Matrox Parhelia review @ Toms

[sugajay]

no one wants to host the pics? everyone who offered is offline, I got all the pictures from the review.

 

[mangled]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish

Originally posted by: kami

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Where was the Radeon 8500 performance compared to the Geforce when it was released?

That's right, severely lacking.

Where is it now? Nearly on par.

Shows what a little driver work can do.

amish

Yeah but isn't the Parhelia (ugh i hate that name!! almost as bad as GeForce) behind R8500's initial performance? :Q C'mon amish, just admit it that Matrox will never cut it in the game performance world. They should've stayed with 2D and advertised their great 2D instead of marketing their 3D which will never stand up (especially in the coming months when we see nVidia's and ATI's latest offerings which will severely smoke the Parhelia at a lower introductory price.

Never cut it in the gaming market? I'm still using my freaking G400 for god's sake! It plays games just fine.

amish

I guess we all have our standards...as low as yours may be, that's not the case for most people. How long will it take Matrox to release drivers that can bring the card into the same league as ATI or Nvidia? And then at that point, where do you think ATI and Nvidia will be with their drivers or new products? Still ahead of Matrox most likely.

 

[shabby]

OMG wtf happened here, all those features and its this slow?
Geez even a low end gf4 4200 can keep up with that.

Who wants to help me dig a grave for matrox?

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

Wow, this pretty much proves the fact that hype is just that - hype. I'll stick with my GF4 and it's horrible, mind numbing, inferior picture quality.

It might get better in drivers, but if it takes the time ATI took to catch up with their 8500, Matrox is going to be a little late, with NV30 and R300 on the horizon. Releasing and marketing a card that achieves scores akin to a GF2 Ti doesn't seem like a smart move.. perhaps Matrox would have better luck selling to businesses and such where triple head would be useful, and speed isn't a plus. If it wasn't for all the hype bhind the card, I doubt it would have been such a letdown.

As for the thing kicking butt in future games.. heck, most current systems struggle with Morrowind at times on GeForce 3's and 4's, staying at or under 30fps commonly. Why would I wanna spend $400 to watch it even slower on three monitors?

 

[no0b]

Originally posted by: sugajay
no one wants to host the pics? everyone who offered is offline, I got all the pictures from the review.

E-mail them to me at tekk@attbi.com

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: kami
A G400 in games? OMG...my GF2 GTS 32meg was getting down right slow for me!! I need high res, I need 32bit, I need it all in the latest games!! Oh yeah and I need 100fps!!! MUAHAHAHA

<--loves his GF4 Ti4200 128mb

To each their own though

I play everything in 1024x768 or better and in 32bit.

Ghost Recon, Nascar 2000, Dungeon Siege, UT....

amish

 

[aswedc]

Another German review

 

[Athlon4all]

I'll wait til tomorrow am for Anand's review.

 

[NFS4]

I play everything in 1024x768 or better and in 32bit.

At the lowest possible quality settings. Must get kind jerky with the latest games

Originally posted by: aswedc
Another German review

Looks like close to the same results except 3Dmark looks higher here

 

[no0b]

Image Quality
Parhelia Aqua Nox bug?

side by side of image quality

FSAA side by side

GF4 fsaa max payne

Parhelia fsaa max payne i dont know wtf the arrows are for

gf4 fsaa

par. fsaa

----more to come......

 

[FuManStan]

If the card performs like what i've been hearing, it sure doesnt look like Matrox is much of a "3rd player" in the graphics competition, at least no more than the Kyro cards were

 

[no0b]

benchmarks....

Text

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thats not all but my webspace is filled

the rest are similar to that.

 

[FishTankX]

HOLD IT!!!!

Allright, people, think about what you're all saying here. When the R8500 had a preview done on it, it could barley outperform the Ti200 in real world benchmarks. When it finally got market ready drivers, it could match the Geforce3! you guys have no idea how bad Beta drivers can be. I hope they delay the Parhelia to do some driver work, because theoretically it should be atleast Ti4200/R8500 level. These Beta drivers are simply *AWFUL*!!

