***Matrox Parhelia....It's Coming......

[larciel]

image quality = TOP
driver = no problem for me so far from matrox
price = hmm.. less than $250 works for me

I'm getting it!! ..

 

[Electric Amish]

The price won't be less than $250, at least on launch.

amish

 

[PG]

Originally posted by: Nemesis77

Originally posted by: PG
The tests of engineer samples with very raw drivers show only 20...30% advantage of Parhelia-512 comparing to NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600.

Oops.......only 20 - 30% faster than Nvidia now and Nvidia will have a new card this fall??????

Do you have problems reading? When compared to fastest card NVIDIA has to offer, Parhelia seems to be 20-30% faster with pre-release board and early drivers!

Pre-release board = Not optimized. Propably running slower than the final card will run at. Still room for performance-increase.

Early drivers = Not optimized, has bugs. ALOT room for performance-increase

I don't have any reading problems. That kind of performance might be impressive IF the card were available today, but it isn't and won't be for a little while.
My main point is that by the time these new Matrox cards are widely available it will almost be time for the NV30.
I'm just worried that Matrox does not have enough of a lead to stay competitive with Nvidia and ATI for the long term. Matrox cannot keep up with the 6 month product cycles of Nvidia so this is the card Matrox will be selling for quite some time. In the meantime Nvidia and ATI might catch and pass Matrox.

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: PG
I don't have any reading problems. That kind of performance might be impressive IF the card were available today, but it isn't and won't be for a little while.
My main point is that by the time these new Matrox cards are widely available it will almost be time for the NV30.

Parhelia becomes available in late june / Early july. NV30 somewhere in late august /late september (no-one knows yet). There seems to be 2 months between those two. And when NV30 get's released, it's almost time for Parhelias improved version (rumoured to be released late this year, early next year). Point is that if you delay a purchase because "New and better product is just around the corner", you will end up waiting forever. There are ALWAYS new and better things coming down the pipeline!

So, if we assume that the 20-30% is correct (I don't know that is it). We could guesstimate that with finished hardware and more mature drivers Parhelia would beat GF4 4600 by... 50%. That's not impressive?? It would give NV30 a run for it's money!

I'm just worried that Matrox does not have enough of a lead to stay competitive with Nvidia and ATI for the long term. Matrox cannot keep up with the 6 month product cycles of Nvidia so this is the card Matrox will be selling for quite some time. In the meantime Nvidia and ATI might catch and pass Matrox.

Ummmm, no. There's already a .13 micron Parhelia in the pipeline. I heard that it could be released late this year, early next year. That chip would have full DX9-compliance, hardware tweaks and propably higher MHz.

How do you know Matrox can't keep up with NVIDIA? Because they have had longer product-cycles in the past? Long product-cycles aren't necessarily a bad thing. BMW and Mercedes have pretty long product-cycles too .

 

[grant2]

Do you have problems reading? When compared to fastest card NVIDIA has to offer, Parhelia seems to be 20-30% faster with pre-release board and early drivers!

I can read just fine, how about you point us in the direction of these benchmarks that quote 20-30% faster (than a geforce 4)? I can't find them on Anand nor Tom's sites...

 

[grant2]

How do you know Matrox can't keep up with NVIDIA? Because they have had longer product-cycles in the past? Long product-cycles aren't necessarily a bad thing. BMW and Mercedes have pretty long product-cycles too .

Are matrox's long product lifecycles a bad thing? You can bet your bacon they are, assuming that matrox is trying to sell video cards to gaming enthusiasts. Considering the nature of the their parhelia chip, it's obvious that matrox is trying to capture a share of the gaming market.

Only die-hard matrox fans still consider the ancient g400max (*still* matrox's 'best' gaming card) an option for any kind of gaming purposes. The rest of civilization has moved onto the wide range of ATI and Nvidia cards which have all been released within the last 2 years.

