Buying a new video card and.......

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

Hey all

 

well i am finally going ALL out on a video card, Since i am down in Antigua, u can't get crap here,and i will be in toronto this saturday for a week, so grabbing a card up here, sick of this crap TNT2, can't even play spider man on it! either:

 

It was between the G4 -4600 and the 8500 128mb ATI, but i just found out that ATI now has a 128mb All in wonder out!!!!!! (yes i will pay the price and i am not going down to a lower geforce or ati card )

 

• (canadian prices)

 

Asus v8460 Ultra GeForce4 - 4600 w/ 128Mb DDR & TV-Out AGP Retail Box $624.99

 

ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500 128MB AGP Eng/Fr$629 JUST FOUND THIS!!! , make my life harder!!!

 

[/list:u]

 

I have read mixed reviews, and that ATI is actually better in a few ways.. (that is the ATI 8500 128mb, not

 

the a-i-w, but they use the same GPU)

 

Now the new all in wonder 128mb card i have not read any reviews on yet, but i had an all in wonder 32mb card

 

before and loved it.the tuner, and stuff, remote control....

 

 

Some specs:

 

GeForce 4 Ti 4600 NVIDIA Reference v28.32 300/650 128Bit DDR

High speed 128MB DDR video memory with 10.4 GB/sec bandwidth

 

Uses "Immersion Gold Coating" for enhanced reliability and circuit connections

Special "Copper Fan Sink" cooling solution for superior overclocking and performance

DVI output for easy connectivity to digital flat-panel displays

Supports multiple displays

High quality TV output for big screen gaming or presentations

 

 

ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 8500 128MB AGP

h**p://www.ati.com/products/pc/aiwradeon8500/images/broAIW8500.pdf

PIXEL TAPESTRY II technology increases memory bandwidth up to 11 GB/sec

 

Radio frequency remote control

and the usual and more All in wonder stuff.

 

Is 1g more a second a huge difference from the geforce?

 

On toms hardware on his VGA charts, the G4-4600 blows away the ATI 8500 128mb (not the all in wonder) in frame

 

rates, but on Jedi knight II they are almost the same, because the ATI has better integration with Direct X

 

8.1 and is already working towards direct X 9

 

Now, i can't find any real good detailed specs on the all-in wonder I plan on playing a fair amount of games,

as well as 3d GFX and movie watching / editing.. so i for sure am thinking the all in wonder , if ican get it

 

 

Anyways

 

what do u think, and cau u provide an more like details...technical specs, numbers etc

 

thnx for the input!.

[Palos 0]

Dunno man, but I would go for the GeForce 4. The ATI looks like a GF4 killer on paper, but in practice it's hindered by retarded driver support. However this used to be the case some weeks ago, problems seem to be minimal with the new driver release from ATI.

 

In terms of raw performance, the Ti4600 IS the king of the hill in today's terms, no doubt about it. And since it's same price as the ATI, it should be a no-brainer.

 

I am personally waiting for the GF4 Ti4200, Im on a tight budget, and it would make a good upgrade from my actual GF2-MX400

[Dirty Harry 0]

For what its worth; go with the Nvidia. Myt reasoning is that because Nvidia has a huge share of the graphics card market, most games & software is developed on and made for Nvidia. ATI support is sort of an add-on.

 

Like palos I'm waiting for the 4200 to become an off-the-shelf item, then we'll see what happens to the 4400 and 4600 prices and buy which one feels like a decent deal. I' guess we're talking July/August shopping here.

 

H.

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

Well

 

Got the Geforce 4 - 4600 Ultra

 

leadtek one

 

so far so good,

 

did 3dmark though, and only got a score of 7128

 

thought it woould be higher

 

 

(Asus P4S333 / P4 1.4 @ 1.61 / 512 pc2100 /IBM deskstar 20g/ Leadtek geforce 4 - 4600 Ultra)

[plato 0]

ofcourse do not go with the nvidia card

 

this is why...

 

 

although those cards r "good" now they r relatively the same, but in 6 mothns they will hardly be worth talking about, and in a year they won't even be menioned.

 

all in all, you will be left with pretty much 2 cards of the same generation performance for games, maybe the nvidia will give you 39FPS and ATI37FPS or 36FPS ("blown away" not)

 

BUT the Ati card will have all these other extras for u to enjoy

-remote control

-live DVD capture at 720x640 resolution @30fps per sec

-the best vid in

-BY FAR the best vid out. I have the 8500 and man the vid out is unbeliavable. just amazing. Ofcourse the desktop fonts are not clear but that is the faiult of the tv, on plasma it is cristal clear.