 

[no0b]

I would like to see how it performs against the ti4200. I dont believe the performance is that bad but that of course is assuming these are beta drivers.

basically
Price: Performance is not there
Price:Features is there

 

[no0b]

Just inspected a screenshot of the driver GUI and it says the driver version is 1.01.225
and the bios version is 1.0-4

 

[EdipisReks]

i believe that the Tom's Hardware review was done on a RETAIL card from a RETAIL box. kinda puts the "beta drivers, that must be it" theory to rest, unless Matrox is planning to bundle crap with the first wave of cards.

 

[Pariah]

Ugh, what happened here? I wasn't expecting a Ti4600 killer, but I certainly wasn't expecting this either. I don't know what you are defending here Amish, there is something seriously wrong with this card. Unless the specs were all faked, there is no way a card like this should be scoring half of what the 8500 and Ti4600 are scoring in some benchmarks. These are so bad one wonders what went wrong, does Matrox have orangutans programming their drivers or is there some fatal flaw in the hardware Matrox overlooked?

 

[KKiller]

Amish,

You've gotta admit that you do have a little bit of egg on your face after all you did to promote the parahelia. Maybe you should admit it, and the rest of the forum members will forgive your terrible error.

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: NFS4

I play everything in 1024x768 or better and in 32bit.

At the lowest possible quality settings. Must get kind jerky with the latest games

Nope. Medium.

Dungeon Siege is a "latest" game and it works fine at the highest available settings.

i believe that the Tom's Hardware review was done on a RETAIL card from a RETAIL box. kinda puts the "beta drivers, that must be it" theory to rest, unless Matrox is planning to bundle crap with the first wave of cards.

Actually, it's not a retail card. It was noted in the MURC forums that according to his card specs it's a Bulk card which is clocked a little slower than the retail.

It was also noted that the drivers used are probably those that come with the card, but that a newer version will be available for download when the card is available for purchase.

amish

 

[Electric Amish]

Originally posted by: KKiller
Amish,

You've gotta admit that you do have a little bit of egg on your face after all you did to promote the parahelia. Maybe you should admit it, and the rest of the forum members will forgive your terrible error.

It's one fvcking review. It doesn't even cover image quality or any other of the new features other than 16x FAA.

According to the beta testers I've spoken with everything they've tried with it plays better than on their 8500's or TI4200's. Smooth, playable action on UT2k3 demo, Morrowwind, JK2, etc.

The only mistake I made is thinking that any of the fvckin FPS-whores on this fvcking forum would give a fvck about a video card that doesn't get a bajillion FPS on the latest fvcking shoot 'em-up.

amish

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish

Originally posted by: KKiller
Amish,

You've gotta admit that you do have a little bit of egg on your face after all you did to promote the parahelia. Maybe you should admit it, and the rest of the forum members will forgive your terrible error.

It's one fvcking review. It doesn't even cover image quality or any other of the new features other than 16x FAA.

According to the beta testers I've spoken with everything they've tried with it plays better than on their 8500's or TI4200's. Smooth, playable action on UT2k3 demo, Morrowwind, JK2, etc.

The only mistake I made is thinking that anyone on this fvcking forum would give a fvck about a video card that doesn't get a bajillion FPS on the latest fvcking shoot 'em-up.

amish

OK, I think we've picked on Electric Amish enough today...we should save the rest for tomorrow when the other reviews come out

 

[MTVsucks]

lol
i know i want the matrox card
I wonder how the matrox card initial benches compare to the initial benches of the competitions cards..

 

[Electric Amish]

Another German review.

amish

 

[ToBeMe]

My God I hope the reviews get better............I had high hopes for that card being a contender, but, if it can't even keep up with a $125 card, it's kind of hard to justify $400...........

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Electric Amish
Another German review.

amish

Was already posted about 10 or 15 posts up