Speculation

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Well, considering, that Parhelia rumours started as early as December 02 and Parhelia came out in June 02....

There were enough rumours.

If you look at graphic history, you'll notice that Matrox comes out with new "mainstream" - not MMS or similar card every year from March till Jully (Q2/Q3).

It's reasonable to believe they'll come out with something else next year.

Furthermore, since G550, P650, P750 cover classes bellow Parhelia, it's reasonable to believe next card is not going to be less powerful than Parhelia, either as powerful and cheaper or more powerful.

They're also due for new MMS product sometimes next year, which will most likely be based on P650/P750 - pitou core.:

G200MMS in 2000, G450MMS in 2002, P650MMS in 2004?

Expect rumors about next mainstream card to start surfacing in December till February, as usual IMO.



Also hype/rumour mill, officially released specs - sometimes it's better to allow specs to be "leaked". This way you can always deny/dismiss them if you scrap/change the product.


What we know so far:
Matrox next card will be replacement for current card (as always), since P650 is replacement for G550 and Parhelia is the oldest of the lot, it's going to be Parhelia replacement.

Parhelia 8x - don't know wether it's canned or are they waiting to clear stocks of Parhelia chip boards.

Parhelia II aka Pitou - most likely canned, with R420 and nV40 due at end of this year/early next year, it's also likely not powerful enough.

So either we'll see Parhelia "400->450" with a dieshrink and slightly higher clock or a completely new card "200->400"

Also Longhorn (Next Windows) will set a milestone for graphic cards.

Expect next year's cards to fully aspire to longhorn, if they won't they'll go the way of Voodoo and Glide.

I figure this should go in a separate thread/Crystal Ball.

I don't think we will ever see Parhelia 8x other than in its current form. (Cut in half = P750/P650)

What I think/hope should happen is that they delay and release Pitou (which was never finished AFAIK) alongside Longhorn and definitely work close with Microsoft on it. (Per ATI/DX9) So perhaps they will get an upper hand against NV/ATI and shock the world with a stunning part.

While we are on the subject of working together with OS creators, why not work with FreeBSD and maybe teach NV how to release new drivers frequently?

[UtwigMU]

Well, there are two milestones:

PCI-Express and Longhorn.

PCI Express should debut in Q2/Q3 proabably with Socket change of Prescott.

Longhorn will most likely ship in 2nd half of 04 or more likely in 1st half of 05.

Next year's graphic cards should offer PCI-Express versions (Since there are PCI cards still being made, we can expect AGP cards for a few years to come.)

They also should be Longhorn ready (new gaming support) and DX9.

nVidia: nV40 is due in Q4 03 or Q1 05. Should* be 2 times faster than nV30 (FX5800 Ultra).

Ati: R420 8x2, px shader 3.0 and 2-times* faster than R300 (9700 pro).

So if Pitou was on the boards to be released this year, it should be thoroughly revamped in order to clash with competition from 2004.

Basically at year's end or early next year R420 and nV40 are to enter the scene, with late summer, early autumn refreshes.

Matrox usual release date falls between May and July.

Since they have put quite an effort in professional drivers and CAD software certification, their card will have to be more powerful than Parhelia in order to compete with R420 and nV40 based FireGLs and Quadros.

I hope they won't do another G550 (G800**).

* so far it's only rumours.
** G800 developed half way.

[UtwigMU]

WRT to Longhorn, here's an interesting thread at beyond3d.


Check for Tier2 specs:





Basically Longhorn will stir graphics up:

If it will indeed require DX9 hardware, (tier1 = DX7, tier2 = DX9) Intel will either have to:
- develop better integrated GPU
- buy a company that has DX9 part
- allow Ati or nVidia to license P4(5) bus

AMD will be better of with nV's DX9 capable chipsets

Because of desktop overhead, we can expect graphic requirements going up.



WRT to Matrox: They're into OEM and pro market and they'll have to come up with PCI Express DX9+ high end card and/or DX9 PCI Express volume card in 2004 to be competitive.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

WTF????? Why do they force you to use AGP 8X? ????

[bsdgeek]

Because Longhorn will be making heavy use of the AGP bus.

Or PCI Express for that matter.