-also the drivers for ATI are much superiror in design!! Everything is so easy to use. U have one little icon by the clock and id DEAS everything for you BIM BAM, no fidelling arround in advanced this or that and all that bull **** like with the NVIDIA cards.

 

-second, it has hyperview, and you can use 2 monitors at the same time to do diff ****. Again all controlled by the litle icon. When you see how they intergate it all together it is just amazingingly well designed.

 

 

 

those features are far more important than the extra 3 or 4 frames in TESTS...

 

 

finally, toms benchmark means nothing!! It is just a matter of optimizing the drivers for those few games that he and all the rest of the internet uses (copy him) to test. it is always the same games. There r a lot of sories out there about the tricks each use to optimize for quackeIII and aquaworld and all that ****.

 

So testresults r one thing, but totaly diff from real world. Jedi was a god example, as soon as they use a game that that was a suprise (not used before) to benchmark look what happens...

 

Also if u want to be ignorant, ATI is the king of 3d mark 2001, and has been for some time. Not that it means anything.

[sapiens74 0]

Geforce 4.

 

 

Why buy a card that puts you behind from the start >>>>ATI

[pmistry 0]

Is gaming important to you? If yes, go GeForce4.

Is gaming slightly important to you? If yes, go GeForce 4.

Video and workstation work? ATI.

[RandyC 0]

Whats the deal with the new Matrox cards that will be coming out soon then? I'm currently running a Dual Monitor system using a GF2MX card so i'm interested in their new cards coming out as their dual monitor support is very good so I've seen.

[plato 0]

nice game cracks

 

 

ati 8500 is better than ti500. that is why it is called the gfoce killer.

 

do not compare a 4600 to the 8500. it is stupid.

 

compare the ati radeon 10,000 to the 4600 and again u know why the new generation radeons are kalled the geforce killers.

 

they totally destroy nvdia!

 

so if gaming is important to u get ati, if u just need basic workstation tghink to get a pictre on ur monitor get a 4600.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh yes. i forgot to say. got a 3d mark 2001 score of 10,150.

got radeon 8500, the ultimate overcklocker!

 

 

if u don't believe it go to 3d mark and do a search, everyone is getting 10,000 plus with this card! Way faster than 4600, and it is not even mean't to compete against it.

 

the new 10000radeon model is ati response to geforce 4, and is crazy power.

[Brian Frank 0]

No, the 4600 is faster than the 8500. IF that's what you say is a basic workstation card, you're nuts. The 8500 is a good card, make no mistake, but saying it is faster than the 4600 at stock speeds is not correct. 310/310 is some of the more extreme overclocks for the 8500, up from a 275/275. My GF3 hits 250/571 up from 200/460 stock. The 8500 OC's nicely, but it's not the highest in terms of the major overclock numbers. You're padding the 8500 too much. If any GF4 Ti, it's closer to the Ti4200 (not that it's a bad thing).

[BladeRunner 0]

Whats the deal with the new Matrox cards that will be coming out soon then

 

There is definately something happening at camp Matrox although what exactly we are not sure.

We have been through this a while ago and the end result was the G550, although a good card in it's own right was not what we were expecting.

If only half of the rumours surrounding the next card from Matrox are true then we are about to see a new "King of the graphics cards".

 

Matrox do not run on a six month product cycle like other companies and it has been a while since something truely new was released by them.

All indications are that something will be announced within the next couple of weeks, until then any specifications you read are just rumour, but with so many of these rumours being alike we have to assume that at least some of them are true.

If you pop along to http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm you will see Matrox have added a new Flash into which reads "Coming May 14th".

Some of the rumours and expected specifications include DirectX 9 support (Microsoft have been using Matrox hardware to demonstrate DirectX 9 at shows), Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders 2.0, Displacement Mapping, 40bit colour, 512bit 2D Graphics core, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 256-bit bus-width, 400Mhz RamDac etc

 

A lot of us are waiting to see what Matrox can produce, they still offer the best 2D and general image quality of any cards available on the market from any manufacturer.

Matrox were the first to develop Dual Head displays and their technology is still the industry leader in this field.

Matrox have relatively good driver support and lastly you know what they release will not be replaced after you've only owned it for 6 months.

