Convinced - IQ of Matrox card

[chaoliang]

I tried the Saphire Radeon 9600 Atlas today, because of a gaming problem that could have caused by the video card. I've read quite a lot about the improved the IQ of ATI before and expected no great differences between the 9600 and my P650. However, the differences were clearly to be seen. I would say the colours of 9600 were OK. But the screen fonts and fonts in Word were too small and far less clear/sharp comparing to the P650. The configurations were all the same. I was really surprised and - impressed. You SEE the difference indeed!
I'll give back the 9600 tomorrow. It encoutered the same problem in the game. So it must be some other components that made trouble. [By the way: The problem was, in Stronghold Crusader, the game was extremly slowed down in part of a map. I had some 150 units and a rather simple stronghold.]

[Whirl-Secret]

I agree. Even the quick launch icons in the winxp taskbar look nicer (my home p650 vs office sapphire or asus ati).

Problem is of course 3d performance. I think that when Medieval 2 Total War comes out, I will be forced to buy a new gfx card for 3d and swap my agp p650 for a pci matrox card on ebay, then use a different hardware profile when I want to play games.

[Lambo-Fan]

Well, I had a Sapphire 9700pro and compared to my old Matrox G400max the IQ was worse. My old Sapphire 9700pro was even suffering of the "moving lines" problem. In the end that card died so I decided to buy a MSI 6600gt. That card still is in my system and I can say that the IQ is really good. Okay, I didn't try really high resolutions but at 1024 * 768 (100Hz) the text, icons and other things are really clear and sharp.
Conclusion in my case: Yes, my matrox card (okay, here it's an older model) also has a very good IQ but there are also some other cards with good IQ, too. In my case for example my old matrox card and my MSI card are on par speaking about the IQ.

[az]

Bah! My IQ is higher than yours

EDIT: And I'm also longer, better looking, make more money, and have more sex. There you have it, straight from the horse's mouth.

[Nowhere]

Crap, I'll have a problem soon, I guess. (still driving my Eizo monitor with G400...but I want to replace it with Gf 6600)

[The PIT]

On Digital output so I cannot say.

[Heiney]

I got a Gigabyte X800 XT PE for $130 at Newegg the other day (yay!!). At 1360x1024 85 Hz it's razor sharp. Honestly I haven't been able to tell a G400 from another card since NV got their act together with GF4. I even have a couple of GF2 MX200s from OEM machines that have very nice quality.

My Millennium G200 actually has a lot lower quality than my Radeon LE. I was going to use the G200 for my boss's computer with a 1280x1024 analog LCD, until I saw how blurry the G200 was.

I have never been disappointed with my Radeon cards. NV's GeForce 256 thru GF3, however, are often utterly horrid. Other than Matrox and ATI, the 2D quality really can be questionable, especially as you go back in time. Almost everything from the '90s sucks, except Matrox.