The Parhelia is NOT worth the price they are asking for

[Greebe]

I didn't mean trolling in a derogatory sense, but like what I did for the first year before posting... getting a feel for how this site was run, what all the users knew and also because everything I needed to know had already been posted by another and the search feature supemely helped keep me for asking the same bloody question for the Nth time

The distinction between Fansite and Users Group is proveable because of the lack of caca hype these forums have and the much more mature additude/knowledge of those that are regulars vs true fansite that flame you simply for mentoning an alternate manufactures product without merit.

[GT98]

Originally posted by HexOne

I'm not trolling at all, I'm just raising a point that seems to be missing in most of the discussions here. When the G400 was released I saw that alot of people here had preordered one and even more were going to wait untill it hit the local stores. With the Parhelia I see only a handful of people having one and the rest just drooling at them wishing they had more money.

I think people where turned off by the G550 fisaco that happened...alot of people where expecting so much more out of the G550/G800 and where udderly disappointed after how well the G400MAX had performed. Add in the somewhat lackluster Performance in some games vs Money Ratio of the Parhelia today and how First Person Games and FPS have become the end all for Online Video Reviews for the past 2 years (I didnt believe this, but if you get fed it enough you'll start believe it) people are thinking twice or three times before commiting themselfs to getting one.

Right now as things stand...I view the Parhelia like this..its more or less equal to what the G200 was when it first came out (minus no OpenGL Drivers ) and the Parhelia 2 or whatever its called will hopefully be a kickass card all around like the G400 MAX was.

[MadScot]

Of course the G200 was a great card costing a lot less....

MadScot

[HexOne]

Greebe,
search is god

GT98,
I agree with you, the Parhelia is alot like the G200 if you compare them like that. But I like so many users who still hold on to their G400 like life itself need something now, the G400 is not going to last the winter :P

[R.Carter]

2MB Memory Upgrade for Mystique for $200

I guess if you have a couple of 2MB Memory Upgrade for Mystique that you don't need, money wouldn't be that much of an issue.

[Greebe]

and even at that it's refurbished! LOL

[Sinistral]

- Well for me, the Price of the Parhelia is pretty cheap. Yeah cheap. Mind you my PC isnt a glorified Console. I work on my PC. But i still play games. I could have easily bought a Ti4600, though i really needed the extra monitor features. And the Radeon 8500 and Geforce 4Ti's dont even offer the same quality when both monitors are in use. But... I could have even bought a $4000 dollar Mac for its 2D Capabilites, but its shit for gaming, or a $800+ Quadro, FireGL, Wildcat. And i still wouldnt have gotten valuable Multimonitor Support. And yet all cards still dont offer the 2D clarity of the Parhelia. And there are no signs of innovation from ATI for improvment of 2D on the Radeon 9700. But we will have to wait and see.

If you only game on your PC and do basic surfing the web, use 1 monitor, then by all means, a Geforce4Ti or the new Radeon 9700 will be great. And it will make the Parhelia look Overpriced, because of that one aspect. But PC's arent Consoles for a lot of people.

And just to add, with the Radeon 9700, you will probably be able to game in 1600x1200@150FPS in some games... but too bad that the card supports only 85hz at that resolution... Scroll down for the specs. . Refresh rates that are even LOWER then the Radeon 8500. Which brings up another point. Im guessing most of you PC-Console kiddies have some shitty monitors. Which will even further hinder, the actuall frame rates youll be claiming youll see. Another bragging rights dead end. "Whooo i can play games at 200FPS... But my monitor only supports a refresh rate of 65Hz."

Blah, blah. Anyway, the price justification of a product is totally up to the person. Personally, i think Radeon 9700 is an overpriced card and should only retail at $300 considering what i do, and what i need a card to do. -

[Supernaut]

THis seems like the place

THis seems like a terrific place 2 butt in

I think the question of whether the P is worth the money matrox is asking is a very subjective question. I remember someone posted a message saying that they would not use all of the features on the P and therefore, is not worth the money to him to buy the P.
But for ppl who do use their machines as a place to do work, the P is definitely worth it.

But I am in the middle. I work on my machine and I play on it to. Before, I had to T-Birds, one with my geforce3 and the other with the G400, one for play and one for work. I gave away my g400 machine to family since I heard of that matrox was releasing the P but I think I made a mistake. As great a workstation card as the P is, I dont think it is a very viable gaming card in the future, well for me anyway. Right now I am judging the longevity of video cards based on whether it will play Doom 3 with all features maxed out at 1280x1024 at least. I think this is a good way to measure the cards gaming longevity since many new games will be based on the Doom3 engine, I am guessing. If the P cannot play Doom3 at the requirements I stated above, how will it play newer games that will be more complex? When I play my games, I dont need 1280x1024 but I do at least want all my detail settings maxed out. As for AA, I dont think the P will have enough horsepower to do that in newer games. I am all about image quality. If I get 40 fps with a beautiful image on my monitor thats fine with me but I dont think that the P will be able to handle this.

