P750 review (partial)

[GNEP]

Shame.

[Nowhere]

Thanks Sasq, much appreciated.

One note: weren't there suppose to be D3D SW T&L on the first graph?

[Sasq]

The G550 would have reverted to SW, the Parhelia and the P750 used hardware AFAIK - at work, can't fire it up to double check

[borat]

all i can say is wow!, the IQ on the P750 is stunning from what i can see in those shots, even without the faa fix, which is amazing, the quality of the textures looks superior in 3Dmark to me.

[sparky001]

My question are pretty simple. What are your opinions on the card? for example its stability. How does it run in multi monitor with other cards ie pci g450? (five monitor potential) Does it have any issues. certain apps not running correctly and/or slowly.

Basically a run down of all the things that numbers can not represent.

I am probably going to put one of these in a dual xeon system I am looking at getting that I will use for multi-monitor web browsing and photo-shop/illustrator/dreamweaver.

An other point I have not seen discused is their Linux compatibility.

[Sasq]

When I get my full review up, I'll answer and expand on my opinion of the card.

Basically Its a good workhorse card, and I haven't noticed too many bugs. The glitches I have see are just first gen driver glitches (yes I know its mostly the same core etc etc but this is the first gen of drivers for the Px50 series)

Sorry I don't have a G450pci to test it with. I run in DH mode most of the time and I use the feature display with TV. I have a nice 21" monitor coming hopefully tomorrow so I'll play a little more with TH then. I will check on if it works in that configuration.

for your stated use, this card would be fine, if not perfect.

As for Linux - its in the same boat as Parhelia for *nix support. there is a little but its slow in coming.

Dan

[Megatron]

Nice work Dan
I need a new card Caus my old G400 had "an accident"
Tl now I dindn't know if better buy an ATI or NVIDIA but I think the Power of a Px50 should be enough for my 2nd Computer.

I don't wan't an ATI or NVIDIA cause my Monitors didn't seem to have the best electronic inside so one flicker with my older GF2 and both will do now with the R9700.
With the G400, a Mystique 220 and a really old Millenium I both worked without any problems.
Though your review I think next card will be a P650

[RedRed]

With all the talk about NV and ATI 'cheating' with their driver (dropping quality where they can for extra FPS), how would the P (and the others) compete against the same sware without the optimisations?

I know that they still probably wouldnt beat the latest GF and ATI models, but they should be better positioned, surely....

I take it that the P drivers dont sacrafice image Quality/ have specific paths within their drivers to do this.....

What would happen if they did? What sort of boosts could you expect?

I imagine that the boosts delivered would be significant (if the NV comparisons are to be believed), however, I imagine the Matrox wouldnt have the resource (in driver Dev) to apply these 'optimisations' anyway..... any thaughts?

Regards
RedRed

[Megatron]

Tell me if im wrong but even Matrox used some Game-optimizations in the past. There was an special OpenGL ICD to accelerate Q II based engines by replacing there Opengl32.dll
But at least Matrox let the user choose if he want this optimizations or not. Actually ATI removed nearly all of theyr cheats although the image quality didn't drop as far as NVIDIA's. NVIDIA's latest leaked driver are encripted now

At 3D-Center.de is an interesting article - you dont need to understand all the text but the tables with the framerates are really interesting.

[bsdgeek]

That wasn't a cheat though, and pretty much everybody back then had their own specialized API for games.

[Sasq]

Just an update so you know I havn't forgotten.

I am having some 'issues' with drivers, I'm waiting on more information before I publish any more results and/or the review.

Dan