Finally a new Matrox Graphics Card...

Hello and Welcome to another Budget Builds Episode where today I have managed to get ahold of something really quite impressive, this time being the Matrox C680, their latest flagship (or atleast the latest one we can actually get ahold of). So join us today as we find out, why this exists, and is it actually any good?
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Specs:
CPU: Ryzen R7 3700X
GPU: Matrox C680 GPU
RAM: 32GB DDR4 RAM
OS: Windows 10

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

There will be an article coming out for the card on the website, let me know if you’re interested in having this as a regular occurrence.

[@aai404]

Of course! We love your videos so kepp it up!

[@dyter424]

Website? Since when do you have a website? I've never noticed it!

[@SteffenAgermannChristiansen]

i miss your videos what happend to your upload schedule?

[@MrBalrogos]

So matrox use amd chips?

[@cgriggsiv]

I have no idea how you got that card for $40 every single one I've seen is anywhere between $360 to $1,500 used

[@RJRC_105]

I think I'm seeing a theme here. They are after a market for business users who need multiple displays that are run 24/7 without complaint, hence the low costs, low power consumption, and extreme reliability. Stockbrokers and traders perhaps who have six screens all full of information? E: Wikipedia tells me that they're selling cards under the Luma name which is based on Intel Arc. Now that's something I'd like to see you getting going.

[@effexon]

if ya can have extreme stability for 40$/euros, thats dope feat. even intel enterprise laptops have bad (i)gpu drivers.... intel tradition.

[@MrBalrogos]

Always have been liek that for last 20 years :)

[@marblemunkey]

That checks out. They've always had a foot in the multiple-display market. They made it easy to disable the vga bios on their cards, letting you put multiple cards into a machine. In the late 90's I had a Mystique, a Millennium, and a Millennium 2 in my Pentium desktop running 3 monitors.

[@effexon]

@@marblemunkey I havent heard of that disable vbios trick before... even today multi gpu setups are nightmare to use and gaming gpus it is made difficult in windows(on purpose of course for nvidia, no good technical reason).

[@sumuduranathunga]

Interesting, previously they used AMD gpus for their custom multi display cards.

[@daemonspudguy]

I love how "Red Dead Redemption 2 on a Matrox card" is a fully valid concept in the English language.

[@TheNinjaMarmot]

While everyone was fighting to have the best 3D card. Matrox fought for the mantel of the best 2D card.

[@vanderlinde4you]

And it only was due to selection of a tad higher quality components - now with HDMI and such there's no such thing for "better 2d quality anymore" as back then signals where send Analog over (S)VGA cables. They died pretty much and moved away to enterprise.

[@stokerstchannel4828]

When I went from middle school to high school. I upgraded from an old packard bell 486 to a dell pentium 90. It was a rock star computer with a matrox video card 😮 The next year I bought a monster voodoo card to pair with it I’m almost certain that was peak gaming for me in my life 😂

[@ewald3182]

Matrox strikes back! Good to see you uploading again, Budgetbuilds!

[@efftee]

The Luma series looks interesting, the Intel ARC cards have always suffered with lacklustre drivers so Matrox seems like the perfect partner

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Seems ideal, I’ll have to see what I can do

[@lesslighter]

I saw the prices.... hmmm interesting Intel made competition by themselves....

[@wyntilda]

The drivers have improved quite a bit. They're very underrated cards, and the people I know who have them adore them. If I were using Windows more (where AMD drivers are worse than on Linux, whereas Intel drivers are a bit better currently as Linux catches up), I'd probably sell my 6900 XTXH for an Arc card lul.

[@andersjjensen]

@@wyntilda I use both Windows and Linux. The Windows driver situation has cleaned up a metric fck ton to say the least. My 6700XT had no issues whatsoever, neither with my 3x1440p165Hz setup, nor with any of the 300+ games in my Steam library. My 7900XTX had the high-idle-power-on-multi-monitor bug when I bought it, but that has long since been fixed, and now it's as solid as my old card.

