Matrox M-series graphic cards go 4-up natively

Matrox just announced er, last week, its new M-Series of graphics cards powered by the industry's first QuadHead GPU. All the PCIe X16 cards offer 512MB of graphics memory and support up to 4x widescreen monitors (DVI or analog) simultaneously as one large desktop or as independent resolutions. The cards can connect a pair of monitors at a max digital resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 or just 1,920 x 1,200 if you're looking to go quad. What, you're not still getting by with just a single display are you? Look for the M-series to go retail before September is through.

[Chris @ Jun 30th 2008 7:35AM]

Wait, the industry's first quad head GPU? Is this somehow different to the quad head Quadro NVS 440 I've had in my machine for the past few months?

[yoz @ Jun 30th 2008 8:10AM]

Is there 4 GPU's in it?

[Ethyriel @ Jun 30th 2008 8:17AM]

Or just one GPU with other chips to transmit the 3rd & 4th signal?

[Balzac2m @ Jun 30th 2008 11:51AM]

The NVidia NVS440 has two GPUs on one PCB.

[ijyt @ Jun 30th 2008 8:14AM]

Matrox still exists? People still care?

[Chad @ Jun 30th 2008 8:48AM]

Not only do they still exist, they are doing quite well. They simply aren't competing in the highly visible but extremely volatile 3D gaming space. They've got some great gear for running multiple monitors if you don't need all the 3D. You know, trading floors and stuff. If this card draws less than 55 Watts it may be the perfect replacement for our aging PNY 440 MVSs.

[neofolklore @ Jun 30th 2008 8:15AM]

THIS SHIT WILL NOT PLAY CRYSIS, fin.

[DefPo3t @ Jun 30th 2008 8:21AM]

cysis pffft, this thing has trouble playing pong!

[inteller @ Jun 30th 2008 8:24AM]

matrox was really cool....back in the 90s.

[sk @ Jun 30th 2008 8:59AM]

Wow, you are so ignorant. Matrox still makes the best quality graphics cards. There is simply no other card on the market that matches the pristine picture clarity and color accuracy. Its still the preferred card of graphic designers.

[inteller @ Jun 30th 2008 11:44AM]

Really? If that is the case then how come they aren't still #1? Oh that's right I forgot, all the people that buy Nvidia and AMD are ignorant.

[Razor @ Jun 30th 2008 7:40PM]

> Oh that's right I forgot, all the people that buy Nvidia and AMD are ignorant.

No inteller, just you.

[Kurian @ Jun 30th 2008 8:52AM]

AHAHAHHAHAH. This worthless piece of crap costs 600$ ??!!??
You can just get two 100$ nVidia cards and go quad head. Or get a single 3870x2 with 4 DVI-D ports.

Holy crap, for 600$ you can get 4870s in CrossFire!!!

WTF are they thinking releasing this piece of junk.

People who want quad head are probably people who work with 3DSMax or Maya or Lightwave or something. Even an ancient 7800GTX will blow away this POS in 3D performance. 600$ spent on 4870s in CF will outperform this junk by a factor of 50, AND give you quad head.

I mean, the fucking thing has a passive heatsink!! LOL!!!ONE!!shift+1

[Wwhat @ Jun 30th 2008 9:17AM]

You make a good point, albeit in a bit of a hysterical fashion, but I don't agree with the part where you mention nvidia because I hear what sets matrox apart is the quality of the signal on their ports, and nvidia isn't exactly known to compete with that, but still, it's indeed odd for this day and age.
As for SLI/crossfire, you don't even need that, you can use use 2 ATI or nvidia cards on motherboards that don't even support crossfire/SLI as 2 separate single cards.

[Ian @ Jun 30th 2008 9:24AM]

Are you being sarcastic, or are you really that ignorant? Matrox still has the best multi-monitor support out there. The windows multi-monitoring the nv and AMD cards use doesn't do the same thing as the Matrox cards do. They report ONE MONITOR to the OS. Its 1 single screen, or 4 independent screens. It does whatever you want. You can have 2 dual screen setups, etc. Matrox basically invented multi-monitoring as we know it today. They are also still in just about every trading floor on the planet because of this. Their GPUs sip power, have solid drivers, excellent picture quality, and the multi-monitor is free of quirks that the other (nv and AMD) still are struggling with.

[Kurian @ Jun 30th 2008 9:30AM]

@lan
Eh?? And the last time you had a look at the nVidia Control Panel was how many years ago??

I've had 2 monitors on my old 7800GTX 512. They function in both independent desktop mode, and in panning mode (1 desktop spread across both). Heck the panning mode even works in games!!!

[Kurian @ Jun 30th 2008 9:31AM]

And about signal quality, DVI-D has no quality, its digital!!!!

[Ethyriel @ Jun 30th 2008 9:44AM]

When's the last time a stock broker needed 3D graphics?