Personally if the specifications ring true I shall be there and I'll be getting one as soon as they are released.

[RandyC 0]

Quote:

Whats the deal with the new Matrox cards that will be coming out soon then

There is definately something happening at camp Matrox although what exactly we are not sure.
We have been through this a while ago and the end result was the G550, although a good card in it's own right was not what we were expecting.
If only half of the rumours surrounding the next card from Matrox are true then we are about to see a new "King of the graphics cards".

Matrox do not run on a six month product cycle like other companies and it has been a while since something truely new was released by them.
All indications are that something will be announced within the next couple of weeks, until then any specifications you read are just rumour, but with so many of these rumours being alike we have to assume that at least some of them are true.
If you pop along to http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm you will see Matrox have added a new Flash into which reads "Coming May 14th".
Some of the rumours and expected specifications include DirectX 9 support (Microsoft have been using Matrox hardware to demonstrate DirectX 9 at shows), Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders 2.0, Displacement Mapping, 40bit colour, 512bit 2D Graphics core, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 256-bit bus-width, 400Mhz RamDac etc

A lot of us are waiting to see what Matrox can produce, they still offer the best 2D and general image quality of any cards available on the market from any manufacturer.
Matrox were the first to develop Dual Head displays and their technology is still the industry leader in this field.
Matrox have relatively good driver support and lastly you know what they release will not be replaced after you've only owned it for 6 months.
Personally if the specifications ring true I shall be there and I'll be getting one as soon as they are released.

Yes I was impressed with the G450 I used on my summer placement last year. I'm not impressed with the dual monitor support of the GF2MX i'm using at the moment so getting a fast video card with better duel monitor support is what exactly what i'm looking for. I'll have to watch out for the Matrox cards when they come out ...

[Dirty Harry 0]

Details on the new Matrox card will be announced May 14th, according to an e-mail I got from them yesterday.

 

The new card can be alot, but it is unlikely to shake Nvidias Ti4600 position as the No 1 gamers choice.

 

ATI starts remainding me of Apple and Linux, its a religion for their users. And now we have some true believers among us, Hallelujah.

 

H.

[BladeRunner 0]

If the now "rumoured on many sites" specifications for the G1000/Parhelia ring true it will blow anything currently on the market from NVidia & ATI out of the water and then some.

[JP- 0]

I think it might actually surpise us when its released, thing is i know matrox drivers are usually good but they havent really done a performance card in ages and i just hope they can produce this time Tis a shame when good hardware gets wasted by bad drivers.

[pmistry 0]

Quote:

Tis a shame when good hardware gets wasted by bad drivers.

Yeah like the ATI Rage Pro and Rage 128.
Anyways, this new Matrox product looks impressive, I was a big fan of the Millennium line and my uncle use to own a Mystique, some fine 2D imagery and color quality there.

[Dirty Harry 0]

Hell yeah, I'd be delighted to go back to Matrox, their 2D picture was always better than the competition. But I'd be surprised to see tests confirm that they - out of the blue - come with a card that surpasses Nvidas 3D performance. Besides, they'd have to work magic on drivers too, for the last two-three years games were more or less developed to run well on Nvidias chip (and the other way around).

 

H.

[pmistry 0]

Definitely, all developers recently have used GeForce class video cards in their development machines. Although I am sure they have put in Radeon boards too, but Matrox is a bit out of the loop here and will need to really make a big splash to win back fans and win over Nvidia users.

[BladeRunner 0]

Just because Matrox haven't had anything new to market for a while doesn't mean they have been sat around doing nothing.

The G400 was the last truely new card, the G550 was just a variation on it.

There have been rumours a plenty for the past two years and it would appear that this card has been some three years in development.

They would not dare release a card that wasn't at least as good as the current "top of the range" cards.

 

Matrox have always been in favour with those demanding the very best image quality on screen and those that require advanced dual-head controls, I've only really bought in Matrox based systems for work over the past year, unless really heavy graphics work was required.

 

I really think a lot of people are going to be suprised come the 14th when this card is at last announced.

More so they will be suprised how quickly this card comes to market too.

[Brian Frank 0]

Should be intresting to see...

[JP- 0]

Well i think this is gonna be a big suprise hopefully

[plato 0]

matrox is a piece of **** co..

 

they make dumb *** cards.

 

1) they do not support their cards!!!

 

all the people that forked out $500 bucks a few months ago, will be happy to know that Matrox will not give them drivers for win xp, not today and not tomorrow or ever.

