Yikes!! Matrox's new Parhelia with Triple Head (1 Viewer)

[Scott L]

Having owned a Marvel G400 and a Millenium 2 it's good to hear Matrox is keeping up with the times.

• General features and characteristics
• World's first 512-bit GPU
• 80 million transistors in 0.15 process
• 256-bit DDR memory interface
• Up to 20 GB/s memory bandwidth
• Up to 256MB DDR unified frame buffer
• 10-bit Gigacolor Technology
• 10-bit per channel RGB rendering and output
• Over one billion simultaneously displayed colors
• 10-bit precision for 2D, 3D, DVD and video
• 10-bit frame buffer mode for ARGB (2:10:10:10)
• 10-bit RAMDACs with full gamma correction
• AGP host interface designed for up to AGP 8X bandwidths
• AGP Fast Writes support
• 8-way parallel DMA streaming engine
• OpenGL 1.3 and DirectX® 8.1 compliant 3D engine
• DualHead®-HF Display Technology
• Dual integrated 400MHz 10-bit RAMDACs
• Dual independent RGB outputs
• Up to 2048 x 1536 @ 32bpp on each RGB output
• Support for two digital TMDS transmitters
• Dual independent DVI outputs
• Up to 1920 x 1200 on each output **
• Single dual-link DVI output
• Up to 2560 x 2048
• Integrated 10-bit high-fidelity TV/video encoder
• NTSC/PAL output
• Direct encoding of native interlaced YUV
• Perfect full-screen DVD playback via DVDMax
• TripleHead Desktop
• Support for 3rd RGB output
• Three display desktop at up to 3840 x 1024 @ 32bpp
• 10-bit gamma correction
• Per-layer gamma and color correction at full speed
• Dual independent, gamma correctable hardware overlays
• Support for true multi-display under Microsoft® Windows® 2000 and Windows XP
• Hardware accelerated multi-screen OpenGL support
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/...elease/001.htm
With it's 10-bit precision for DVD playback and *hopefully* component output it looks like it will replace the Radeon as the card of choice for HTPC TV-Out. But with it's 3D performance better than a GF4 Ti600 it will cost $400-$600.

 

[Leila Dougan]

It does look pretty sweet
Here's another review:
http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/...helia512.shtml
I love Matrox. . now I just need to find a few more monitors

 

[John Thomas]

ANother fan of Matrox products - using my G400 with two monitors now, it really does enhance your computer use (god that sounds corny)

 

[Kelley_B]

I use a Matrox G400 MAX in my old P3 450 box, its a beautiful card.
This card has the ability to use up to 256MB of DDR RAM, 20GB mem. bandwith...also this card IS DirectX 9 ready...this could be the next great card out there.
Heres a comparison chart to look at:
http://www.hardocp.com/articles/parhelia/analysis.html

 

[MikeAlletto]

I'd wait until nvidia and ati announce their next gen cards also. Matrox is just the first one.

 

[Scott L]

You think the other guys will have triple head? Well either way I'm sure the Parhelia will still have the best 2D compared to anything else out out there for a while.

 

[MikeAlletto]

I personally don't care if I can run 3 monitors off 1 card. Who's got the room (or budget) for that? Its a neat gimick at trade shows, but that's about it. I'm really pumped to see what the other guys come out with. I'll need a new card to play doom 3 on

 

[Drew Wimmer]

yeah, it's about time they caught put out something new, anyone heard when it's gonna retail, 'cause i can't find anything but specs and propoganda everywhere i look

 

[gregstaten]

Though I haven't worked with three monitor systems, both systems in my office have dual monitors at 1280x1024. I've worked with two monitor displays for about nine years and wouldn't go back to a single monitor for anything but a laptop. (Of course, these systems are both digital editing, one an HD system and one an SD system. But I really like the two monitors for everything I do.)

-greg

 

[Kelley_B]

Drew,

It should be out in about 2-4 weeks.

 

[Larry Seno Jr.]

I can guarantee ATI fucks us over and has no component out. Who knows about Nvidia? They dont seem interested in quality, just speed.

 

[Craig LeBlanc]

Actually the first sample test boards won't be out until sometime in June... so all the information available on the card is just fluff released by their marketting department.

Right now most of the games on the market still don't take advantage of all the current features on the Geforce 3, Geforce 4 or ATI 8500 cards. The new Matrox card has lots of nice features, but it might be a while before anything takes advantage of them. And it looks like they are programming the core to be optimized for dx9... which means some older games, Quake 3 engine based, will run slower on the Matrox than a GF4.

Then again my perspective is from a pure gamer point of view. I know I'd wait and see what Nvidia has coming down the pipe for Aug/Sep. Gotta love their 6 month development cycle.

 

[Kelley_B]

Actually the Matrox card is the most DirectX 8.1 compliant card. It will do great with DirectX 8.1 games, it should be faster than the GeFORCE4 Ti4600 on most DirectX 8.1 games, but on games like Quake III it will lose out to the GF4 Ti4600.