This isn't for you, it's for people who need a lot of monitors (often more than 4) with the versatility that Matrox offers.

And all that lack of power and the passive heatsink? Yeah, the money saved on power probably makes up for the higher price. Consider a big company with thousands of desktops using these instead of Nvidia or ATI cards, and think about how much they'll save on energy.

Besides, they still have quad head on the less expensive P690.

[Wwhat @ Jun 30th 2008 11:56AM]

Good point Kurian, I have no idea why you get voted low, obviously signal quality is much less an issue with digital links. (although there actually are some quality-related issues with it too, it's much less important)
Anyway thanks for correcting me on that.

[Kurian @ Jun 30th 2008 11:59AM]

Power savings??? LMAO. It'll take you 20 years to save up 600$ worth of power on something that consumes 10w versus a 35w nVidia Quadro card.

This is nothing but blatantly over priced shit. 600$ for something that is comparable to a 6150 onboard with 4 outputs.

[Kurian @ Jun 30th 2008 12:03PM]

Matrox should have shut down just like SGI shut down their failure of a Graphics Chip and CPU division.

They rested on their laurels after making successful high end products, while Intel, nVidia and ATi far surpassed them with products that costed 10 times less and were 10 times better.

[Zeus.:God @ Jun 30th 2008 5:49PM]

Kurian I have never quite seen someone make as much a fool of themselves as you just have.

[Ethyriel @ Jun 30th 2008 8:49PM]

Let's see, the Nvidia NVS 440, the cheapest quad monitor Nvidia part is about $450. The lowest end part in the M series will run $260 MSRP. I'm sure both can be had for less in the kind of bulk we'll be talking.

The P series consumes less than 10w, the NVS 440 31w. Let's assume the new M series brings that up to an even 10w, a delta of 21w. That takes 47.62h to consume 1KWh of electricity. That's about 184KWh in a year. According to the site linked below, electricity costs about $0.143 per KWh in NY. That's $26.31 per machine, and over 10,000 machines that's over $263k. That doubles for every machine that needs two cards, and hasn't even factored in the lower price over the Quadro.

And even better (not relevant, but interesting), that doesn't factor in other energy trimming measures like highly efficient power supplies, motherboards without a lot of cruft, or smart CPU and RAM choices.

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html

[nxtiak @ Jun 30th 2008 8:53AM]

I like how they name things DualHead and QuadHead.... just sounds so sexual. I'd like to get me some dual or quadhead action.

[pinchies @ Jun 30th 2008 8:57AM]

No, that's just you. :-P

[Mile @ Jun 30th 2008 9:28AM]

Your a man!

[MadMike @ Jun 30th 2008 8:54AM]

Uhm, its not meant to play Crysis. It's not meant for 3D modeling and it's not meant for Photoshop. It's meant for cubicle commanding business majors who took a The Learning Tree course on VB.Net for Excel. Just perfect for Corporate IT. Underpowered and overpriced from a company that everyone with half a clue thought was dead.
There is a reason they say, "Corporate IT just doesn't get it."

[ShadowKain @ Jun 30th 2008 9:17AM]

Can someone tell me how this hooks up to four monitors (w /out a splitter) with just two DVI connections, or am I missing something? It is monday morning at work for me after all...

[Tim Brown @ Jun 30th 2008 9:40AM]

If you look at the top left of the card, near the backplane, you will see a connector. My guess is that connects to a second backplane that will hold the other two DVI ports.

[Francois @ Aug 1st 2008 6:00PM]

This card is the dual dual-link version.

[Tim Brown @ Jun 30th 2008 9:42AM]

This will be perfect for the virtual server users out there, the main OS on one then three others on the other three monitors, will make keeping an eye on them much easier.

[Dhomas @ Jun 30th 2008 10:00AM]

Matrox cards are great for businesses and are still quite relevant in the corporate world. For example, I work for a medical devices company that needs to get systems certified by the FDA whenever a change is made to them. The Matrox cards remain available for years, so we don't need to re-certify all too often. Try getting that from nVidia or ATI...

[MadMike @ Jun 30th 2008 10:52AM]

I used to work for a pharma company that bought medical devices. Our standard lab PC's needed the GxP certifications also and we had no problem upgrading our stuff every year. We call it keeping up with the times, and when we pay $1.5 million+ for a device, we expect NEW technology. Thank you very much. Windows 2000 and PCI Digi-cards are so 10 YEARS AGO! Well 8 for the OS, but you get my point. Upgrade your shit once and a while, at the $750 an hour charged for service calls, you can afford to pay off^H^H^H the FDA.

Charge us $250,000 for a freaking robotic liquid dispenser and it just now has USB, but oh, its a USB to serial converter that takes 200MB worth of buggy ass drivers with a POS 3yr old Dell clamshell (that costs us $7,000) with some VB program.