[@kelvinnkat]

It's a little early to say "always" but so far this is accurate

[@The_Dogealorian]

No way?!??!?! Two videos?!??!!?

[@JanghanHong]

Matrox is still around and it's usually in the weirdest places, have you ever gone to a bank or a gas station and there are a wall of 3~6 regular consumer TV's combined into a display that play some corporate garbage promotions? Matrox.

[@fus132]

Time traveller: {moves chair} The Timeline: "I bought the RARE new NVIDIA card....for 40$"

[@carltonleboss]

Didn't realise Matrox still existed, lol

[@comfy_rwds]

matrox still available on Dell servers, was surprised to see them on board

[@hyperturbotechnomike]

They are still used in some industrial environments. The last one, i owned for my private PC was a matrox G400 dual head

[@erisdelta5950]

They actually released 3 cards using Intel's DG-2 128 GPU fairly recently.

[@CantankerousDave]

They pivoted towards video converter boxes.

[@emilioincerto]

The entire television industry relies on Matrox

[@natea4158]

matrox still does cards right now. the older matrox c series in this video are amd gpu based as stated in the video. the newest current ones right now are intel arc based, and called matrox luma. i believe the matrox m series before the c series was the last gpus they fully did themselves.

[@doodemog]

I used to have a matrox millennium in my pc in the 90s

[@mikakorhonen5715]

With massive 4MB of graphics memory. :) We had same.

[@federicocatelli8785]

My uncle had one for win 3.11 ...brilliant display quality on crt

[@BastetFurry]

In a PCI only retro system i still deploy my old Mystique 220, fastest DOS card ever made. ❤

[@pauld4564]

Same here! I remember buying a pre- built and upgrading the card it came with to the Millennium 😁

[@TheVanillatech]

Had a Mystique (my first 3D card) back in the day. Kept it as a 2D card when I upgraded to a VooDoo. Such amazing 2D quality and I preferred the Matrox version of Mechwarrior 2 to the 3Dfx version.

[@samuelchan699]

I was recommended a Matrox for a multi-monitor workstation, and it was the most stable video card I ever owned. I used it on 3 further builds over a span of 12 years before having to finally replace it as the new MB did not support it. I was considering a Matrox for my last build, but their cards are manufacturing and display media focused

[@HandzUp95]

I ran a lot of these where i was working as an IT on trading floors, those traders back in the days wanted arrays of screens for their bloomberg setups. Then ultrawide monitors came and reduced the need for 8 monitors array setups

[@avtips4779]

Love seeing Matrox content here!

[@KOAP33]

Matrox user here......Love the video....I am still using M9120 Matrox GPU in my main rig as my second card my main GPU is RX 6900...I have 4 monitors + VR connected on my rig so my Matrox card is there to handle my 2 side panels as usually love to watch youtube videos while I am playing games and I do not want to lost performance on my main GPU so here comes the Matrox to help also there is 0 issues with Matrox drivers on win 10&11 and never have the problem when mixing Matrox cards with AMD or Nvidia.....'tho M9120 is predominantly 2D card I will love to see how C680 works in combo with other 3d card....all the best and keep up the good work!!!

[@nopadelik9286]

Now that was a VERY interesting video ! My very first graphics card was a Matrox Mystique, which came with 2 MB Ram and a slot onboard to upgrade it with another 2 MB to a whopping 4 MB. That's between 25 to 30 years ago meanwhile, lovely memories. The Mystique was part of my evolving Quake 2 - rigs, at te end boosted with a 2x Voodoo II -SLi setup. Those were golden online gaming times, had tons of fun - until i got an enormous phone bill of over 900 bucks for extensively using internet-by-call with that 28.8 creatix modem. Lol.

[@spg3331]

Love the channel, great video

[@plastichairball]

When I was a teen back in Zimbabwe we couldn't get our hands on much PC hardware, but we did get PC magazines. The advert for the Matrox Millennium is seared into my mind as the GPU to have. Glad to see they're still going!