Anyway, my point is, as good a workstation card as the P is, it wont matter if it cannot play games of the future. I think someone made a good analogy with cards. SO in my eyes, the P is just a riced out Pinto, 0-60 in 3 days WHOO HOO.

Also, will the DVI quality of the P be better than that of the other cards? If its digital, signal quality wont matter right? I plan to use the P in dual DVI mode with both monitors at 1600x1024, almost the size of the desktop with 3 displays . I need a card that will run both displays digitally and will work in Windows and Linux, thats my only work requirement. Will the P be able to handle this?

[R.Carter]

Im guessing most of you PC-Console kiddies have some shitty monitors. Which will even further hinder, the actuall frame rates youll be claiming youll see.

Well if you need a particular feature that is only offered by a particular card then the card is pretty much invaluable and so the price of it will not matter.

As to the ATI 9700 only supporting a 85Hz refresh rate at a 1600x1200 resolution, well I guess you really have to ask yourself what monitor vendors out there actually recommend using 1600x1200 at refresh rates higher than 85Hz on their monitors.

I mean the Mitsubishi 22" Diamond Pro® 2060u lists 1600x1200@85Hz as the recommended operating resolution. Is that a "shitty monitor"?

The ViewSonic 21" G220fb only lists 1600x1200@87Hz as recommended operating mode.

The Sony 21" DELUXE PRO CDP-G520 also only recommends 1600x1200@85Hz. Even the PREMIERPRO™ Series 24” FD Trinitron® CRT GDM-FW900 only recommends 1600x1200@85Hz.

So yeah, I suppose it might be nice to be able to use higher refresh rates if you want to push your monitor beyond the monitors recommend operating parameters.

[thop]

I think Matrox should have a P. on the market at a lot lower price with only a single head, no dvi.

AMEN!
hey if someone from matrox reads this, at least make one for me will ya? pls?

[donny]

Originally posted by Greebe
HexOne, this isn't a Fansite, it's a users group.

donni/diewlei, if you strip Parhelia down in the manner that would suit you what will you end up with? You are obviously not their target market.

Quite true, i am not their target market, and i guess i may never will be anymore, after owning Matrox cards (g100, g200, g400). What is their target market and how big is it?

[defaultuser]

Originally posted by donny


Quite true, i am not their target market, and i guess i may never will be anymore, after owning Matrox cards (g100, g200, g400). What is their target market and how big is it?

I have to ask this myself.

With Quadro cards starting at the $500-600 range, they certainly can't be hoping to compete in the developer's workstation market. A standard Ti 4200 whips the P in professional applications, and the Quadro of the same persuasion with it's pro features enabled will do even better.

How about the multi-monitor developer's market, you say?

Well, we have thousands of IBM workstations at the company I work for with G400 and G450 dualhead and SH cards.

Nobody uses the dualhead feature, and those who got SH cards don't care that they're missing the feature. And the G400/G450 give perfectly good 2D quality, even good enough for our 19" Mitsubishi NF and P275 21" Trinitron monitors.

If this is any indication of the industry, then Triplehead let alone Dualhead will not sell with most developers. What I can't believe is they refuse to release a single-head card at an OEM pricepoint, that's really been the bread-and-butter of their product line.

So what about the video / image editing market?

If these people are not already using Macs, then YES I suppose...

[BCompDude]

Well I would have to disagree with the original poster. . .it is worth the money, at least to me. Have you seen a GF Ti 4600 and a Parhelia run side by side? I had the opportunity at a LAN the other day. I had been thrashed for spending money on the "overpriced" P and they all said that it "won't be fast enough" and will "look like crap". . .this without ever have seen the board in action. Excuse me. . .HAhahahahahaha. Had to get that out. The image quality difference is HUGE (in BOTH 2D and 3D) and after seeing the P I coincidentally get no more crude remarks from them.

I even let them play on it because they insisted that if the image looked that superior it must chug. We played UT and RTCW. Heh, needless to say that they could NOT tell the difference. Mind you it was a "blind" test in that they couldn't see any numbers. Moral of the story. . .it was WELL worth the money IMHO. And when the refresh comes at the end of the year. . .sign me up.

Brent

P.S. How do you become a "Beta Boy"?

[DGhost]

Originally posted by defaultuser


I have to ask this myself.

With Quadro cards starting at the $500-600 range, they certainly can't be hoping to compete in the developer's workstation market. A standard Ti 4200 whips the P in professional applications, and the Quadro of the same persuasion with it's pro features enabled will do even better.

How about the multi-monitor developer's market, you say?

Well, we have thousands of IBM workstations at the company I work for with G400 and G450 dualhead and SH cards.

Nobody uses the dualhead feature, and those who got SH cards don't care that they're missing the feature. And the G400/G450 give perfectly good 2D quality, even good enough for our 19" Mitsubishi NF and P275 21" Trinitron monitors.