If matrox wants to make serious money selling gaming cards, they'll have to get on the trolley and start offering faster products more often than every 2 years.

 

[PG]

Ummmm, no. There's already a .13 micron Parhelia in the pipeline. I heard that it could be released late this year, early next year. That chip would have full DX9-compliance, hardware tweaks and propably higher MHz.


That's great news and what I wanted to hear. That will really put the screws to Nvidia and ATI and in the meantime we all win from the competition. Thank you Matrox.

 

[Electric Amish]

If matrox wants to make serious money selling gaming cards, they'll have to get on the trolley and start offering faster products more often than every 2 years.

They don't want to. They've always said that the niche gaming market is too small and competitive to be worth the effort. They are still targeting business and now, with the Parhelia, high-end workstation, former 3D Labs territory. If they can pick-up some gamers that are willing to pay the money, that's fine too. We'll see what they have up their sleeve when they release the actual cards.

amish

 

[n0cmonkey]

How do you know Matrox can't keep up with NVIDIA? Because they have had longer product-cycles in the past? Long product-cycles aren't necessarily a bad thing. BMW and Mercedes have pretty long product-cycles too .

AMD took their sweet time developing the Athlon, which turned out to be a damn good processor.

Im just going to wait to see how this card turns out, but chances are I will be buying one in the future (next machine maybe?) because it will be fine (major overkill) for the things I do.

 

[grant2]

<i>Can NE1 say vaporware? They are so far out of the loop right now in the high-end graphics market that I doubt if a naked Catherine Zeta-Jones dropped out of the sky that they would know what to do with her. </i>

Is NSF4 going to admit that he was wrong & that this isn't vapourware?

 

[Pariah]

Nope, wouldn't want next month's NVidia check to mysteriously bounce.

 

[AGodspeed]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Nope, wouldn't want next month's NVidia check to mysteriously bounce.

LMAO! And we all know how little you bash NVidia.

 

[Leon]

I think this thread deserves a good bump, as disgrunted GF4 owners already tossing their POS cards in the trash, and Matrox is getting ready to rule gaming world

Leon

 

[flexy]

Originally posted by: Leon
I think this thread deserves a good bump, as disgrunted GF4 owners already tossing their POS cards in the trash, and Matrox is getting ready to rule gaming world

Leon

You forgot to mention that he Parhelia also grows back hair, helps you getting laid and (finally) brings peace to us all on earth

Sheeshhh...this thread is old....

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Matroxusers...

Those of you with Geforce4's just bought a nice little paperweight...

amish

Let's fast forward in time.

Who's got a paperweight now.

 

[littlegohan]

helps you getting laid and (finally) brings peace to us all on earth

..

 

[Piano Man]

LMAO at Amish's paperweight comment.

 

[grant2]

br>LMAO at Amish's paperweight comment.

LMAO at NSF4's "can you say vapourware" comment
LMAO at Nemesis77's "can't you read, it's 20-30% faster than a geforce4600!" comment

Still waiting for an "Ok, i was wrong..." comment from any of these people...

 

[MrGrim]

Hehe funny stuff.

 

[DaFinn]

HAA HAA,

Its funny how everybody is so "know all" untill they get some real info...

Great entertainment

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Can we all take this opportunity to point and laugh at ElectricAmish now that we've read the reviews...

20%-30% faster my a**...

 

[formulav8]

How about growing up and giving the guy a break.

 

[galt]

Mr. Amish, would you like ketchup with your crow?

 

[Zugzwang152]

I'll admit amish was way immature at his gf4 comments, but come on, he has a point. We can't possibly compare Matrox to ATI/Nvidia yet. Give them time to settle in, and work on drivers, and lower their damn prices. The Parhelia has tremendous potential on paper, just let the brave folks at Matrox have a go at making the stuff work right.

 

[HigherGround]

How about growing up and giving the guy a break.

**voice of a 5-year old** but he staaarted it