[@TheDoomerBlox]

I'm always surprised when I see Zimbabwe pop up in the tech sphere, delightfully clueless as I am.

[@Thomsonicus]

Love it. Thanks. Nice to see something that might be a bit more interesting than the ubiquitous "latest and greatest". Also, nice to see an old contender, Matrox, still doing its thing, 50 yrs+ in the business!

[@NymphieJP]

Two videos this fast? Holy shit lol

[@danyuzunov]

Doom might be 2016 but BudgetBuildsOfficial is eternal!!!

[@Crazy_Borg]

6:20 These cards were used in factory / power plant control rooms, for powering the main display.

[@dgorry]

Good to have you back uploading

[@MiSt3300]

Ever since your post dropped I've been waiting for this!

[@THEPIXELPROJECT417]

Im glad your back

[@peterilling1627]

Great video,still using Matrox videos in my retro pcs.

[@MiSt3300]

I am glad you're seriously back dude! Please could you also make one of those "under 150 pounds" budget gaming PC videos? The older ones are pretty outdated

[@KL-sd2bw]

A Budget-Build is never late, not is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.

[@squeeeb]

Glad they are still around. I have a G400 Max in one of my retro builds and its fantastic.

[@dezhocob]

Wow! For the price this thing looks like a productivity beast! Up to 6 4K monitors all in a small power and heat efficient package using the modern interconnect standard! A card you can stick in your system and it will just work for years to come, digital signage, workstation, even gaming. One can even get unofficial tech support to this day! I am extremely impressed!

[@DzeiEidz]

We used Matrox cards in our power plant control rooms due to multi-monitor support. 1 computer, 4 monitors and Matrox was perfect for that. Later we moved into a mainframe setup and mini-PCs controlling 2 monitors each.

[@vicolin6126]

The Matrox cards with 6-8 mini DIsplayPort connectors are primarily meant for video walls. The cards, together with the special Matrox video wall-software makes it easy to set up such video walls. The newest Matrox (released in 2023) cards are actually rebranded Intel Arc-GPU's, they just use custom drivers to make them "Matrox-y".

[@Lapsio]

sounds extremely bold considering reliability expectations from Matrox and reliability issues Intel experiences with their cards. Those drivers better be "very Matroxy" xD

[@MatthewStevensOrMattDave]

RDR2 at 30 is insane. Sometimes budget cards absolutely own.

[@uranblut]

rdr2 is incredibly optimized, I can play it on a 4k screen with a shitty intel arc gpu :)

[@blakelove01]

I love your videos man

[@LarrysLibrary]

What a blast from the past. Used to love them back in the day. Loved my G550! I was even a Moderator in the short lived (and low traffic) Tech Report Matrox Forum for a bit!

[@Gadgetman1989]

Love the video guy, what i wonder is will this card run VR/Windows Mixed Reality? Like... I know its niche to want to run things with that kind of things but I do wonder that with most desktop/laptop GPU's as I do tinkering with different rigs that all have been able to run it in one form or another

[@compugamesarg]

magnificent card , great to see!!

[@InsaneWayne355]

"It just works" ... that's been the Matrox mantra since forever. That's what they've always been known for.

[@nep-nep6575]

Some other really cool stuff I’ve seen about Matrox is the G200 was incredibly popular with server hardware until IIRC the 2010s. It’s only PCI, but for a server where it’s mostly CLI stuff connected to a 4:3 monitor, it’s fine. The consumer versions of the G200 are also really interesting. There exist Dual and QUAD processor variants on a single card and where the DMS-59 connector comes from, I believe with each processor handling a separate monitor. This was in the mid-90s as well, when windows didn’t even have built in multi-monitor support yet.

[@neorama8875]

Good work

[@8-bitcentral31]

Awsome! Another matrox!

