next Matrox card?

[Kurt]

It's weird...tons of Mac users are fanatics to the point of imbecility, plus they have money to burn. Talk about the perfect customers for Matrox...

[Che Guevara]

@FormerEx-SalesSoup:


So we will never see a Parhelia with the improvements of Millenium-P (no banding, fixed FAA-16x, Agp-8x; the Fanguard of the new Parhelia 256 PCI would also be nice) ??


And haven't the guys of the tech support forum said that we will see a new Matrox card next year?

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Originally posted by Che Guevara
@FormerEx-SalesSoup:

So we will never see a Parhelia with the improvements of Millenium-P (no banding, fixed FAA-16x, Agp-8x; the Fanguard of the new Parhelia 256 PCI would also be nice) ??

And haven't the guys of the tech support forum said that we will see a new Matrox card next year?

In all honesty, I don't know if a "new" Parhelia is on the way, but I doubt that a replacement will come any time soon that will be meant to "fix" these features. Instead, it'll probably be P-based products meant for specific specialty markets.

As for a new card next year, it's definitely possible, but I would look for a major release closer to Longhorn's arrival.

[bsdgeek]

Haig said there would be a 'new product' next year, this means nothing of course. It doesn't specify what the product is or who it's targeted at, it just means there will be a new product. It's a given, there's always some sort of new product around summertime, sometimes more later in the year. Besides there have even been several new products this year.

[Kurt]

It will probably be a PCI-E variant of some existing board. Since Intel will release its Grantsdale chipset in Q1/Q2 '04 I suppose Matrox will have a board ready (say...in April ) - as will everybody else.

[leech]

Personally, I think Matrox does things the right way. The thought of trying to figure out the difference between all the different versions of the ATI and nVidia cards gives me a headache. Considering you have to ask on MURC which one to get.. As I've seen many do. Do I get the XT, the FX, the Ultra, can I overclock this one, will this one work with x chipset.. blah blah. At least Matrox really only has a few that you WOULD choose from, rather than a LOT that you COULD choose from. Hope that statement made sense. It is 5:20am here....

Leech

[rugger]

leech,

But the matrox cards are far too expensive

[DukeP]

It really does, Leech.

I think both ATI and Nvidia (but mostly ATI) have blown it, with this many versions.


~~Dukep~~

[bsdgeek]

Yeah but the problem there is that the other guys are doing chip binning with the defective/slow chips, Matrox just uses the slow chips and probably throws away the outright defective ones. Using the slow ones is just not right, and tossing the defective ones when you can sell them at lower spec and recoup at least some of the money is just not cost effective.

[Che Guevara]

thanx @ soupy


At this point I have tho say that the product lines (especially the names) of nVidia and Ati are very stupid (from the customers view). All started with the Gf 4 Mx which was neither a Gf 4 nor 3 chip, but a modified Gf 2 one!

And now think about this:
cards with the old Radeon 8500 chip in order of the performance, starting with the fastest one:
1. 8500
2. 9000 Pro
3. 9000
4. 9100 Pro
5. 9100
6. 9200
7. 9200 SE (slowest)

Noticed ?

Former:
7000/7500 = DX7
8500 = DX8(.1)
but now:
9000/100/200 = DX8(.1)
9500/600/700/800 = DX9

And for example a Radeon 9600 SE (second edition? slower edition!) is in UT2003 slower than a good old 8500!!!


Sorry, but I had to say that

[Chongo]

I have come to the conclusion that the Parhelia is the 'Rolls Royce Phantom' of graphics cards. It has the panache and style of an old classic (G400 or Millennium), but provides a whole host of exciting and useful updates to bring it up to date. If I wanted a 'boy racer' I'd buy a Golf GTI, and if I wanted a 'car for middle aged businessmen with small penises' I'd buy a Ferrari. The truth is, Matrox always seems to provide the discerning connoisseur's choice in graphics tech, something which nVIDIA and ATI will always fail to do, no matter how many letters they stick on the end of their newest and ghastliest mass-produced monstrosity...

[Chongo]

Also, I do prefer the way that Matrox tend to release fewer major products, spacing them out by a couple of years. A substantial amount of work still must go into them, but I'm not faced with the prospect of something marginally bigger and better every year or rather every 6 months as I am with the 'big boys'.

