So how many ppl feel that Matrox has screwed up with the G450?

[Joel]

And what would you like to see them do to correct the problem?

I for one feel that the price may be too high.

Joel

[This message has been edited by Joel (edited 07 September 2000).]

[ALBPM]

They need to get the G800 or whatever it will be called out the door quickly. And yes, I agree the G450 should be a sub $100.00 card for Retail customers.

The damage that's been done by misdirecting PR and Marketing towards gaming probably can't be undone. It's a shame that they have no clue and tend to run the same promotional strategy for for all their new cards.

Paul

[This message has been edited by ALBPM (edited 07 September 2000).]

[Ali]

I think the G450 is ok priced, and has good features, but I think they may have done their PR all wrong.

They do need to get their gaming card out soon. Im hoping they dont wait for the chrismas season to do it though.

Look at it this way, they now have experiance with DDR memory. Thats got to be good.

We know they are working on T&L (that interview where they talked about the ease of adding T&L to the current ICD), and they must be doing something right, cos Amiga is interested in them.

Matrox have always had the best hardware, I think what we are seing at the moment is a change in stratagy where they get the drivers stable before releasing the hardware (we can but hope).

Shit, lots of spelling mistakes today.

Ali

[DirtFarmer]

Yes, I think they screwed up by releasing it into the retail channel. This card is 6 months late. The G800 may look dated by the time it hits the shelves. I still believe that an anouncement on the G800 is not too far off but I know that it will be slow to hit the shelves as all of the recent Matrox offerings have been.

The only cure is to get there crap together and get the G800 on the shelves. I for one would forget about the G405 real quickly.

It's starting to look like the G405 is all they've got for the 2000 cycle. The G800 has to pack a lot of punch to match the next offerings from nVidia, ATI, and 3DFX.

--
Alan

patiently waiting for Matrox next *real* video card.

[Thundrchez]

I work for a computer chip company, and we frequently do a redesign of a chip exclusively as a cost reduction. We take a chip that we originally designed on a 0.5 micron process, and we redesign a chip with the exact same specs on a 0.25 micron process. It saves us money in that we can fab more die per wafer, we generally lower the price to follow the market, and our customers are still happy because they are getting the same function out of the chip.

The specs between the G400 and G450 are a little bit different. For the market that Matrox is targeting, I think that they are doing the right thing.

As for me, I'm waiting for a mondo kick ass dual gpu G800 that can do super spectacular 3D gaming much better than my G400. I'm hoping that it will be able to do 1600x1200x32 gaming with 32 bit Z-buffer at a crisp 40fps with all the spectacular color and quality that you expect from a Matrox video card. We'll see, but until then, my G400 is over a year old and it is still hanging in there just fine.

[paulcs]

Again, I kind of knew what was coming, I defended Matrox's decision (from a business perspective), and I still felt disappointed when the reviews came out. I thought most of the reviews were fair. They focused on the board as a non-gaming card, although they really had to benchmark it, and it looked bad in this light. It looked like Moore's Law in reverse.

Maybe Matrox had to market it as a potential gaming solution. Maybe OEM's look for this stuff. I think they do.

My biggest problem with the G450 is that it is being released a year after the G400, and they have yet to announce the G800, the G400's true predecessor. Given the length of time between releases, and from a fan's perspective, I think the G450 is really anticlimactic.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Raptor^]

IMHO Matrox is not keeping up with the marketplace that I am interested in. Going for a 6 month product cycle like Nvidia (try to) is just excessive, but I feel they need to release a new flagship product every year to keep a share of gaming / 3D market.

It is now well over a year since the G400 reached the stage the G450 is at now (boards to reviewers etc).

The G450 is not a gaming card, I'm sure it does the job it was designed (if not marketed) for admirably, but what does it really offer OEMs over a G400 32Mb Dual Head?
The die-shrink may make Matrox some savings, but at what cost to future sales?

If producing the G450 has impinged on the progress of the 'G800' then I would say at some cost. You just have to look at the forums here, there are an increasing number of people saying that they couldn't wait for the G800 any longer and have gone and bought a Geforce 2 or ATI Radeon. They are unlikely to buy another gfx card for another year now, so Matrox has lost those sales. Also, OEMs seem to be influenced by a manufacturer's reputation in the retail market. You just have to look at ATI to see that.

If, however, the G450 was produced at no cost to, or as test bed for certain features (DDR Ram anyone?) on, the G800, I cannot see it as a mistake in anyway. It increases their profits in the OEM market without harming their reputation or sales in other areas.

------------------
P3-700E, Abit BF6, G400 MAX, 8.6 gig Seagate, 8.6 gig WD, SBLive 1024, 256Mb PC100... Mouse, Keyb, Stuff

[This message has been edited by Raptor^ (edited 07 September 2000).]

