the geforce4 Ti4600 and i must admit it's the bollocx man !

im happy with the dual disply (nview) and im happy with 2d but thats just me, but the 3d is in a league of its own man !

anyway ill wait to see if matrox release a better card, but i am impatient so i got what i wanted

[David@IH]

Hi Guys

I'm David, the man who wrote the news.

I don't recommend any S3 virge Dx and I don't drink too much Cidre (Or I don't remember)

My aim was not to make a bod publicity around the Parhelia but I think Matrox made a very big mistake making too much noise around this product...

Here I've read 3/4 previews in videogames magazines with titles in 1st pages as "Matrox overthrows nVidia"... I'm not agaist that but i think some journalists didn't make their jobs writing that ! Matrox helped this kind of mistakes with the "paper performances" of the Parhelia and presented it as a card for hardcore gamers here in France...

I agree drivers are not mature and the card is not really exploited but I don't think in the future the performances will increase of 100 %... I agree Matrox is the leader is 2D quality and that FAA 16x is a great tech and all of this was in the news but I don't really think it merits us to pay 500 € (400 $) for this card...

It's not really designed for Hardcaore Gamers, not really for Pros so I asked who will buy this card at this price...

If the drivers increase performances of 20/30 % as some expect here and the price decrease to a Ti 4200/4400 it will be a great card, but @ this time, for me, it's not...

Thanks for all to read me,

Matrox should continue and make better choice, we need it to make the market better...

Please take a look @ http://www.inpact-hardware.com

PS : Please excuse my english my brain is not really designed for long english speech

[Yannick]

Hi, David

I'm one of your everyday readers...

I must tell that I'm quite disappointed about inpact's reaction to these benchmarks.

Of course, you may have read "Matrox overthrows nVidia" and the like everywhere in the press... but that's just the way of the magazines. How many times have you seen magazines with such headings... and sometimes the articles even match the heading (not that often, however)... That's just a way of getting a better chance of selling their magazine instead of the twenty others...

If you had been reading the forums here, it would have been another matter. Here, Matrox employees did tell us that the Parhelia wasn't a framerate killer. They did tell us about the lower clock speed...

Now think about those issues :

Most benchmarks results we are given are about average or max framerate, but what about minimal framerates (which occur most often in situations where visual feedback is crucial) ?

OK, so Matrox lied to you about the card's power ? What about famous competitors who write their drivers so that Q3A benchmarks run faster (while silently lowering visual quality ?)

OK, so card A is the best for running benchmarks ? Happens I'm not running benchmarks, but real games...


OK, so maybe the first drivers are not optimum ? Well, at least Matrox drivers do not need antivirus-like update like nVidia. I've owned Matrox cards for four years. Only once did I need a driver update... (leading to that famous quotation : "Anyone has a G400 here ?" "Yes, they're the ones not complaining...")

And while benchmarks are often written for the best card, the development cycle of games is too long to take a particular card into that much consideration...


OK, so you say that the Parhelia is not a card for "gamers".

Perhaps I'm not a "hardcore gamer". That's mostly because I'm not only a gamer. But I am a gamer nevertheless. But I'm much more interested in visual quality than peak framerate.

But it also happens that the rest of the time, I'm running my desktop at 1600x1200 full colour, and you need a really good RAMDAC to have good visual quality... something that nVidia cards often don't have, if I understand correctly.


So the first version of the brand-new Parhelia is only that good compared to the state of the art of gaming cards, the fourth generation geForce ? and that means it's not a gamer's card ?
So the second or third best race car will not be a race car because there are faster cars ? It that logic ?


The Parhelia is very much a gamers' card. The large majority of gamers do many other things than gaming. In the same way, gamer's card are more than just your average framerate...

Most Matrox fans will buy the Parhelia not because of the company's name, but because of what you get when you buy Matrox.

Thanks for reading until the end.

[mikeul]

No, I liked Impact Hardware's comments (I visit that site from time to time).
You can't blame anyone from being honest.

"Matrox employees did tell us that the Parhelia wasn't a framerate killer. "
Wrong. They insisted that their super bandwith would make their card a killer.

"Happens I'm not running benchmarks, but real games... "
Serious Sam 2,Jedi Knight2, Quake 3, Aquanox, etc. all are real world games...

"the development cycle of games is too long to take a particular card into that much consideration... "
But the benchmarks above are games sold in shops...


"Well, at least Matrox drivers do not need antivirus-like update like nVidia"
Yah, but Matrox G450 can't even play Jedi Knight 2 properly because of the lack of driver updates whereas the TNT2 M64 can.


"I'm much more interested in visual quality than peak framerate."
Image quality nothing.
Parhelia doesn't support yet anything above anisotropic 2x whereas ati and nvidia support 8x anisotropic already...

"you need a really good RAMDAC to have good visual quality... something that nVidia cards often don't have, if I understand correctly"
You obviously misunderstood.

"So the first version of the brand-new Parhelia is only that good compared to the state of the art of gaming cards, the fourth generation geForce ?"
Have you seen the price of the parhelia?
So you're willing to spend so much more just because there's matrox logo on the card?
The parhelia is more expensive than the GF4 Ti 4600 with performance inferior to the Ti 4200...

"Most Matrox fans will buy the Parhelia not because of the company's name, but because of what you get when you buy Matrox. "
Exavtly.
The Matrox logo on the card.
Blindness personified.


Get yourself a Voodoo3.

[thop]

mikeul: i just checked out all your 16 posts and they all bash the parhelia not based on facts (and there are plenty of facts to do so to be honest) but based on the parhelia being from matrox. and not really in a friendly tone.
note that most MURCers are more critic about matrox products than most nVidia/ATI fans, but we are fair.

it is fine that you don't like the parhelia but pls don't beat everyone over the head with it.

[David@IH]

Yannick,

I agree you, 2D is very very great, about drivers, benchs and all the stuff I agree mikeul...

But are you really ready to spare 400 $ for this ?!

I don't tell Parhelia is a crap, I just tell that some choices are not very good (Price for example)

About journalists, not only the 1st page was too sweet with Matrox but all the preview !!! Journalist was blind because of amazing specs... I think it sucks... Journalists have to be skeptical !! They didn't see the card, didn't have any bench...

They HAD to tell the readers : "Hey guys, watch out... It's just specs, we don't know anything else..." but they don't...

I've heard to many "double bandwith compared to Ti 4600" (they didn't know clock speeds), "more transitors"... Matrox knew, Matrox didn't tell them, Matrox have to be blamed for this because about all this story Matrox sucks...

Matrox wanted to make big publicity, it's done for me, I've told everything about the Parhelia... If results will increase I'll be one of the first to tell but if it's not the case I certainly will be one of the first to...