[@broderperdurabo]

I loved the Matrox cards back in the early 2k's , with the piggy back for capture analog video.

[@omegatotal]

These cards are usually used for videowalls, and they are usually able to do frame sync between cards using the 8pin cables so that all outputs to each display is properly synced, usually the displays used match the sync received on the DP cable.

[@elbiggus]

I had no idea they were still around!

[@nguyenminhhieu1905]

let's go the king is back

[@MrSoy_]

I like the piano solo.

[@giserson2]

As you mention, the GCN architecture is really energy efficient if not pushed to its limits. This could be seen at the time of its release as the HD 7850 an HD 7870 (and later R9 rebrands) topped the performance per watt charts, battling it out with the GTX 650ti and GTX 690 until maxwell came out. The HD 7750, 7770 and 7790 and 7950 all came in very close in that meric as well, it's not really until you move up to the really high end of GCN that power draw goes out of control with the HD 7970GHz edition and R9 290X. The rest of GCN mostly ended up looking really bad against Nvidia's Maxwell and Pascal architectures because of their insane power efficiency. But even later cards like the R9 380, RX 460/560 and RX 470/570 don't really use that much power for the performance you get, their Maxwell and Pascal competitors just happen to be quite a bit better in that regard.

[@wyntilda]

Nice to see you back, and with another Matrox vid, no less! The stability of these cards is incredible; frametime variance is an underrated metric, and arguably the most important when talking about the actual gaming experience. Would love to poke at the drivers and see how they compare to AMD's drivers to see just how they managed to achieve this sort of smoothness. Anyway, I love that Matrox chose Intel chips for their newest gen. Intel's current lineup feels like a spiritual successor to Matrox in some ways, so the choice makes a lot of sense. Very tasteful chips with solid drivers and stability. I've heard you can even properly lock clocks on Intel cards, which is something AMD and Nvidia haven't allowed for a bit.

[@Stormbolter]

Matrox has always been huge in the medical field. The computers that control CT scanners usually sport Matrox cards to control the monitors.

[@ChristopherWoods]

As someone who looks after broadcast kit which uses Matrox X.mio cards, I'm glad others still appreciate Matrox and do videos about them :) I always wished I could have afforded the Parhelia.

[@saintuk70]

Matrox were truly awesome, I had a few of them during the 90's and when paired with a 3dfx card gave beautiful colours and beautiful graphics, and that 3dfx power.

[@gameguy6003]

I wonder if this Matrox stability still applies to their newest cards that are intel arc alchemist based. Comparing their A380 version to a normal A380 would be a really cool video some day

[@Alpine_flo92002]

I think the modern boost algorythms are at fault for this. This card clearly has no clock deadtimes and driver integrated VSYNC. Not good for actual high power gaming but ideal for a display adapter and stability

[@edelzocker8169]

They have custom drivers for the Luma A380P

[@deagt3388]

Blast from the past! ;-)

[@catriona_drummond]

This video was strangely heartwarming.

[@jrherita]

Very cool to see this; I bought a Parhelia back in the day to play with (it was not quite brand new, but it was relevant). The triple display capability was awesome well before AMD “Eyefinity”.

[@snakeplissken1754]

I still remember matrox to being relevant, back in the days i had a matrox millenia 2, looking to upgrade to a matrox g400, evironmental bump mapping was so cool.... but the company managed to drive itself into irrelevancy pretty quick.

[@effexon]

was there classic batshit crazy bad management in executive level? clearly they could produce cards so engineers knew what to do. that aint easy feat. I cant remember driver quality though.

[@federicocatelli8785]

Had one for my personal pc, very good image quality but middling performance and compatibility with 3d games (compared with voodoo 3 and the likes)

[@WayStedYou]

@@effexon case of them thinking 2D would be popular for longer and going all in then falling behind the other competitors and running out of money I think

[@effexon]

@@WayStedYou ah classic mistake repeated so many times in tech, now in EVs.... yes ICE is still around for a while but future looks clear when they can make 10000$ EV brand new and ICE costs 20-30000$.