[Nuno]

I still haven´t posted a comment abot the G450, but I´m surprised about all the bashing it´s getting.

Matrox said it would be a business-oriented solution. Sharp and fast 2D, excelent dual-monitor abilities. Although based on a 1+ year technology, it still does it better than the most recent GeForce (I think the GTS2 Ultra is getting a bit outdated, they should bring out the next one ).

So what are people complaining at? I think people earning their living standin at a 21´´ monitor all day long will thank Matrox for the G450.

[DirtFarmer]

Nuno:I don't think everyone is specifically bashing the G450, but moreso the way it the PR and Marketing dept seem to be trying to make a big deal about it. Did they send their G100 cards to gaming sites for reviews? Did the send any G200 multi monitor cards to the gaming sites for reviews? If this card was meant for workstations with its cheap, fast, crisp, 2D, and 1 year old 3D technology, they should have sent a review card to Ant and forgot about all the sites whose readers generally measure a card by game framerates.

So I guess I'm just complaining about the splash they are trying to make with a card that doesn't deserve the splash. People with 21 inch monitors will thank Matrox all year long when the G800 is released

I thanked Matrox last year for the G400, now 1 year later I'm begging them, PLEASE bring on your next gen card so I can shell out some coin for one.

--
Alan

[Gurm]

I concur. Is the G450 a well-designed card?

Yes.

Is it THE card for business machines?

Without a doubt.

Do any gamers care?

Not really.

- Gurm

------------------
Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[The Rock]

Also, one must not forget the LOUSY job some sites are doing reviewing the G450. WE all know it's a business-targeted card, but some reviewing web sites sure don't. I've seen several reviews that led me to believe that the reviews thought the G450 was Matrox's "next big thing" to compete in the 3d arena. These webfools should do more homework. As for the card itself, it does everything that Matrox said it would. I have no problem with it as long as the price is right (any idea on Canadian prices for the G450??).

Bart

[Himself]

TheRock, I expect the G450 to match the G400 32MB vanilla at $240 via mail order places. Prices in Canada for Matrox products are still being listed at the same levels they were a year ago.

What can Matrox do to fix the problem of the G450? Get a new product out, simple as that.
The price of the G450 should be $100 IMO, but if Matrox can get $145, they should go for it.

I think the marketing is from the old school of make it sound good so the computer illiterates will buy it, the great untapped idiot market. Anyone recall the old colourful magazine ads with the Mystique being compared to a Diamond 2000 (s3 virge), ignoring existance of the Riva 128? The kind of marketing that makes you wonder who they are trying to kid, but actually might get some poor sucker to fall for it.

[Indiana]

The G450 is not a bad card, but I'm really having problems to see it's advantages over the vanilla G400, not to mention the G400Max.

Performance? My G400 16Meg/DH can easily beat those benchmarks for the G450 at standard clockings. No wonder, the clockings are the same and 64Bit DDR apparently is slower than 128Bit SDR due to some overhead.

Price? I got my G400 16Meg/DH for 250DM nearly a year ago (a real bargain, cheaper than a TNT2 non-Ultra with TV-Out at that time!) and the G450 is supposed to cost about 350-400 DM?!?

So what else can there be? The faster second RAMDAC? Maybe. Better overclockability? Another Maybe (oc'ing a business-card?)
But those definitely are NOT worth this high price!

IMHO the toughest competitor to the G450 are not NVidia's or other manufacturers cards but Matrox' own old G400 cards, especially if you think at the 16Meg/DH models which can be got quite cheap sometimes. BTW, who needs 32MB RAM on a business-card mostly used in 2D?
No wonder that Matrox is planning to stop the G400 series...
Great plan to sell a cheaper (manufacturing-wise) card for a higher price :

[mj12]

The g450 is garbage. It's warmed over hardware and you can very cleary see the effects of a private company with upper mgmt. making decisions. If you can't tell I'm not happy with Matrox because I now run a geforce2 64mb. And yes the card rocks 3d but I very much miss the vivid colors in 3d and 2d that Matrox delivers. I'd like to see Matrox do something along the lines of nvidia where they have like 3 teams working seperate so you have a top line product coming out every 6-9 months. And for those you don't like nvidia's release schedule, well tough, first of all you don't have to purchase every new one they put out. And secondly it's going to come down to you either get in the race or get out of the way and go back to the kiddie track. Matrox needs to make a serious business decision about where they want the future of the company to go. You either get with it or change direction ala S3.

[Admiral]

If they don't release the G800 in the next 3 to 6 months they'll loose whatever hold they had on the gaming market. But again, why should they care, they've just strengthened their position on the OEM market with the G450 (cheaper than a TwinView MX and way better).