next Matrox card?

[Whirl-Secret]

Originally posted by ex-SalesSoup
don't forget G550, all the Parhelia flavors and MED Series.

that reminds me, why does anyone buy the G550 these days? I am a new Matrox customer with my P650, which seems to be aimed at replacing the Gxxx.... why does Matrox not give P cards with all the input / output options and PCI modes of the G cards... weird.


Oh and while I am at home, I have the P650 for 2D workstation use; if nothing better comes in a year or two I guess I would have to upgrade to a 3DLabs card or Quadro, and Matrox loses even more customers.... doesn't make sense to me :/

I guess I'm beginning to understand what ppl say about Matrox... oh well!


Finally one thing, maybe trying hard for the home market is a bad idea anyway... I suppose profit margins are way less... NVidia got whooped by ATI at the high end of 1 product cycle (9700 pro vs 4600 / 5800) and suddenly ppl were talking about the future of their company even after they sold 100 million cards, heh weird.

[Admiral]

*sigh*
A Parhelia 128 is still something of 500-550$ here and a G550 100-150$. And the newcomers aren't exactly cheap either with a P750 nearing 400$ and a P650 standing at 275$.

It's kind of hard to let go of that much money even if you're a fan and don't really care about 3D.

[Whirl-Secret]

true, but....

my thinking goes like this:

if you don't care about 3D (games or cad) then you probably care a lot about 2D (image + video editing / IQ) or you don't care about anything much.

If you don't care about 2D or 3D then you can get a dell with onboard graphics, np.

If you do care so much about 2D that you would get a Matrox instead of an ATI, then why bother with a G card when P is there for a few more pennies?

Just my humble opinion. Considering that my P650 cost about 20% of the price of Photoshop , that doesn't sound too much to me

OK I guess G is one of the cheapest dual heads, and I don't want to argue about this so I just shrug and say ok you are right

Gnight!

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

well, G550 is still selling to clients who would rather not re-qualify or prefer not to pay considerably more for a p-series. most of them are happy with the level of quality/performance and don't see a need to upgrade (yet). in fact, many video editors have been using G-series for years for their basic dualhead editing workstations.

eventually, though, i'm sure matrox will officially discontinue G-series and urge customers to move to P-series.

on another note, matrox is betting that the 3D gaming bubble will eventually burst and people will no longer see the value in shelling out hundreds of dollars for faster frame rates. i believe it will indeed burst, and when it does, what do you think ATI and Nvidia will do? move to a more cost effective model that will keep them afloat until the find something to fill in the losses that come with the end of the 3D gaming card era.

[bsdgeek]

Admiral sez:

*sigh*
A Parhelia 128 is still something of 500-550$ here and a G550 100-150$. And the newcomers aren't exactly cheap either with a P750 nearing 400$ and a P650 standing at 275$.

It's kind of hard to let go of that much money even if you're a fan and don't really care about 3D.

Yeah exactly, as I see it, the problem with Matrox in the home market is not the stigma associated with using Matrox for gaming or even lackluster support or sleazy tactics, but that they:

1) Are just too damn expensive.
2) Can't compete to make real progress in the low-end market where the big sales are made because of #1.
3) Can't get OEM deals, again because of #1.

I know you said don't argue, but really when G(5/4)50 cost $90-$120 and you can get $30-$40 GF2MXs and Radeon 7000s with dual head, it can't possibly be the cheapest. Again, this is where Matrox fails, price.

I would try to find a way to cut G-series price to those extremely cheap levels, offer P(6/7)50SE/MX/XT cards where defective chips are not sold as P(6/7)50s, but marked down in specs/price accordingly, of course price cuts would be needed all around, standard P650 maybe $99, P750: $149, Parhelia ( 8x ): between $199-$249. There would be lower spec'd Parhelias in the price range between P750 and full-blown Parhelia, I think 64MB & Dualhead versions would be nice. Ah yes, and I would make stupid (wowz0r, check dis wikid kewl matrix box, teh win!!11oneone!!1) looking boxes with a mean looking Matrox shark for retail sales in BestBuy/CircutCity and the like. And of course, plead with OEMs to buy my damn cards.