Hire some computer engineers. Stop letting MBA's make computer decisions. PE's in Computer Engineering and Computer Science should ONLY be making the decisions.

< /RANT>

Sorry buddy, pent up rage working as head of IT Infrastructure for Lab Robotics. I quit that. Besides I was really raging against Thermo, Fischer, Perkin Elmer, GNF, etc... You probably do the hospital devices. Better off letting MBA's or even Lawyers handle the IT for a hospital. They have a higher suicide rate than dentists. Why waste good engineers?

Bah, the hell with corporate IT, Married me a sugar momma and got me a stress free job as a career firefighter. 1/4 the money but 1/100000 the stress. Not to mention better benefits and no more speeding tickets.

[Meta @ Jun 30th 2008 6:14PM]

FYI. Matrox also makes the dualhead2go and triplehead2go external graphics solutions that CAN GAME just fine. In fact, they support over 250+ games on various multi-monitor, widescreen modes (Up to 3 - something no one else can dream of by themselves). So before anyone else goes insulting the capabilities of Matrox hardware, read up first please.

[Some Kid @ Jun 30th 2008 10:46AM]

no cool case-no buy
i need some awesome graphics on the outside to think it will produce good graphics on the inside

[Matt @ Jun 30th 2008 2:32PM]

Seriously, without a heatsink/fan casing that has a hot elf chick in a metal bikini, I just can't properly judge the awesomeness of this card.

[Nils @ Jun 30th 2008 11:11AM]

I thout it said maxtor :D

[Mike T @ Jun 30th 2008 11:22AM]

Certain professionals love these cards... financial brokers, network managers, application developers. They could care less about 3D. Just fast, multi-monitor 2D and Matrox does this very well.

[Eddie @ Jun 30th 2008 11:34AM]

Wow some people are thick.
Let's start off with VisionTEK
http://www.visiontek.com/products/cards/pro_series/1650XT_quad.html
http://www.visiontek.com/products/cards/retail/2600XT_quad.html
Both are dual GPU cards. They report 4 independent monitors to windows, The 2600XT can do 4 dual link monitors versus the Matrox which can only do 2.

Then you have the FireMV 2400 and the NVS 440 Both are dual GPU cards. The Matrox is a Dual GPU card. Why? RAMDACs, each GPU can only control 2 RAMDACs. BTW Quadro cards are an industry standard for quality.

[marc @ Jun 30th 2008 11:40AM]

Before gaming was big on the PC, many of the hardware advances were pushed by professional market traders that often had to get T1 lines in lieu of easily available cable/ DSL. In the 1990's, it wasn't unusual for serious traders to upgrade if not replace high performance work stations every six months. It's not always about the gaming.

[Good_Bytes @ Jun 30th 2008 11:59AM]

I'll be surprised if this card does Aero smoothly on all four monitors.

[Francois @ Aug 1st 2008 6:00PM]

I tested it and yes it does!!!

[Kurian @ Jun 30th 2008 12:02PM]

Matrox should have shut down just like SGI shut down their failure of a Graphics Chip and CPU division.

They rested on their laurels after making successful high end products, while Intel, nVidia and ATi far surpassed them with products that costed 10 times less and were 10 times better.

[cmetaphor @ Jun 30th 2008 12:05PM]

@ Eddie. Did you read the site you posted? The 2600xt there can only do two dual-link dvi's not the 4 you claimed (its right there on the site, under "features"). And yes, Quadros do have better quality, but at 4x or more the price and at least double the power consumption.

[tekdroid @ Jun 30th 2008 1:20PM]

fanless cards ftw. Good to see Matrox still kicking along. Out of most of our price ranges, though.

It's a shame quality LCDs are so hard to find; forget signal integrity issues these days (for the most part).

[futurepastnow @ Jun 30th 2008 1:30PM]

1) Why does it have an SLI-type connector on the top edge of the card? Is Matrox working on something in that vein?

2) The cheapest card I can think of with two DVI ports is probably a Radeon 2400/3400 class. You can get two of those (for four displays) for ~$100.

[TonyTech @ Jul 12th 2008 6:40AM]

A long time ago, I bought a G450 Matrox card because it offered font anti-aliasing. With that built into Windows now as ClearType (and other OSes do it too surely), I have a feeling that the image quality over ClearType is marginal. That's the only reason I'd buy a 2D card these days: if I could get significantly better text. My G450 is incompatible with my current motherboard so I can't test the hardware anti-aliasing vs. ClearType on my 1920x1600 LCD. I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts about their experience with such a comparison.

[curt @ Aug 4th 2008 12:52AM]

I guess most of you here don't even know what professional graphic cards are. if you think Matrox is expensive, ATI FireMV 2400 and NVidia's Quadro NVS 440 both which directly compete with this Matrox's new release are over $400 and neither sport true quad-core GPUs.