New cards to be announced ?

[diewlei]

Originally posted by PAugustin
the P650 could be something to replace my G400max.

i was in exactly your predicament a month ago. but i couldnt wait so i swapped a rad8500 for the max. i've been angry since with driver issues still unresolved.

i want this p650 thing.

[fberger]

3D game playing fans, don't hold your breath. I really believe those new cards are targetted at the 2D market.

In my opinion Matrox needs a decent graphics card from the Graphics division to complement the video solutions created by the other divisions. So far your only option was a G550, which is getting old and still based on the G400 core I believe. The G550 success is based on video quality and TV-Out.

What I think they'll do with the new cards is re-use some design from Parhelia such as triple head, scale it down to justify a lower price and provide a nice upgrade path for all the people like me in need of a new card who don't play games at all and don't need stellar 3D performance.

Fred

[JaG]

Originally posted by SpiralDragon
well ... i am not about to give up on M even if they dont produce an OGL card now.... (just hope that they do one soon or else i will end up with no alternative)

Shortly back to your OGL demands...

In my opinion, that's exactly that, which Matrox seems to plan with the new 'LX' cores. After the interesting discussion with the matrox cebit'03 team at 'SolidLine', I was sure to hear some news, not to far a away, sounding like that one, now.

Matrox got back into the professional business segment with their G-Series cores. Only one feature was more and more missing on their cards, besides the good 2D (and video) quality - an adequate OGL support for the more and more popular 3D CAD area. 'Classic' Parhelias have this feature but because of the high prices especially big OEMs too often look for competitive solutions...

Im sure, that's the gap which the new P-Series should fill.

In Prof. 3D CAD you won't need the same kind of driver and chipspecs., which you would need to play games like Quake or DOOM III.

What you need is a good performance and feature set to display a certain (growing) amount of poligons - adequate shaded, filtered (some times textured) and at least possibly 'vector antialiased' - on at least one high res., better two, optimal three displays.

Therefore the 'classic' parhelia get's and got more and more popular:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/media_center/press_rel/2003/hp_parhelia.cfm

Well, but like we all too good know, are 'classic' Parhelias still very expensive...

So the new P-Series products will surely provide enough power for the 'normal' CAD user. That's at least that, what I would expect.

If it turn out real, it's clear that the new gen. of our CAD-workstations at our office will get some 'P-series', too. :-)

Here stability and quality at adequate prices count even more than hitting the max-point of a certain gamers' benchmark.

[JaG]

Originally posted by SpiralDragon
[...] no banding as every one is saying.. [...]

One last thing...

These 'Parhelia' bandings can be reduced to an unremarkable minimum, most of the times, by using a good & stable quality power source. So, these bandings aren't and weren't a reason to buy competitors (for me)... . There I've seen worse!

[PAugustin]

Errr the news about those P650/750 have been pulled off from several web sites (TT-hardware, Hardware.fr and clubic).

Maybe Matrox PR team didn't like that at all !

[SpiralDragon]

i think i have finaly come to a desition.... wait.. wait and wait....

my g550 may be trusted for one and half more years.... i will just wait till matrox releses a realy good PCI-Express x16 card befor upgrading... same goes for my PC no upgrades till late 2004 early 2005... sad but if i am going to pay heafty amounts of money it better be worth will.....

[JaG]

[Chrono_Wanderer]

LOL. PCI Express won't be here very soon (TM)

Probably we will start using PCI Express in 2007 or something...

The transition period between Serial PCI and Parallel PCI is going to be very long. We may shift to PCI-X though...

I just hope we see Pitou

[drzaius]

PCI express is Intel's 3GIO, right? if it is.. then both ATI and Nvidia are planning on releasing versions of there R400 and NV40 using that bus.

i've heard it mentioned a few times.. i think www.vrzone.com said something about it.

[drzaius]

oh ya.. both those cards are expected to ship near the end of the year..

[diewlei]

Originally posted by drzaius
oh ya.. both those cards are expected to ship near the end of the year..

end of the year?!
gawd, that's like half a year later...

[UtwigMU]

Yep. By that time R9700 performance will be mainstram.

[Evildead666]

PCI-X will be available on server boards very soon.
Mainstream will take us into 2004-5.
SATA isn't really up and going yet either, mainly cos of the lack of drives...

The new Matrox cards are probably replacements for the G550 and 450 series of cards.
Mainly for the desktop environment, to replace the OEM orders for G550 etc that have dropped since the new ATI and Nvidia cards (MX based etc...).
Triple head desktop for the masses. It'll be a very good 2D card, but in 3D it will probably suck badly. But then again, i don't still have my G400's for the 3D power
Hi-Quality 2D and Triple head will be just fine and dandy...

BTW, the retail P never even used all its bandwidth, so giving it half won't harm the perfs too much....

[magog]

Here is another german site about the Pxxx Series:

http://www.hartware.de/news.html?id=32448

I'll test the new drivers for my Parhelia now. Maybe the Freelancer stuttering/slowmo has ended...

[Fluff]

In the new drivers it states these cards. in the inf one.

Matrox Parhelia 256mb
Matrox Parhelia 128mb
Matrox Parhelia PCI...

What is the last one...???