The above is if I were Matrox and I wanted to compete in this market (right now).

But... they seem content with their niche markets, so whatever. But the glaring memory that sticks out in my mind is the last company that shut out the mainstream/home market.

One thought (appended to this post, soupy's popped up while writing this one): What would ATI/NV do when/if the 3D bubble bursts? Go after the markets which were unaffected by this, in other words, the ones where Matrox would have been surviving in.

[rugger]

Originally posted by ex-SalesSoup

on another note, matrox is betting that the 3D gaming bubble will eventually burst and people will no longer see the value in shelling out hundreds of dollars for faster frame rates. i believe it will indeed burst, and when it does, what do you think ATI and Nvidia will do? move to a more cost effective model that will keep them afloat until the find something to fill in the losses that come with the end of the 3D gaming card era.

The bubble doesn't really exist. Realitively few people spend lots of money on a video card. Nvidia didn't produce the TNT2 chip for so long without a reason, and the reason is that the big money is on the low/mid end of the market. The high end of the market is all glamour and penis size. The only useful thing about the high end market is that it gives nvidia and ATI the technology to go after the mainstream market and choose how to match a competitors mainstream parts.

[Marshmallowman]

on another note, matrox is betting that the 3D gaming bubble will eventually burst and people will no longer see the value in shelling out hundreds of dollars for faster frame rates.

eh..Instead matrox expects people to shell out hundreds for their latest?

There not much difference price wise

[Chrono_Wanderer]

pc gaming will eventually end? dunno why but somehow I doubt that... (at least in the next 10 years)

[Sasq]

Chrono not that PC gameing will end, but there is a point point where you start to face diminishing returns. The FPS war is already petering out and turning more to IQ. After IQ reaches a certain level where do you go from there?

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by Marshmallowman
eh..Instead matrox expects people to shell out hundreds for their latest?

There not much difference price wise

the difference is, the markets Matrox is targeting has the money to spend.

[Kurt]

Eventually they will have to raise the 3D bar. their market share keeps on dwindling. their profit margin might be high enough for now but don't forget that the other companies are not standing still in IQ either. Matrox better have some aces up its sleeve. Already if you look at the Video market, Mac owners are pretty happy with their crappy Nvidia or Ati vidcards (Pro and non-pro). Knowing Apple is making a lot of money selling to that market...

If you discard them as non important then you discard that whole market as non-important... Also, I always wondered why Matrox wasn't going after Apple at all. Mac users have a long habit of having crappy/slow vidcards, I guess lack of advanced 3D features shouldn't be a big bother (it's not like they have many games either...) - and there's tons of video enthusiasts/fanatics there that could benefit from good 2D and having 2x screen + TV à la P750...

[SpiralDragon]

then their is the DAW market .... many of the systems i have built and sold contain an M G-seris card in them.... no nead for 3D there....

[rylan]

Well the thing is even the high end modeling and medical markets are beginning to show a need for some 3D horsepower. And with everything going digital, they're a little late to try to enter the high end medical analog display market... so all they've got is an expensive version of the P with less 3D capabilities (notable OGL) than other cards that are fairly easily adapted to the same target market.

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by Kurt
Also, I always wondered why Matrox wasn't going after Apple at all. Mac users have a long habit of having crappy/slow vidcards, I guess lack of advanced 3D features shouldn't be a big bother (it's not like they have many games either...) - and there's tons of video enthusiasts/fanatics there that could benefit from good 2D and having 2x screen + TV à la P750...

I've wondered the exact same thing. In fact, a couple of years back I worked on a report that was meant to show why Matrox should go after the Mac market. I even had tons of Mac users e-mail me to express their interest in a Mac-compatible video card from Matrox. I guess the numbers still weren't enough to substantiate the costs associated with developing Mac drivers, which is something that confuses me to this day.

[rugger]

SalesSoup,

You could have had the entire mac population garrentee to buy 100 matrox cards each in writing, and still not have convinced matrox to write drivers for the mac.

It's just the way things are/were in Matrox.