Has anyone used these cards? And if so what do you think? Which would you buy?

SC

I'm probably going to get thrashed about

the head, neck, and shoulders....


If running an AMD system I'd go Matrox.



RD.

I will be running an AMD... Athlon XP 2200+. Why go with Matrox if running an AMD system?

SC

Hi. Rather than give a recommendation since I never owned a Matrox card I'll share my GF4 experience with you. I have an AMD 1400 T-bird system and just got a Ti4200 made by XFX (Pine) the other week so I'll try to boil this down for ya. My Sis chipset mobo died and I relpaced it with a VIA chipset board so bear in mind I changed many components (mobo, cpu, psu, ram, modem) at once eventually to include the OS to XP Pro from 98SE.

Anyway, the video performed rock solid but when I ran a 3D game it crashed immediately. I got tons of good advice from this forum and read the viaarena.com forums for similar symptoms/solutions. After the dust has settled it seems I had 2 problems.

1. The XP Soundblaster drivers (and MS updates) caused me grief which are fine since I got ahold of the XP Creative drivers on CD. (The download is 25-52MB including apps) This affected gameplay on 1 newer game - High Heat 2003.

2. There was a problem with the XFX card because a replacement ran well from the get-go. I since switched to the PNY card because it's the one I originally ordered thru my retailer and took awhile for him to get. That card too is running fine.

But depending on your configuraton - you may or may not experience problems running a GF4 card on a VIA chipset. There is much discussion on the various forums out there reguarding this combination. I myself am happy at the moment although it's only been 6 days since I got the new card(s). I haven't had the slightest of glitches though and the games run incredibly smooth.

My point here is while I looked for software solutions to issues that are very real with this type of config, it appears I was victim of a freaky problem with the hardware.

I am not the most experienced (especially in video) when compared to the awesome talent on this forum but am capable of maintaining a healthy system of my own. I'm sure if/when you need it - these good folks will be happy to lend a hand as they did for me. Good luck. :)

I have 2 systems running Matrox cards, G400max and G550
Both are solid cards.
With better color and picture performance than many other cards
The Matrox is NOT a gamers card. ( But it has good support for games)
It is designed to be a work horse

If your Big on high end 3d Games then stay away from the Matrox.
If you work with high color images.. Video edit work .. Or want great normal performance go with the matrox.

Thanks to all for your input and help. For your info I do not play games on my computer. I mainly do image processing using Photoshop. So it sounds like the Matrox is the way to go. If I read wrong please let me know.

Hi Rick,

I do video editing with a DVRaptor and Premiere 6. Am curios about your comment

<< The Matrox is NOT a gamers card. ( But it has good support for games) It is designed to be a work horse. >>

I don't game at all but colour, stability and compatibility with my hardware is all important.

Does the G550 support dual monitors?
Is it 64Meg?
If it does support dual monitors does it split the 64 into 2 x 32 megs?

Thanks
Andrew

Originally posted by Andrew Leigh
Does the G550 support dual monitors?
Is it 64Meg?
If it does support dual monitors does it split the 64 into 2 x 32 megs?

Yes, the G550 supports the Dual-Head feature from Matrox, but I believe it only has 32MB of 64-bit DDR RAM (standard is 128-bit DDR for the middle cards). And it keeps it in one piece, just by keeping track of what frame goes to which monitor.

Looking at Matrox's site, the G550 is an AGP 4x/2x/1x card with a 360MHz primary RAMDAC and 230MHz secondary RAMDAC, suggesting that the second monitor's max resolution and color depth is much lower than the primary monitor's. A DVI connector is included (I assume with a DVI to CRT converter), the chip supports dual-texturing in one clock cycle, and has two rendering pipelines. Also supports DX 8, huh? I didn't know that. Also has a built-in TV encoder, and a bunch of other impressive features. Couldn't find any core or RAM clock speeds, tho. :(

Eh, whatever. If you don't play games at all then Matrox is the way to go. Their Parhelia is a pretty impressive piece of work, also. More around the price of the GF4 Ti 4200 you were also looking at (the G550 can be had for under $100 vs $150-$200 for the GF4) but has many more impressive features, such as full 10-bits per channel color instead of just 8-bits for the other cards and 256-bit DDR RAM to boot! And the Parhelia is not just dual monitor, it's triple monitor ready! Actually, I hear it plays Jedi Knight II on three monitors at 3840 x 1024 (three 1280 x 1024 monitors in a row) with high frame rates, so the power is definitely there! Not to mention it's partially DX 9 compliant. Definitely worth a look if you have the cash to burn on a solid Matrox card as it's quite a step-up from the G550 series.

Thanks guys

Cheers
Andrew

Hi
I have a g550 for editing.
I think g550 is good for editing pics in photoshop its a edge of 2D.

Wrong typing : "the edge"

GOOD LUCK