Next Version Of Parhelia Revisited

[UberLord]

Originally posted by ex-SalesSoup


looks to me like Haig is looking into it for you guys...i wish i could comment on this issue, but i have no information on it (apart from what I see on the Forum and here)

Lookings great, but it's been way over a month. It's an image thing - he can't tell us that it can't be fixed because that would make Matrox look bad. Matrox also look bad for not telling us.

So Matrox look bad either way AND you lose our trust by keeping silent.

So sayeth the Uber

[Slougi]

Originally posted by ex-SalesSoup
this is off the topic

That is hardly off topic, and a very real issue, even more so in CAD and other "professional" stuff as that is almost exclusively run in windowed mode.

[Xplora]

Matrox strategic management team playing with fire... and could find out why they shouldn't be.

I might be able to afford some Parhelia2 love when they release it (those LCDs don't grow on trees!), but the current Sun Dogs don't bark loud enough - they just bite :P

[Kurt]

Originally posted by VigilAnt

When it won't complete some simple operations in very common 3D apps, and/or crawls with others, oh believe me. They do care. This will flop, especially with the banding problems.

VigilAnt

I think "trounced" is the adjective that comes to mind when you compare a P128 with other professional grahics cards (I think aceshardware.com has a piece on that -don't take my word for it though ).

I won't say which card gets the adjective (you probably guessed right the first time), but as a Matrox fan i hope the P256 is only marginally costlier to produce and that it will bring enough cash so they can cut on their P inventory (à la Nvidia, quite recently) and sell the revised chips.

To salessoup: the comments you bring might show a bit of the problem at Matrox. A P256 looks nice on PAPER, with all these features, but in the end it's the PERFORMANCE that sells the chips. You can fool some ppl some times with a good marketing campaign, but you can't fool all the people all the time.

The first "some time" was the G450. They there was the G550 and now the P128. You'll end-up (collectively) lynched if you keep on like that -in fact it's happening right now...

[MetalCartman]

@ex-SalesSoup:

Did you (I mean not you as a person, I mean Matrox) consider about cutting the price of the P128 in half? Every sold card means a contribution margin, and it is better to sell a bunch of cards at US$200 than to sell just a few to none. I address this to you, because you read here and know the sales people as well as the marketing people, there's no offence intended.

Greetings,
Cartman

/edit: typo

[DGhost]

Honestly the banding issue is a fairly major problem for me as it does make it harder to sit and look at a computer monitor for longer at a time...

Even with the Heidi drivers Autocad 2002 hard locks fairly easily, that might have been the combination of drivers i was using though (1.02 w/ the 1.01 heidi drivers)... thankfully i don't use AutoCad for anything in particular other than screwing around in freetime...

I've also got several fairly old OpenGL screen savers that while most of them render fine, a couple of them have been known to hard lock the Parhelia if left running for a long time, and a couple of them run slower than they did on a G400 http://reallyslick.demonews.com if you are interested....

also, what about the problems that the Parhelia has on numerous i860 systems? the hardware compatability of the Parhelia sucks compared to the G400... i mean, seriously, even if the motherboard gives it an improper timing mode, it is still the only video card that has that problem, and it affects motherboards from Asus, Supermicro, some Tyans... all 3 brands are common ones for people who want to build stable workstations...

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by MetalCartman
@ex-SalesSoup:

Did you (I mean not you as a person, I mean Matrox) consider about cutting the price of the P128 in half? Every sold card means a contribution margin, and it is better to sell a bunch of cards at US$200 than to sell just a few to none. I address this to you, because you read here and know the sales people as well as the marketing people, there's no offence intended.

Greetings,
Cartman

/edit: typo

no offence taken...it would be impossible to do so, in my opinion, as the cost of manufacturing each board must be considered. it's difficult to just cut the price of the board in half without eating into the profits.

[UberLord]

Originally posted by ex-SalesSoup


no offence taken...it would be impossible to do so, in my opinion, as the cost of manufacturing each board must be considered. it's difficult to just cut the price of the board in half without eating into the profits.

This makes for a good argument. Say that cutting the price of the board in half meant that unit sales increased by 400% then you would make a greater profit than you would have done otherwise. Of course, this only works if you still make a margin from all the various costs in selling it.

[candyman]

But then again, if the components of the card plus the assambling it costs say $250 per unit, then you cant just sell it for $200 couse then you will get ANY profit regardless of how many you would sell. Actually, the more you would sell, the more money you would loose.

But ofcourse, it's not for sure that the production of the card is higher than $200, on the other hand, you have R&D-costs which are one-time outcome and is not affected by amount of units sold on that technology.

No offence intended here

/ candyman

[Greebe]

@Soupy

Would it be possible to take the older GPU's slap them onto a 64 meg board and sell for ~$150 and then use the improved core for the 128 & 256 meg versions?

Seeing that the original core version would sell at this low price point and the bit faster revised core used on the higher mem versions would complement sales of those. Increased sales all around would certainly help, not to forget covering an empty spot in the current offerings...

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by Greebe
@Soupy

Would it be possible to take the older GPU's slap them onto a 64 meg board and sell for ~$150 and then use the improved core for the 128 & 256 meg versions?

Seeing that the original core version would sell at this low price point and the bit faster revised core used on the higher mem versions would complement sales of those. Increased sales all around would certainly help, not to forget covering an empty spot in the current offerings...

there are many variables that have to be taken into consideration when putting out a 64MB version, such as possible cannibalization of the 128MB boards, COGS, what level of performance should be provided, what features to include/omit...it's definitely a tough decision to make. regardless of this, i am confident that things will only improve in the near future...this sense of dread that seems to be directed at Matrox is not necessarily accurate

[Greebe]

this sense of dread that seems to be directed at Matrox is not necessarily accurate

I concur

[Slougi]

Originally posted by ex-SalesSoup
this sense of dread that seems to be directed at Matrox is not necessarily accurate

Hmmmm..... Interesting to say the least

[GNEP]

I'm glad then. When is VigilAnt's next editorial due?

BTW, Soupy, I really appreciate your coming and posting here (even if you do sometimes get a some mud slung at you!).

Gnep

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by GNEP
I'm glad then. When is VigilAnt's next editorial due?

BTW, Soupy, I really appreciate your coming and posting here (even if you do sometimes get a some mud slung at you!).

Gnep

hey, everyone needs to get a little dirty sometimes...keep the mud-slinging going.