A new chip offering twice the specifications of the GF4 Ti 4400/4600 will be announced within a month. 3DLabs Permedia4, ATI R300, BitBoyz Glaze3D, Matrox Parhelia, NVIDIA NV30, Videologic or Kyro III? Unfortunately we can't give the correct answer until mid-May. Anyway you'll be surprised, there is no doubt...
There's quite a bit of speculation at www.matroxusers.com and www.matrox.com including quite a few 's from Matrox Employee, Haig. Check out this thread.
Anand let this slip today...
Off to San Fran for something special
Admittedly this week didn't go as planned with the GeForce4 Ti roundup still unfinished. Today I'll be hopping on a plane to head off to San Francisco to meet with a company we haven't heard much from in a while. Hopefully I'll see something that makes my 7 awake hours in San Francisco well worth it and exactly 24 hours from now I'll be standing in an airport waiting to head back. The short trip caused me to finish up a lot of things that I would normally have Thursday/Friday to do but because of that I've had to put a lot of testing on hold. Needless to say, as soon as I land I'll start testing again.
There's not much I can say about what I'll be seeing out West but I've been told it should be well worth my time. If it turns out to be extremely impressive I'll do something special with my next post to let you know
And here I thought MuFu was gonna start another pro-ATI thread.
If it IS Matrox, I'll be as as the rest of you. Haig worries about stability, but I worry about compatibility. My buddy built a P3 system a year ago that had Matrox transplant shock. My second concern (and probably everyone else's) will be support and drivers. Anyone know how Matrox is on driver releases? It can have all the potential in the world, but if it gets weak support, it's as doomed as the Savage 2000.
Kyro III would be sweet. The K2 was a very good card, all it lacked was real T&L. Even with slow SDRAM, I could still pull good FPS from high res games with that fella.
[This message has been edited by ThreeOnTheTree (edited 04-18-2002).]
Give what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose.
Matrox are one of the best when it comes to drivers. As their cards are usually developed for professional work stations, their drivers are expected to work first time, every time no fuss.
Yeah, I'm sure it's Matrox too. The other reasonable possibility is that it's the fruit of the recent aquisition of 3DLabs by Creative. I guess that'd have the most suck-*** drivers ever though!
ATi's R300 will be released with DX9.0, not 9.1, BTW. Could be as soon as September and should be pretty hot since it's Micro$oft's official DX9 development platform.
You know, I've seen some damn long descriptions of where people live, and I was just wondering how freakin' long of a location they actually allow you to write in here. Looks like it's quite a bit. Oh well, if the space is here I'll use it!!! :)
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I think Matrox can pull off a new card... but 2x the performance of the GF4??
Well, let's just say I hope so.
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It is supposedly to have a completely new architecture. I beleive they can do it. There were rumors of them using Bitboys XBA technology. Only time will tell.
I think the key thing is what Haig has been saying in their official forum! Why would Matrox let him say all the stuff he has, the endless hints and smug comments if they didn't have a major card up their sleeve?! It's very, very re-assuring.
Matrox have been in the graphics card business for ages. 25 years I think. I have total confidence in their ability to produce something considerably better than the competition. It will be slightly disappointing if they don't since their products are few and far between.
Don't be fooled that Matrox has apparently slipped by the wayside in the 3D arena, they promised they would come back and when they do it's always been at the top (although the 2x margin seems fanciful). OK, their major product cycle may be 3 years or so, but the Millenium II and the G400 were both kings of their hill at release. Some may say that Nvidia doesn't truly work to a 6-month product cycle and that the improvements with each new GeForce are still based around that original design but with more beef and some new bells on. I don't want to heat this thread up too much though, I know that's not really the case with Nvidia, but just know that companies don't have to play the game the same way to be successful.
To be honest, although I would love it to be Matrox, I don't much care who it is, it's another player (old or new) at the top-end and something this market (any market) could do with. Or, maybe more importantly, something that I could do with .
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Originally posted by Mutha Funker: I think the key thing is what Haig has been saying in their official forum! Why would Matrox let him say all the stuff he has, the endless hints and smug comments if they didn't have a major card up their sleeve?! It's very, very re-assuring.
Matrox have been in the graphics card business for ages. 25 years I think. I have total confidence in their ability to produce something considerably better than the competition. It will be slightly disappointing if they don't since their products are few and far between.
MuFu.
If I remember correctly, there a was a bit of hype about the Matrox G550 cards before their lauch, but after they were reviewed and benchmarked, they were shown to be pretty slow compared to the current gaming cards. Let's hope it doesn't happen this time. I'd love to have a fast card that wasn't ATi or nVidia for once.
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2x the performance sounds nice, and that will get some attention from the gaming crowd. I agree with the comment that nVidia really isn't pushing the envelope as much as they can (or claim). They have kicked back a little bit I think. And why not? What they have now is the best on the market, and they bring in pleanty of $$$ with it. By recycling the GF3 core (and adding some extras), they have a money maker while they work on the GF5, which will be more prepared to battle with this mystery Matrox.
I think nVidia and ATI may have more money to get into a 3D-3'some than Matrox. Matrox doesn't seem to release as many new models as ATI or nVidia (at least not as many confusing model numbers ), so they have to make what they have REALLY good so it can hold a longer product cycle, while nVidia and ATI seem to be using the "Disposable Videocard" product cycle.
One things for sure, the new Matrox won't be 2x as fast as the new Radeon (R300) or the GF5, but it will probably still be better, at least for a while.
Give what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose.
I have been following the Parhelia story for the last couple of months, and whether or not this is what Anand was talking about, there IS a new Matrox card coming, but when is still undisclosed. The most reliable estimates are predicting about early to mid-May.
I personally don't think that's what Anand was talking about. The main reason is that Matrox has absolutely NOTHING to do with San Francisco - they're a privately-owned, MONTREAL-based company so if it was Matrox, he'd be going there.
I don't even see any reason to conclude that this visit to San Francisco is video-related. All he says is that the GF4 reviews weren't all that great so he hopes his weekend is better.
's from Matrox Employee, Haig. Check out this thread.
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as the rest of you. Haig worries about stability, but I worry about compatibility. My buddy built a P3 system a year ago that had Matrox transplant shock. My second concern (and probably everyone else's) will be support and drivers. Anyone know how Matrox is on driver releases? It can have all the potential in the world, but if it gets weak support, it's as doomed as the Savage 2000. 
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