 

this is how they operate. this is their style.

 

it will be the same for the next operating system, which is gona be a 64bit OS from MS. Do some research...

 

So if u actually knew how they operate and were one of the (all) the customers of theirs that they ****ed over without a flinch, u are a dumb *** monkey to want to buy anything from them again.

 

good luck

 

2) their drivers are so increadibly **** it is not even funny. those cards are a ***** to use.

 

3) the image clarity is hardly special! I know what i am talking about don't argue with me !! Buy a good monitor instead, if you think u can notice the image diff between a matrox millenium G400 and or 450 and a TNT1 original from a decent company such as Elsa for example, you r f'n bulshitting... bottom line, lets not exagerate here. Get back to reality.

 

4) Matrox cards are always overpiced. meaning performance/price is always one of the worst on the market, at least in past. Its all hype. when the G400 came out a lot of loosers that thought they knew something about something in regards to computers thought it was the new "PATH" the "light" or whatever.

 

I said from the start bullshit. That card aint ****, and nvidia is still the best and will continiue to be the best by far. look now, was i right? Damn straight i was. And u know what.,., nothing has changed.

 

matrox are good marketers and put on a good bulshit parade. they pay off the right people to make buzz, but they always disapoint and their products become substandard within a few months.

 

 

 

 

 

If u really want dual monitor get ati. Nvidia does not have dual monitor support. what they have is not the real thing, it is really ****.

 

Right now, there is nothing to rival the RADEON and RADEON DV. this is not due to raw performance, but also because of price, and features. The nvdia ards are way overpriced for no perf benefit at all worth mentioning, and have 0 features!! Ati is full featured,

-the best dual mon support in th industry

-best tv out

-best dvd hardware

-best vid cap for grafx card and prety much studio quality

i mean capture dvd res at 30fps. put this in perspective in u mind! that is power!!! real power, something u can hold in ur hand, not some bulshit 3fps in quakcke III extra.

 

It will be years before NVidia will come up with something like this in their cards that are triplle the price. but hey, nvidia targets kids, they r hardly smart enough to be able to leave the in crowd and join the people to start a new phase of what is cool. Ati is the really cool thing right now and all the real smart people that actually know what they r talking about and computers in general are switching to ATI for the 1st time because at this point in time they really r the best and it takes branes and research to recognize these things.

 

to the poeple that bought ATI in the past i say, what the hell were u thinking, how dumb. will they be good buys in future, prob not, but who cares we r living in the present.

 

i would be suprised if ati can hold the winning streak for long.

 

Ciao

[BladeRunner 0]

There are some discussions on these boards where I can really enjoy getting involved.

Sometimes I'm all for the original post, other times against it.

I'm strongly anti software-theft and enjoy those threads too.

This thread has become one I'm enjoying because Matrox and their products are something I respect and know how good they are.

For that reason I am more than compelled to write a reply to the "trash" I've just read.

 

1) they do not support their cards!!!

 

This is totally rubbish, of course they support their cards.

Are you talking about the lack of WinXP driver support for the original Marvel range of cards?

WinXP was not even thought about when that card was released, it is fully supported by the OS's that were available at the time, future compatability is a risk you will always take when buying hardware.

Not one single item inside your PC is guaranteed to work with any future OS's.

ATI had the same problem, do you remember the Fury MAXX and the fact that it was and is unsupported under Win2k?

Matrox first released Win2k drivers some six months before the official Win2k release, these drivers were updated regularly and by the time Win2k was released, Matrox already had a mature driver.

That is what I call support, not the way most other companies responded with "We do not support beta operating systems".

 

it will be the same for the next operating system, which is gona be a 64bit OS from MS. Do some research...

 

So, we appear to have a seer on the boards, anything else you'd like to tell us about the future?

Six numbers between 1 & 49 for this Saturday would be cool.

As an MS beta tester, have been since Win95, I'm pretty clued up on the future MS products, but if you know something I don't then please tell.

 

So if u actually knew how they operate and were one of the (all) the customers of theirs that they ****ed over without a flinch, u are a dumb *** monkey to want to buy anything from them again.

 

I've owned three Matrox cards at home, Millenium, Mystique 220 & G400 MAX, so yes I am a Matrox customer.

I've bought at least 15 PC's over the past year all with Matrox G550 cards in, so even more so I am a Matrox customer.

You insulting me now?