[leech]

Originally posted by rugger
leech,

But the matrox cards are far too expensive

They are expensive, but I look at it this way. In many ways, you're paying for longevity. With an nVidia or ATI card, IF you're buying the high-end ones, that probably means you're a gamer, and have to have those high FPS's. So for a 'high-end' gaming card, you shell out a ton of money, then in 6 months, something else will be out that will have higher FPS than you have, so you'll want to upgrade to that.... That's their strategy. With a Matrox card, they're NOT going for the gaming market, and this may sound messed up, but I think they would prefer their customers to have a long lasting card that doesn't have to be upgraded every 6 months. (in fact I've had mine for almost 1.5 years, since the Parhelia first came out.) So in essence, you're paying for longevity.

Also, about the defective parts bit. I do agree that selling lower clocked Parhelias as retail blows. They should have been OEM's. But who's to say some of those P650's or P750's aren't some of the cores that the functions wouldn't work all the way? Of course I'm just speculating, I may just be making things up...

But really, how many XT's, SE's, Pro's, MX's can their really be? The customers who don't have access to such well informed people (like here on MURC) would probably just go into CompUSA or other retail store (and we should all know by now that 95% of all the sales people in retail chains know NOTHING.) and buy a GF4MX just because it sounds cool. Really, I think nVidia does it purposefully just so that people ARE confused and buy whatever happens to either be cheaper, or just there.

Oh and let me not forget one thing. To confuse matters worse....ATI at least has the "Built by ATI" cards, that they support, but they also have "Powered by ATI". nVidia just sells chips to many manufacturers and then the customer is left with "Who's GF4MX is better?" That's why I'll never by an nVidia.

Matrox makes their own boards, own drivers, own chips. And I think a lot of that also translates into why they are so costly.

Leech

[rugger]

Originally posted by leech
They are expensive, but I look at it this way. In many ways, you're paying for longevity. With an nVidia or ATI card, IF you're buying the high-end ones, that probably means you're a gamer, and have to have those high FPS's. So for a 'high-end' gaming card, you shell out a ton of money, then in 6 months, something else will be out that will have higher FPS than you have, so you'll want to upgrade to that.... That's their strategy. With a Matrox card, they're NOT going for the gaming market, and this may sound messed up, but I think they would prefer their customers to have a long lasting card that doesn't have to be upgraded every 6 months. (in fact I've had mine for almost 1.5 years, since the Parhelia first came out.) So in essence, you're paying for longevity.

I get longivity out of my video cards too. This is just a silly argument because nvidia and ati do as good a job of supporting their older products as matrox does via their unified drivers. How long you keep your video card is ultimately your decision.

Also, about the defective parts bit. I do agree that selling lower clocked Parhelias as retail blows. They should have been OEM's. But who's to say some of those P650's or P750's aren't some of the cores that the functions wouldn't work all the way? Of course I'm just speculating, I may just be making things up...

But really, how many XT's, SE's, Pro's, MX's can their really be? The customers who don't have access to such well informed people (like here on MURC) would probably just go into CompUSA or other retail store (and we should all know by now that 95% of all the sales people in retail chains know NOTHING.) and buy a GF4MX just because it sounds cool. Really, I think nVidia does it purposefully just so that people ARE confused and buy whatever happens to either be cheaper, or just there.

Yes, this is the very ugly side of graphics cards .... it drives me half insane. However, ,ost of the people who goto CompUSA and buy a gf4mx out of lack of knowledge really are not that into games, and will probably be perfectly happy with a gf4mx (they really are not that bad for the casual/cheap gamer) Gamers tend to learn about graphics cards, and work all this out for themselves.

Oh and let me not forget one thing. To confuse matters worse....ATI at least has the "Built by ATI" cards, that they support, but they also have "Powered by ATI". nVidia just sells chips to many manufacturers and then the customer is left with "Who's GF4MX is better?" That's why I'll never by an nVidia.

Matrox makes their own boards, own drivers, own chips. And I think a lot of that also translates into why they are so costly.

Leech

The simple fact is that most GF4MX's are equal. (equally bad some would say) They all contain the same ramdac's, the same tv encoder, the same chip. They do differ with memory bandwidth, and thats something to be very careful of, but other then that, they are more or less identical. That makes choosing a brand much simpler. The "Powered by ATI" boards are simply a pain, I don't think I would ever choose one over a "Built by ATI"

Matrox may make their own boards, drivers, and chips. But you are still left with expensive boards, buggy drivers, and chips with bugs in them (like banding, and poor clocking). Thats why I don't buy matrox.

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

how would you guys feel if Matrox started selling their chips to other board manufacturers? would you think less of the company and be less likely to purchase a "powered by Matrox" board?

on the other side of things, how would you feel if Matrox started using other manufacturers' chips for their boards?