Now the new NV30 will be a completely new design and have no ties to the "old" GeFORCE family....plus it will be the first card to feature 3dfx technology along with nVidia tech. Should be neat to see.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

The biggest question marks for me is driver quality, or "hassle level"... At least part of the reason Nvidia is king of the hill is that they have a great driver department. ATI is still playing catch-up and you have more problems getting things working... but the question is how Matrox will stack up?
For instance, if their OpenGL support is buggy and doesn't work right, it would be unacceptable to me as a general use card.
Superb 2d quality matters a great deal, but if the drivers aren't great pretty much out of the box, Matrox will suffer; they have a fairly narrow window to hit now before NV30 and ATI's new core hit the street and the hardcore gamers stampede off in herds to buy them.
I could see myself using a triple head setup though... I never seem to have enough screen real estate, perhaps three screens would be enough.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

And then there's the issue of price; when it's finally shipping in June the fastest Parhelia-512 cards will carry a price tag of ~$450. There will be cheaper cards that offer lower performance but you shouldn't expect the Parhelia-512 to compete with the GeForce4 Ti 4200 anytime soon.
In the end, the Parhelia-512 has the potential of being the king of the hill between now and the release of NV30; and it is by far the best effort Matrox has ever put forth in the graphics industry. Those wanting extremely high-quality image quality and triple-head output will have nowhere else to turn and this time around they will be able to enjoy high-performance 3D acceleration as well.
However the success of Matrox isn't dependent on the Parhelia-512; as we've seen in the past it is dependent on how well they follow up the technology. The Parhelia-512 cannot turn into another G400 where the market is left for two years without a serious update. Matrox does have a solid product and a winner on their hands but they have to do their best to not only execute it well but execute its successor even better.
Matrox assures us that they have a solid roadmap going forward but we will not see them move to NVIDIA's aggressive 6-month product cycles. In the end, Matrox is a worthy competitor to have back in the game and they couldn't have done a better job making an entrance than with the Parhelia.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1620

 

[AjayM]

Hmmm, I'm really attracted to the triple head card, mostly for the reason they show in their marketing pics. The problem I've always seen with a dual head card and gaming is that it's hard to REALLY use all of the screen area you have available. With 3 monitors, that could be a big plus.

And if it performs as well as or better than the GF4-4600 even a few months from now, it will be a good performer for a couple years to come (but not the best).

And the best part is the cost (in a wierd-whacked out sort of way). Face it, to get equivelent screen area of 3 19" monitors you are going to have to sit a couple of what, 24" monitors (easily $2k each) on your desk, in this case you could have 3 nice quality 19" monitors for under $1k and the card for $500, and you're all set for under $1500.

Andrew

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

You could do it with 17-inchers too and get quite the experience... but the ultimate would be a set of three LCD screens, ones with very narrow borders.

 

[AjayM]

I still haven't found that many LCD's I like for gaming, especially anything with fast action sequences. I also don't like the fixed resolutions and the way LCD's handle them (well most of them).

If you want to talk ultimate, then maybe 3 of those 50 inch ultra high resolution plasma displays (not the TV kind, but the $50-60k versions) would make an interesting experience. Of course that version would cost more than a lot of our houses did, but it would make for a very immersive gaming experience.

A little lower down the scale would maybe be 3 of those 24" Sony monitors (16:10 aspect ratio), but they come in around a cool $2400 each, but you would have a whole lotta screen area, but you better have a heavy duty desk (each monitor is like 100lbs).

I'd still stick with the 19" setup to get the most screen for the least amount of money, I found some nice 19" flatscreen Viewsonic's for $260ea (probably get a small discount when you buy 3). Or if I had a chance to look at them first, KDS has a 19" with some impressive specs for even less money. Or if I wanted to really shine NEC's FP series are just great looking for about $100 more each. The next step would be to something a little more exotic like Eizo, etc.

Andrew

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Think three inexpensive SVGA front projectors...
LCD's work pretty well, I find, but the fixed resolution problem is not going to go away, since panels have a fixed amount of pixels on them. They will always stink at any other resolutions than those, just like LCD front projectors.
The reason I advocated LCD's is that you can get screens like that with something like 1 cm side sides, meaning there is only 2 cm between the screen surfaces when they are side by side.

 

[Dominik Droscher]

So, is there anyone using a Parhelia? I am planning to buy one in December and am checking reviews and opinions all over the net. I am a Matrox Fan since the Mystique and have my G400 for over 2 1/2 years now. It still is a great card and for DVD watching and 2d graphics work it is still top but it is almost impossible to enjoy recent games like Mafia or Fifa2003. My main emphasis is still the 2d work in higher resolutions, which is why I am considering Matrox and am willing to spent the money for the best image quality and dual/triple Head features. What I am reading so far supports my decision even though many users are disappointed with Parhelia's 3d performance. But this is not my main emphasis as I stated. I am looking for a card that will offer me fantastic 2d quality in higher resolutions, great DVD playback, the ability to connect mutliple monitors/TVs and decent enough 3d performance.