[@cgriggsiv]

Very awesome to see a matrox video card video awesome But here's a question for you can it play Diablo immortal or Diablo 4 and what are the FPS and the graph times on such a card

[@MJadSh]

The king LIVES!!!

[@l3lue7hunder12]

Matrox was legendary, always worked, lasted forever, usually offered dual high quality ( DVI ) output, could be found in almost each and every office system, but ... never EVER try to run 3D, because even the "Parhelia" models always were behind in regards of performance. Then again, they offered sufficient 3D performance for any NON gaming Windows needs, including an effect rich desktop. Also even back then a simple small Matrox combined with something like a Voodoo 2 did the trick for anything up to early Windows 98. I didn't know there are AMD based Matrox models, only the Intel Arc based ones called "Matrox LUMA A3xx" .

[@bogdanbosiokovic8858]

Am i dreaming or what? two vids this fast is insane! anyway i am really curious about differences between C900 and C680 and aswell the LUNA series :)

[@housewind]

This kind of stability should be a major goal for all cheap low profile card manufacturers. I'd love the performance and price of an Arc A380 with this kind of stability.

[@philstaples8122]

Back in the day I used to run a Matrox G200 with the extra ram module linked to a Voodoo 2 card on an early Pentium and it was really good for the time.

[@FXXRVLCXDXX]

I hope you can get your hands on Matrox Luma one day!

[@Upgradeo8]

Used to be a Matrox DigiSuite Tech, they had to ensure backwards compatibility for the large number of configurations for various product lines and end users. G400 and g450 were the main workhorses for most DigiSuite Systems and in my opinion the need to maintain compatibility resulted in refreshed g400+ and lead to a public perception of a lack of innovation for their consumer gaming side.

[@feieralarm]

Matrox is still alive and well, they just have found their niche in the professional market. Especially broadcast and high availability infrastructure, like control rooms, video systems for the medical and defence sector and what they're probably most known for these days: video walls.

[@anasevi9456]

Like you Matrox is well before my time as a pc gamer, but like you I love it for how wonderfully weird it was. Parhelia was truly a special card and imho their magnum opus. But the market is a cruel mistress to innovators at time.

[@CD3WD-Project]

Man I remember Matrox really good as I was a big fan of them back in the day. They always worked great.

[@uvb76enjoyer]

i like the simcity ost on the background

[@fnmayo]

Nice Video

[@WhiteG60]

I had a Parhelia at launch. Man, I loved that card. That + 2 Samsung 19" LCD monitors was GODLY. It ran games "fine", at least in my memory. It wasn't as good as the competition, but it kicked their butts in multi-montior.

[@Vatharian]

Fun fact: Matrox G550 is at the core of ASPEED BMC controllers. This is theGPU in all servers in the world.

[@Aston3003]

I don't remember Unsubscribing. That's why I haven't seen you in a while

[@Rabbit_AF]

I scored a PCIe QUAD DISPLAYPORT JUPITER SYSTEMS, which is just an AMD e6460. I got it for $10 while everyone else on eBay try to sell it for $400 lol.

[@No1BRC]

Almost got a Matrox Millenium back then in 1997 when within a short period 3D acceleration technology got a huge boost and I ended up with a FireGL1000 with the legendary Permedia2 Chip :-)

[@UKVampy]

I remember the first Matrox card I ever saw in my mates Compaq P60 from the 90's. Matrox Millenium if I remember correctly. I do remember the bios being a complete sod to work with as it was on the hard drive.

[@TheQBall1977]

Stumbled across your video… interesting. Back in the late 90’s/early 00’s matrix were backing the video capabilities of their cards. I had the pleasure of supporting to RT2000 (uni gap year) which allowed realtime 3D effects on 2 streams of video harnessing the 3D power of the graphics card… for a fraction of the price of their industry cards. Another avenue for you to explore perhaps. It was an amazing year, DVD burners were still SCSI and a few thousand pounds each. It was also the year Napster bloomed and I could say the way digital video was heading.

