to those that were looking forward to matrox\'s parhelia

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/videocards/article.php/3211_1376851__10

it\'s almost impossible to recommend the cards to the hardcore gaming community, as a GeForce4 Ti 4200 or Radeon 8500 can be had for much less and will yield higher overall framerates.

by john carmack
http://www.bluesnews.com/plans/1/

The performance was really disappointing for the first 256 bit DDR card. I tried to set up a "poster child" case that would stress the memory subsystem above and beyond any driver or triangle level inefficiencies, but I was unable to get it to ever approach the performance of a GF4.  None of the special features will be really useful for Doom

/me b1tchslaps matrox, now get back in the closet with cyrix

rofl

I actually had some hopes for them, concidering they did a decent job at keeping it under wraps for a long time. Then they said it would "slaughter" a GF4 ti4600 w/o question. Then I saw some beta benchmarks, and I thought to myself, "ok, it\'s beta, take nothing for granted."

Then I read a couple quotes from reviews (i only read anadtech\'s review of the card in full) and I realized this was Matrox. Pretty sad if you asked me.

Now they are going to have to play catch up like ATi had to do (and is still doing) with it\'s drivers. But, Matrox\'s driver team is even worse than ATi\'s. And 400 bucks for this card that performs even worse than the Radeon 8500LE?

yeah, i love when new technology stumbles way short of its hype

*cough* xbox *cough*

Glad I have my Ti 4600

Laughs at Matrox...

Originally posted by jm


Now they are going to have to play catch up like ATi had to do (and is still doing) with it\'s drivers. But, Matrox\'s driver team is even worse than ATi\'s. And 400 bucks for this card that performs even worse than the Radeon 8500LE?

I doubt that it will be possible to get so much more out of the drivers so that they are competitive.
If you look at the benchmarks, a Ti4600 or R8500 have twice the framerate in high resolution.
They can be lucky when they catch up to a Ti500.

It\'s sad to see this kind of performance with a new card, especialy when Ati\'s new card should be coming quite soon and will be quite much faster and better with 3D image quality.

But, this is probly the card to recommend for those who are programmers and need best 2D image quality to offer.

[nO-One]

Well I for one am still considering buying one, gonna wait till August to see how the ATi R300 will be. However I never expected it to be the speed king (but this is just horrible performance). BUT do keep in mind that the picture quality is still better than any other card will offer....next to high end wildcat cards and such.

Originally posted by nO-One
Well I for one am still considering buying one, gonna wait till August to see how the ATi R300 will be. However I never expected it to be the speed king (but this is just horrible performance). BUT do keep in mind that the picture quality is still better than any other card will offer....next to high end wildcat cards and such.

Your better off saving money and getting any of the GF4 Ti series, they might even have a new one soon enough!:eek:

Originally posted by "The One" Billy Gunn


Your better off saving money and getting any of the GF4 Ti series, they might even have a new one soon enough!:eek:

If I were you, I\'d wait for the NV30 from nVidia.

[nO-One]

Originally posted by "The One" Billy Gunn


Your better off saving money and getting any of the GF4 Ti series, they might even have a new one soon enough!:eek:

Getting a good picture and accurate colors is more important to me than raw speed. True that nVidia has come a long way since their GF2 days, however they still can\'t touch Matrox when it comes to 2d.

And yes nVidia will have a new chip soon. They have a 6 month product cycle so the nv30 should be here around fall time.

Bah, nVidea whores. I always cheer for the underdog (which was nVidea a few short years ago). Now they\'re on top and is no fun to cheer for anymore. Down with big monopolistic companies.

But then again - the Matrox card spanks most other cards in quality, including GeForce. And I\'m not gonna piss my pants because I can now only run Q3 with 250 fps instead of 300. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Samwise
Bah, nVidea whores. I always cheer for the underdog (which was nVidea a few short years ago). Now they\'re on top and is no fun to cheer for anymore. Down with big monopolistic companies.

But then again - the Matrox card spanks most other cards in quality, including GeForce. And I\'m not gonna piss my pants because I can now only run Q3 with 250 fps instead of 300. :rolleyes:

No card will get close to 250 fps with Q3, unless it is the R300 or NV30.

Originally posted by Samwise
Bah, nVidea whores. I always cheer for the underdog (which was nVidea a few short years ago). Now they\'re on top and is no fun to cheer for anymore. Down with big monopolistic companies.

But then again - the Matrox card spanks most other cards in quality, including GeForce. And I\'m not gonna piss my pants because I can now only run Q3 with 250 fps instead of 300. :rolleyes:

And you\'ll be lucky to play Doom 3 at 20 fps.

Sorry, but at $400 the Parhelia just isn\'t going to cut it for the performance it gives you. I may be able to compete with some of the current videocards performance-wise, but I\'m waiting for the next-generation before I blow that much money on a new card.

[nO-One]

The card isn\'t even out yet and you have already made up your minds. Matrox did state that they didn\'t expect the card to do well in the current games.

Look at Anandtech, they did a comparison between a whole lot of chips in Unreal 2003, the Parhelia, while not the fastest did hold it\'s own and sometimes passed the Radeon8500.

Give the thing a chance before you bash it.

Matrox did state that they didn\'t expect the card to do well in the current games.

Right there kids is where it\'s all at. That\'s really kind of sad when you got a product being marketed (mostly in general) towards hardcore gamers, and then admitting they won\'t guarentee "respectable results," of the $400 dollar price tag you paid. I mean, some of the features (esp. 2D) will definately turn on some, but when you spent the last, lets say 1 year researching and developing new 3D improvements and advancements, and you loose, misrably, it\'s kinda sad.

I would have understood if the Parhelia lost by some margin to the Ti4600, but loosing to a ATI Radeon 8500LE?

I don\'t even know if drivers can uncover the rest of the 70% potiental they promised. Matrox is about as bad as ATI in terms of drivers.