I feel being a Matrox customer is no worse than being an NVidia or ATI drone.

 

2) their drivers are so increadibly **** it is not even funny. those cards are a ***** to use

 

As I said above, driver support from Matrox is excellent, they were the first to have Win2k drivers available for their range and a lot of companies copied them by releasing early WinXP drivers.

The cards are plug in and away you go, no more difficult than any other brand of graphics card out there, the above statement is BS.

 

3) the image clarity is hardly special! I know what i am talking about don't argue with me........

 

I will argue with you because once again you are tlaking complete and utter BS.

The image quality on a Matrox card cannot be touched, a three year old G400 still offers better image quality than a one month old GF4.

Sure NVidia have been attempting to sort their image quality issues for ages, sure there was an improvement with the GF3, the GF4 is marginly better, but still cannot touch a Matrox.

ATI is the closest you will get and they still cannot compare.

If you have a beat up old car with a dodgy engine, do you think getting all the dents knocked out and a respray will make the car go any better?

No!!

A good monitor does not make the image quality, it's the filters on the card itself, read around, nobody with even half a brain cell will compare NVidia image quality with that of NVidia.

Do not even start talking about comparing original TNT1 cards with a Matrox - you need your eyes testing, seriously.

 

4) Matrox cards are always overpiced....

 

And you feel that the latest and greates and top of the line GF4's are well priced then?

Every new card, every new technology will cost a lot in the beginning.

At the time of the G400's release it was the best card available, the best image quality, brilliant 3D speed and the first card ever to support hardware EMBM, of course you will pay for something that new and advanced.

When the new card is released it too will bbe expensive because it is going to contain features that nothing else on the market currently does.

Sure the G400 lost it's crown as the best card available, well news flash, every GF card you buy looses it's crown every six months when NVidia release their next chipset.

 

If u really want dual monitor get ati. Nvidia does not have dual monitor support. what they have is not the real thing, it is really ****.

 

No, if you want dual monitor support you will buy Matrox.

Matrox again lead the industry by being the first to release a dual port card to the masses.

Because they were a year ahead of everybody else their technology is superior to everyone else's.

All other companies will always be 12 months behind Matrox, ATI still are.

 

matrox are good marketers and put on a good bulshit parade. they pay off the right people to make buzz, but they always disapoint and their products become substandard within a few months

 

What rubbish you talk, every single Matrox card has more than delivered on it's promise.

The Mystique was untouchable when it was first released.

The G400 & G400MAX again were leaders in their field, they offered features you could not get on any current chipset from the likes of NVidia, ATI, S3 etc.

Of course their marketing is good because their teams have a lot of positive points to push.

 

Ati is the really cool thing right now and all the real smart people that actually know what they r talking about and computers in general are switching to ATI for the 1st time because at this point in time they really r the best and it takes branes and research to recognize these things.

 

I don't know which "people who know what they are talking about woth respect to computers" you are talking to, but it's certainly not the professionals.

ATI has been plagued with extremely bad driver support in the past and this has not changed with their current line of cards, some of the driver releases have offered lackluster performance at best.

People in the know are either using Matrox for workstations that do not require massive amounts of 3D power but demand excellent image quality & sound and stable drivers or NVidia for workstations where performance is paramount, currently there is no middle ground on image quality and performance, where performance raises quality drops, this will change with the G1000.

 

The bottom line here is that no Matrox product has ever failed.

They have all delivered exactly what they have promised and at the time of their release they are at the top of thier field.

They are not big enough to keep up with the 6 month product cycle that the likes of Nvidia & ATI use, however releasing a new product every six months is doing nothing but screwing their customer.

Please do not get me started on image quality.

I have done the tests, as a Systems Administrator part of my job is making sure we have the best combinations of hardware.

I have seen cards from ATI, NVidia & Matrox running on identical PC's and in turn all attached to the same make/model of monitor.

There is absolutely no comparision between these, Matrox come out very much on top, ATI follow behind and the bottom of the pile is NVidia.

I find the whole of your Matrox bashing amusing and unfounded.

I cannot find one statement you have made that is true with respect to Matrox products.

When the new card from Matrox is released, if it turns out to be technically inferior to other cards currently on the market yet at double the price of the others then I shall come back and appologise.

As this is not going to happen I just pity somebody who is so hell bent on brand loyalty and wont even look at what the competitors offer.