[mmp121]

Originally posted by UtwigMU

*snip*
If it will indeed require DX9 hardware, (tier1 = DX7, tier2 = DX9) Intel will either have to:
- develop better integrated GPU
- buy a company that has DX9 part
- allow Ati or nVidia to license P4(5) bus

AMD will be better of with nV's DX9 capable chipsets

*snip*

Intel has already moved in that direction by giving ATI a license for the P4 chipset. And I think ATI has already released an chipset but just for laptops. So I guess ATI and Intel will soon be in bed together just like NVidia and AMD.

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Well, there are two milestones:

PCI-Express and Longhorn.

PCI Express should debut in Q2/Q3 proabably with Socket change of Prescott.

Longhorn will most likely ship in 2nd half of 04 or more likely in 1st half of 05.

Next year's graphic cards should offer PCI-Express versions (Since there are PCI cards still being made, we can expect AGP cards for a few years to come.)

They also should be Longhorn ready (new gaming support) and DX9.

nVidia: nV40 is due in Q4 03 or Q1 05. Should* be 2 times faster than nV30 (FX5800 Ultra).

Ati: R420 8x2, px shader 3.0 and 2-times* faster than R300 (9700 pro).

So if Pitou was on the boards to be released this year, it should be thoroughly revamped in order to clash with competition from 2004.

Basically at year's end or early next year R420 and nV40 are to enter the scene, with late summer, early autumn refreshes.

Matrox usual release date falls between May and July.

Since they have put quite an effort in professional drivers and CAD software certification, their card will have to be more powerful than Parhelia in order to compete with R420 and nV40 based FireGLs and Quadros.

I hope they won't do another G550 (G800**).

* so far it's only rumours.
** G800 developed half way.

Another milestone: OpenGL2, and with OpenGL 1.5 being released and laying the groundwork for 2, it should actually be coming around the same time.

Hmm, well let's hope they're working on something to meet all of these "deadlines".

[UtwigMU]

Well, WRT to OpenGL they came a long way since G200. They are voting member of OpenGL arb now.

[a_h]

@bsdgeek: I think 8x AGP is required to be sure that the graphic card belongs to the current bleeding edge cards. Per se the AGP doesn't give you any performance boost at all - it's only a marketing gag. Did you know that AGP 2x has the same frequency the Pci-bus has? The difference lies in sideband-adressing and some other features...

With the various AGP accelerations you get about 1-2% performance increase...

PCI-Express is needed, because today's RAID can send ~90 MB peak bursts, so there's no bandwidth left for other devices. BTW: 133MB/s is a theoretical value...no chipset reaches beyond ~100MB.

[K6-III]

As I understand, Intel and SIS chipsets have no problem exceeding 100mb/s for PCI...

[bsdgeek]

Originally posted by a_h
@bsdgeek: I think 8x AGP is required to be sure that the graphic card belongs to the current bleeding edge cards. Per se the AGP doesn't give you any performance boost at all - it's only a marketing gag. Did you know that AGP 2x has the same frequency the Pci-bus has? The difference lies in sideband-adressing and some other features...

With the various AGP accelerations you get about 1-2% performance increase...

PCI-Express is needed, because today's RAID can send ~90 MB peak bursts, so there's no bandwidth left for other devices. BTW: 133MB/s is a theoretical value...no chipset reaches beyond ~100MB.

I know, because hardly anything needs to use the AGP bus that much. I heard though, that Longhorn will be AGP texturing all the time.

[trk2]

Originally posted by a_h
@bsdgeek: I think 8x AGP is required to be sure that the graphic card belongs to the current bleeding edge cards. Per se the AGP doesn't give you any performance boost at all - it's only a marketing gag. Did you know that AGP 2x has the same frequency the Pci-bus has? The difference lies in sideband-adressing and some other features...

Not true. All AGP bus, regardless of revision, run at 66mhz which is twice the 33mhz frequency of the PCI bus. Unless you are talking about 64bit PCI, which does indeed run at 66mhz.

[VJ]

Euhm, there are 32 bit PCI cards that run at 66 MHz (could be that they are intend for use in 64 bit slots; not to slow down the bus; I don't know about that).

PCI-X goes even further (66 MHz, 100 MHz and 133 MHz; speed is dependant on the number of cards).


Jörg

[CaineTanathos]

PCI-X is not PCI express

PCI-X is an extension

PCI express is a new technology (like Serial ATA)

[VJ]

I know, but I thought a_h (first paragraph) and trk2 were referring to the regular PCI bus. I merely tried to point out that the term "PCI-bus speed" is not *that* straightforward to understand; using the PCI-X extension as an example.


Jörg