If this is any indication of the industry, then Triplehead let alone Dualhead will not sell with most developers. What I can't believe is they refuse to release a single-head card at an OEM pricepoint, that's really been the bread-and-butter of their product line.

So what about the video / image editing market?

If these people are not already using Macs, then YES I suppose...

see... Quadro cards start at $500-$600 and include certified drivers. GeForce 4's don't include certified drivers. many companies will refuse to offer support for a product unless it is running on a video card that has certified drivers. considering that the P will have certified drivers (for all cards) it will be the cheapest, probably highest performing certified card, with a feature set to boot.

and before you keep going on about how a GeForce4 performs better in workstation apps, let me say it loud and clear: SERIOUS ARTISTS DON'T USE GEFORCE CARDS TO DO THEIR WORK. they stick to cards that are on the compatability list for their software. if the card doesn't have certified drivers, its not on their. why? they could wind up loosing lots more money than they would have saved due to problems with a card that is not running certified drivers. so it really doesn't mean shit that a GF4 outperforms it in professional apps.

about the multi-monitor stuff. one of the clients of the shop i work at is a DoD contractor. the one component that they *require* to be in every system is a G450. why? its the card that offers the best driver support and 2d capabilities while in multi-mon configurations. according to one of the people in, they are doing product testing and simulation on their machines. they like them. they are used to them. they don't want to mess around with NVidia or ATI drivers. they offer the quality they need to drive two 19" monitors at 1600x1200 (i think) without any problems.

to say that nobody uses the dual-head feature is bullshit. people do. companies do.

and about the video/image editing stuff. there has been a fairly decent uproar in recent times because of the fact that the x86/windows platform has now gotten to be as fast or faster than the high end dual 1ghz systems in some of the Adobe video editing software, and at the same cost or cheaper. the PC is gaining acceptence into this area.

to me, the P was worth what i paid for it ($371 shipped) as it is a far better card than what it replaced (a Radeon 8500). the IQ is better, and there are several features that are not well advertised but are the real icing on the cake. the dual head implementation is by far the best i have ever worked with. the card can properly accelerate the windows GUI while doing other tasks, such as video overlays and 3d rendering - without pausing them. anyone who wants to care to see what i am refering to should (while running Windows 2000 or XP at least) open a video in windows media player, pull up an IE window with say, this thread in it, and scroll the IE window from top to bottom quickly. from my experiences the video will stutter and pause. the P does not do this. as far as i can tell this card is the first out of the gate that is more than ready for GDI+ 2.0. this, in and of itself, is a major selling point for me.

the P is also probably the most flexible card i have worked with. the fact that you can disable the second head is *wonderful*. there are several (mostly older) games that will not run correctly with a second head present, even if the monitor is not enabled. these games would not run correctly on an 8500, yet they work fine on a P if you disable dual head.

some people have also drawn the connection between not being able to churn out 300fps in Q3 and not being able to run next gen games fast. that is pure bullshit. look at the GF3. it could run Quake3 very fast (at the time), but how well does it run morrowind? or how well will it run doom3? or how well does it run Commanche 4? not to say that the P runs these any better (in the case of commanche 4, it runs it worse... probably due to either a driver issue or a developer issue), but it goes to show that there is more to the next generation of games than dual-textured 4000 poly scenes with a dash of high res textures here and there.

its a shame that most of what i consider major advantages to this card make no difference to the gamers... the P is quite an impressive card. i so far am loving it to death, and it has found a permanent home in my main computer, which will probably go through an overhaul in 6 months from dual P3's to dual Opterons if possible. this card is simply that good.

in addition, the idea of releasing a single head card at a lower cost makes no sense. you would wind up putting a good chunk of the core to waste, for what exactly? all the display hardware for the second monitor (except for the filters) is internal to the chip. you only have to add the port. releasing a version with two DB-15 ports instead of DVI ports would make more sense, as you don't through the two independant display controllers and hardware overlay units to waste.

the P is a bit on the overpriced side. its too expensive to be a mass market card, or one that everyone would rush to buy. i don't think they ever indended it to be that way. it is priced quite well for what it does and the fact that it has everything and the kitchen sink in terms of features. the only problem with it is that 3d performance isn't quite as good as other cards and the price is high. the only real market where this is a problem is for those who are FPS weenies (like Kyle at [H]).

[magog]

Ok, I got my Parhelia Retail yesterday!

I still think I paid to much for this card (469,- EUR)!

I haven't installed it yet, because I have to upgrade my not very often used MS Gaming OS from Win98SE to WinXP Prof.!
I still hope they deliver the Win98 driver.

Then I hope Matrox DevRel will finally send the specs of the Parhelia to SciTech Software, so that I get OS/2 (and eCS = eComStation) support, because I hate unaccelerated graphic drivers (GENGRADD) and I want Multi Head support.