Matrox Parhelia Potential?

[KingofFah]

I was wondering about how some of you feel about the potential of Matrox's latest card. The parhelia was somewhat of a dud. It was really built up and just did not have what it takes. This is a stepping stone for Matrox I guess, so what do you guys think they need for improvement? I think they show a lot of potential for competing with nvidia and ATI if they can get their stuff together.
Just another useless topic to spend some thinking time on

 

[BFG10K]

I think the potential's there for it to get a bit more competitive in memory bandwidth limited situations (eg high resolution) but I don't think it'll ever be a Ti4600 killer. That and its high pricing which is unlikely to go down much in the future will make it largely a niche card.

 

[Rand]

Almost certainly vertex shading performance has lots of untapped potential as yet, and complex pixel texturing should be able to improve a decent degree. Beyond that I don't expect a substantial amount of improvement, though high res gaming should see some gains.

 

[AnAndAustin]

No doubt, paying 3 times the price for GF3 or Rad8500 perf is not going to get Matrox far. People wouldn't have been so disappointed if the card hadn't been so hyped up (this isn't the movie industry Matrox). At a better price, GF3 perf with 3 monitor support, Fragment AA (technically brilliant) and arguably undetectible better '2D' image quality would give it a good fighting chance. Most guys are never going to use 3 monitors though, it's a hefty price for what boils down to last year's 3D perf.

Perhaps a higher clocked TI type version and a cut down MX type version would give it better penetration. Then they could phase out this mistake of a card and supply a slightly slower (and CHEAPER) cut down card at a competative price and then find the fly in the ointment and release a higher clocked card (prob still CHEAPER) and compete much better. It's a pitty most folk are going to rem the shortfalls and disappointments of its initial release though, definitely a very niche and over-priced card for the moment.

SiS with their Xabre were far wiser, although it has its faults. If they'd touted it as a GF4MX460, or even GF3 beater then people would have been disappointed, but being quiet until launch (and then advertising) paid off. If Matrox had done this, and priced the card more competatively they would have had a lot more consumer interest and higher profits. Surely they realise selling 10 $400 cards a month is less profitable than selling 1000 $200 cards a month (just as a silly example)!

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Did Matrox really hype it up that much? I never remember really reading a ton by them about how killer it was going to be. Most of the hype came from forums from what I saw.

 

[AnAndAustin]

You are probably right BrunoPuntzJones. But Matrox must have released the paper spec sheets, and I'm pretty sure they leaked a few bits and pieces along the way. They should have STFU, got the pricing right and then most people would have said, "Hey, that's not far off GF4TI performance, and that 3 monitor AND Fragment AA looks pretty damn cool! Not bad at all for Matrox's first modern-day step in to the hot 3D gfx market."

 

[AnAndAustin]

It looks as though it is too late, no matter what the do with driver tweaks. Check this out:

AnAnd Rad9700 vs GF4TI4600 vs Parhelia

 

[Lydecker]

The Matrox Parhelia is still attractive to me, and I still plan to buy one in the following weeks. Agreed, it's no way the no.1 for gaming, but I intend to use it for general CAD and make the most out of the three monitor support. From the way I see it, it depends what industry one is in, and thus what they are going to use it for...

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: Lydecker
The Matrox Parhelia is still attractive to me, and I still plan to buy one in the following weeks. Agreed, it's no way the no.1 for gaming, but I intend to use it for general CAD and make the most out of the three monitor support. From the way I see it, it depends what industry one is in, and thus what they are going to use it for...

Oh, it definitely has a market. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned I would much prefer it over a Ti4600.

 

[BFG10K]

With the R300's release there are now even fewer reasons to get a Parhelia.

In the Parhelia's current state and when compared to the competitors' performance and features I really don't see what Matrox is planning to do with this thing.

 

[Rand]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
With the R300's release there are now even fewer reasons to get a Parhelia.

In the Parhelia's current state and when compared to the competitors' performance and features I really don't see what Matrox is planning to do with this thing.

Well the R300 does take away 1, and maybe 2 of the biggest reasons I like the Parhelia.
Still can't buy it though, so at least for the moment it doesnt much matter.

 

[Lydecker]

Originally posted by: Rand
Well the R300 does take away 1, and maybe 2 of the biggest reasons I like the Parhelia.
Still can't buy it though, so at least for the moment it doesnt much matter.

Which reasons would these be?

 

[AnAndAustin]

The Matrox Parhelia should and probably does have the best '2D' image quality, but I would say we're talking tiny imperceptible amounts between this and GF4, Rad8500/9000 & Rad9700. Another bonus for the Parh is the Fragment AA, technologicaly it is brilliant, but of course it has its downsides too, more eratic frame rates and is not always applicable, where not applicable only a VERY slow 4xAA option is left. So that only leaves 3 monitor support to justify the $400 expense, bearing in mind it is about half the speed of the Rad9700 at a similar price. I think matrox desperately need to create a faster TI type version with higher clocks (at $400), and a budget MX type version with no 3 monitor support and perhaps even only 64MB of RAM (at $150) if that's what it takes. If they delay and the new nVidia card comes out, Matrox will never even have moderate success with the Parh. It has its market, but Matrox fanboys will only take it so far, and the main reason left to buy it is 3 monitor support, and precious few people have the monitors or the deskspace for that.

 

[BFG10K]

Which reasons would these be?

Triplehead and FAA, both highly debatable reasons I might add. Personally I don't like either.

Still can't buy it though, so at least for the moment it doesnt much matter.

Running off to buy a Parhelia now when you know that the R300 is only a month away from retail would be foolish.

The Matrox Parhelia should and probably does have the best '2D' image quality

If you have a Radeon or a good nVidia vendor this is not an issue at all unless you use 2048 x 1526 or something like that. ATi and some nVidia cards have great 2D image quality.

 

[FSUpaintball]

ATI used to be the king of multimedia, Nvidia the king of raw gaming power, and Matrox the king of image quality. Matrox still thinks they can charge $400 for a card just because they have excellent image quality. Unfortunately for them, Nvidia and ATI's cards are now consistently excellent in their visual quality. So, Matrox has lost any possible reason for charging so much for their cards. Aside from image quality, the parhelia has no advantages over the other cards (other than the unuseful memory bandwidth). If they had put out a really powerful card, they might make some money off of it, but I think this is going to really hurt Matrox.