Another new card: p650 PCIe

[Virgulino]

http://www.matrox.com/mga/media_center/press_rel/2005/millennium_p650_pcie.cfm

That would interest me - if it hadn't a $249 tag.

It's already been said that Matrox is only interested in some niche markets. But that niche is getting smaller really fast.

ATI FireGL v3100 - $150, v3200 - $300. (street price)

ATI FireMV - specialized professional boards for 2D/corporate/financial market, in PCI and PCIe flavors, 2 and 4 DVI heads, passive cooling, low profile.

(I would REALLY like some x1 or x4 PCIe!)

In 6 months, what market will Matrox look for? Left-handed blonde female audio engineers - specializing in folk music???

Regards, from former matrox enthusiast.

[Nappe1]

Interesting are the Haig's comments about this card in Matrox Forums...

he described this P650 to be as fast as Parhelia-8x on P4 platform in 3D speed. This makes me wonder, if this PCI-e P650 actually has 4 pipes instead of 2 that AGP companion had or perhaps the chip is been clocked near double speed to AGP version? Though latter option sounds very unrealistic, there's also very careful subtle hint that there might be coming PCI-e regular Parhelia as well later on in same thread. Because original nor Parhelia 8x didn't natively supported PCI-e, I wonder what else has been changed in chip design. re-spin to smaller tech sounds really reasonable, because 0.15µm isn't economically reasonable anymore. So, making the chip on 0.13µm, could maybe indicate reasonably higher clocks.


well, let's wait and see. I am not expecting DX9 card, but more like another quiet Speed Bump to old core.

[Twilight]

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=1709&s=1

[UtwigMU]

http://finance.yahoo.com/search?type=&s=matrox&r=&=Search

Revenue (2003): 89.40M
Revenue Growth (2003): -15.8%
Employees (2003): 1,000
Employee Growth (2003): -31%

Considering their revenue in 99/2000 was about 500M and was comparable to that of nV this is not surprise.

Annual sales, from here:
2003/89.4M
2002/106.2M
2001/147.1
2000/500.0 (EST) - they lost most OEM deals and gamer's market soon after G400 and G450 (same as G400, only cheaper to make due to 64-bit DDR instead of 128-bit SGRAM, integrated 2nd RAMDAC, dieshrink) came out of mainstream.

Looking at 2005 as year of PCIe (people who buy 250$ Matrox cards won't buy SocketA AGP Sempron systems) and considering their entry level PCIe card will be priced at 250$ (same as 6800GT) sales are likely to fall further.

[Venturer]

Sadly Matrox is going to be out of buisness very soon!

[Umfriend]

I donnow. Can't find what they say is the source for that info. Moreover, it seems to me "Matrox" is actually a number of companies and it is just one they're showing. Now if we coughed, say, US$ 120, I'd order the in-depth company report and could give y'all an outline.

Meanwhille, the company I work at recently bought at least 400 machines equiped with G450MMS cards and I guess another 500 or so for the other HQ.... 900 cards in one go ain't bad, is it? May just be 900 cards, but it's one company only as well..

[magog]

Originally posted by Nappe1
Interesting are the Haig's comments about this card in Matrox Forums...

he described this P650 to be as fast as Parhelia-8x on P4 platform in 3D speed.
[...]

This really sounds interesting.
I hope someone can test it when the card is available. Another Parhelia boost would also be nice but without some DX9/T&L (shader) updates I won't buy one.

Speedwise (I'm no hardcore gamer) I still can live with my Parhelia 4x but missing features that e.g. SplinterCell2 (Pandora Tomorrow) will only work with some tweaks (and you most of the time you have no textures and not to speak of shadows) is annoying.
There problems at the example above are not related to DX9 but to some missing T&L functions that other cards have and which the game developers support.

[Whirl-Secret]

Originally posted by Nappe1
Interesting are the Haig's comments about this card in Matrox Forums...

he described this P650 to be as fast as Parhelia-8x on P4 platform in 3D speed....

...well, let's wait and see. I am not expecting DX9 card, but more like another quiet Speed Bump to old core.

Geez guys, the actual quote is:

Q: How does it compare to P650 AGP and Parhelia 8x in terms of performance?


A: Can't really say since we don't benchmark our cards. From just playing around with it on P4 system, gaming seems to be on par with both those cards.

(reference link: http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopi...r=asc&start=15)


To me that does not sound like it is as fast as a P8X. Not benchmarking systems sounds like it is very slow and they don't really dare benchmark it. Otherwise they would at least compare it to some low-end quadro or Virgulino's FireGL etc. And Haig also talked about it being on a par with both the p650 AGP and the P8X. Well if he can't tell the difference between a p650 and a P8X he must have been 'gaming' with minesweeper, not HL2.

Nothing against Haig or Matrox here, but listen to what he said... which was almost nothing.

[UtwigMU]

Considering the original P650 AGP is fanless (the low profile PCI is not) and this one sports a fan, it might be either clocked higher or the PCIe core is being built with 4 pipes instead of 2 or both.

Since PCIe transition is a bit bad for inventory for all graphic card makers (they need to be careful in order to not overstock on particular item) and since there appears to be no bridge chip (native PCIe core), it appears Matrox made one PCIe core that is used on QID, Parhelia APVe and P650.

Since 150nm process is no longer economical (100nm is mainstream, they are transitioning to 90nm), they likely also have shrunk the core to 130 or 110nm, which could mean higher clocks, but nothing spectacular.

It would be interesting to see benchmarks.

[Nappe1]

The Thread about P650 PCI-E has gone forward.
Now there's Haig's confimation that at least in NFS Underground, P650 PCI-E is as fast as P8x.

http://forum.matrox.com/mga/viewtopic.php?t=13409&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

This is definately good news.

it also looks like that P650 PCI-E will be cheaper than Parhelia 8x.

[Twilight]

Well, I'm going to get this card as soon as it's available. I'm going to buy a new AMD64 system with PCI-Express, and I can't live without my Matrox card. I need that DVDMax output for my video, and no other company has a card that does exactly that... yet... How strange is that?

[UtwigMU]

Could you please write up some report and try some benchmarks as soon as you get it.

[Che Guevara]

Yes, please

Would be very interesting...

[shanebrooks]

I have to admit I'd like two PCIe cards to run three screens with independent resolutions (assuming that Nvidias push for SLI will see more motherboards with dual 16X PCIe slots!). - I think 2 x P650 is still cheaper than a one-slot Matrox QID Pro.

[UtwigMU]

Yes, but at that pricepoint you can already start considering GeForce 6800 series.