[@NorbertdeRooy]

In the previous millennium I had a Matrox millennium, Matrox mystic and the 3d accelerator by Matrox (I cannot remember the name). Awesome cards.

[@Hunty49]

I had a Matrox Millenium and a Gravis Ultra sound card back in the day.

[@thisfileisnotcorrupted389]

Hell yes

[@ATomRileyA]

Matrox 7900xtx would be epic. Always loved their older cards too.

[@sukhoikip]

This is the same GCN 1.0 die as the C420 but clocked higher

[@matthewwilde5222]

C420? Nice

[@kurosude]

Two uploads in a week??? AWOOOGA!

[@RifterDask]

I have a feeling that these cards would be absolutely sublime for high-accuracy retro emulation.

[@WeLikeFetaCheese]

Man, this takes me back. I used to be such a Matrox fan. My first card was a Mystique 2mb, then I got the PowerVR powered m3D which, while not nearly as fast as a Voodoo 2 actually did quite well and could do 1024 x 768 and 24bit colour and ran decent enough when supported. Last Matrox car I ever got was a G400 for the bump mapping but that was a very buggy and un-matrox like experience and I couldn't help but be disappointed as i traded in a TNT2 for it... I'd still love to see a somewhat competitive matrox consumer card one of these days, even though I know it's not where their business is at right now. :)

[@federicocatelli8785]

"When supported" you said well😅.

[@modlabs]

I want it! Is there XP support?

[@RltchieI]

My first PC had a 2MB Matrox Mystique 2D/3D card which I got an 2MB expansion board for to upgrade it to 4MB so I could play the game Formula 1 with Murray Walker as commentator. I would later add a Diamond Monster 3DFX card. If I recall at the time the Matrox Mystique was seen as the best 2D/3D card on the market with Monster being the top 3D accelerator card.

[@hypnosekroete2993]

We are using old Matrox Cards in our Productionline for showing simular data on a couple of big monitors. Stable and reliable

[@Ghozer]

I loved my G400 when I had it :D - was a beast at the time, 1st to support hardware bump-mapping, - and it was 'true' dual head (not shared) :D

[@phatwayne]

What are the stand-offs above the mini display ports for?

[@stuartthurstan]

Haha. This takes me back. I remember paying an obscene sum (seemed like it at the time) for a Matrox Millenium card.

[@phobiac281]

Would like to ask what you think how good or bad would matrox luma series cards perform in blender or any 3D modeling program?

[@ThomasWinders]

Thank you for bringing me back to the mysterious times of "pci cards" and the fuss about the "BEHOLD! AGP is coming!"

[@JD3Gamer]

It's always surprising how much of a difference driver quality can have.

[@itstheweirdguy]

I could see this card being useful if added to a system that does not support 4k at 60 hz over displayport with it's built in graphics. Really helps with newer screens. Especially if you had a bunch of monitors.

[@imglidinhere]

My dad had an older 64MB Matrox card of some variety in his workstation rig iirc. I remember being perplexed to see a non-ATI or Nvidia yeeaaars ago when I first pulled it free.

[@heclanet]

Beautiful card

[@IllegalGamer69]

I also have a matrox card the older matrox from 1999. Unfortunately, it won't give any picture but it is cool to have an old card. The card I have is MGA-G200A-C having 1 pixel shader and 1 vertex shader.

[@thetiredtechnician5845]

I'm impressed for a low power little card like that. Didn't think it could do it. Then again, Matrox have been making their money for a while in the server market onboard graphics. So it doesn't surprise me it's a reliable little card. Makes a ton of sense actually.

[@firenado4295]

since this is an amd chip under the hood, would that enable you to use Xfire? Only reason I was thinking of it is because the card is so stable I wonder if it would actually be worth while a try and see if the frame times are actually better than on a regular AMD card.