[JP- 0]

Those points dont even deserve a reply but bladerunner did a good job anyway

[plato 0]

man, *cought* the rumble is on!

 

 

 

`````````````````````First,the driver situation;

 

point a)

 

I have the matrox G400 MARVEL. To those who don't know, ...most people reading this thread, this matrox card cost 2x as much as the one BladeRunner has.

 

You tell me that they have good driver support? Are you nuts? no offense

 

For even the 450 and so on Matrox has officially said that those cards ill never be supported by Windows XP. If you spent $600 bucks on vid card a 4months to 1 1/2 years ago and they tell u sorry, if u want to use Win XP you can't use your card that is HARDLY good driver support. I would like to hear your arguments explaining how this is a responsible policy and how this shows god driver support...

 

This is as bad as u can get!!

 

 

point

 

A big reason I do not like Matrox is that they design the driver interface in windows very thoughtleslly. It is messy and hard to use. A real pain in arse. The ATI has the best design bay far and is by FAAAAAAAAAAAAR the easiest to use for dual monitor support. Also you extreamily easily control what u see on each monitor.

 

On the matrox card it is so increadibly coplicated to use and control, and so toublesome that no one uses feature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

```````````````````````````````Regarding Image

 

 

I am absolutely shocked that you said getting a good monitor has nothing to do with image clarity. i am ab so f'n lutely shocked.

 

Image quality is 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% result of the monitor in question. You can have superman 9811 video card but if u use sub par monitor it is all for nothing. I recomend invest at least $1000 dollars in a decent monitor and THEN, get back to me. And i do not mean LCD, but a real monitor... quality CRT.

 

Once u do that, u can do a little test. ...very much as i have. I had an Esla TNT1 16MB and i got tel you that there was absolutely no image quality diff between that card and the G400 marvell that cost 5x as much. actually almost 6x as much.

 

that $400 dollars extra could have been used to buy a $800 monitor insead of a $400 monitor and you would have increased your image quality tenfold if not more. That is the real issue. If u do not understand this point i suggest do not make buying recomendations to others as u r cluless. I would like to hear your comments regarding this point in detail so we can all see how what i said above is not true.

 

(( in fact as u have stated above, a $279 monitor coupled with a G400 or G500 is superiror image quality compared to a TNT1 ""ELSA"" and a super clear high rest low dpi high Q monitor for lets say $800 )) ...this in fact is what u claim, but some people, namely "m4carbine" fail to understand. Instead they just look at you POST COUNT and say yep yep yep to everything u say.

 

Please address this issue and clarify your statement.

 

The bottom line is that the image qual diff is so small that to the naked eye it is totally of no issue at all. It is all about the monitor quality.

 

 

 

 

 

..............................regarding pricing

 

 

If you have read my post carefully u would know that i also agreed that the 4600 is overpriced so do not use this against me.

 

Please list the features that the Matrox cards have SPECIFICALLY and the PRICE

 

Then after u do that I will list the features the ATI radeon has and the PRICE

 

 

THis will settle quite nicelly our arguments regarding this issue... There is not much to debate here. Obviously i am right. But if u do not give in, please i challenge u to list those features. We can settle this issue very fast without any missunderstandings...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

................................regarding best company

 

 

I never said ATI is a great company. I do not belive so. I also do not like Matrox. Nvidia in fact is the best company no question about it. If you buy card today u can be asssured they will suport you for the next 6 years no matter wha with new drivers.

 

They r still coming out with TNT1 driver updates almost monthly. Fantastic support. Just great. They r a model to emulate for the industry. Hopefully other co's will have such support in future. Not just give me your money (huge premium price at that) and then tell you to ****-off a year later as Matrox did with their customers.

 

 

 

............................................finally

 

 

I would like to appoligize to those that I may have insulted in previous post buy saying u were dumb to buy ati cards in past. I meant it as a joke. Fortunately BladeRunner seems to have a good sense of humor but others may have taken it seriously.

 

I was uncalled for, i didn't need to be so rude so i am sorry.

 

I think it was a mistake to buy an ATI card in the past as they have never made a great card for its time considering alternatives.

 

matrox however for certain people in the past was the only choice. So it was not a mistake. if u wanted qality video in and such feauter Matrox was the only choice basically.

 

The point is we should not live in th past. ATI has out done themselves this time arround and that is all i am saying. they r really good in this point in time today. By fa the best deal, packed with crazy perf/features that can't be matched and nothing comes even close at its price point.