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The Matrox Parhelia was advertised to use 150 degrees of vision in games, utilizing 3 monitors.

Go here and check out the TripleHead Desktop table.

But they can be spendy. Matrox also makes some cool multi-head displays.

hows it feel to want? espicalyl about something that has been available for a decade now.

here

Matrox, because all the other cards are merely toys for the kids at home.

I want tri-head or quad-head video, but with at least AGP speeds

So order one now. They are available here at Matrox.

Unfortunately, Matrox's cards aren't anywhere near as good as ATI's/nVidia's. Most people who have Linux installed also have Windows installed, and will simply run games etc from Windows.

Hardware development is almost always an insanely expensive process, and drivers - being the link between hardware and software contain many explicit details about the hardware they support - for this reason in many cases it is totally unviable to make them open-source, especially given the relatively small market share Linux has in the desktop.

Although it's an unpopular idea, I think it would be best if an interface for closed-source binary drivers was created, which supported all patches of a given kernel (eg 2.6.0-2.6.5 etc). This would also solve the problems with trying to install 3rd party drivers from source.

Matrox supports open source drivers for all of their graphics cards.

My G400 is well-supported, but AFAIK there are no open-source drivers for the Parhelia (Matrox's current-generation card, with triple-head support). Matrox has a press release saying they have open-source drivers, but I can't actually find any. Their driver page just has some Red Hat drivers (probably binary RPMs), and you can't even download them without registering.

Various mailing list and forum posts reference binary-only Parhelia drivers. The XFree86 4.3 mga driver ("man 4x mga") doesn't support anything after the G550.

I use a Matrox G450 at work with Redhat 9. The drivers they provide for dual-head support worked great for me.

Check here to see what they support.

Nick.

Every few years multi-headed gaming rears its head (haha).

It's not going to catch on any time soon.

Matrox Did it right with their latest 3d card. Offering the use of 3 monitors. Several games supported this natively but the comparitively poor 3D speed led few to pick it up.

Until it is the defacto standard to have 2 or 3 LCD's on a desk you're not going to see gamers using this over one large high resolution monitor.

I think you would be wanting one of the Parhelia cards from Matrox Graphics. I'm sure some /. readers remember them. They're the company that refuses to die in the face of Nvidia and ATi, because they also sell other stuff in other markets.

Google for "Matrix Parhelia" to read the reviews.

I think you would be wanting one of the Parhelia cards from Matrox Graphics. I'm sure some /. readers remember them. They're the company that refuses to die in the face of Nvidia and ATi, because they also sell other stuff in other markets.

Google for "Matrix Parhelia" to read the reviews.

just get a matrox card. agp will get you, i think, up to 6 displays on one card? you can get old dual display 450's for pretty cheap now, too. not much for gaming, but i like it at work for coding.

Although the Athlon64/Opteron and AthlonXP processors either match or surpass the Pentium 4 line, the one application that the Pentium 4 processors still excel at is in multimedia editing and encoding. Most people don't look at Hyperthreading favorably, yet with Hyperthreading enabled you get an over 30% performance boost in DV25 to MPEG-2 transcoding for video with everything else equal. That's not to say that the Athlon64/Opterons are not useful, but this is one area where they still excel. Considering that transcoding is the major bottleneck for the folks who edit video and create DVDs, there is a good reason to go for a Pentium 4. 30% of your time on a 2 hour video is a lot of time lost if you're trying to crank out videos. Not to mention that most of Matrox's editing cards are almost always approved for Intel hardware to be stable but not for all AMD hardware, particularly motherboards.

If, however, you're a gamer and aren't doing much media encoding or do it casually, then I would recommend an Athlon64.

not just that, but the drivers for NVidia Parahelia do this too

Parahelia is a Matrox product.

not just that, but the drivers for NVidia Parahelia do this too

Parahelia is a Matrox product.

I cannot think of a single PC game that uses multi-monitors like this. Can anyone give me an example?

There are more than a few PC games now that use multiple monitors (ie, the game is aware of separate physical monitors laid out vertically or horizontally, not just mapped as one large display).

Microsoft Flight Sim has proper multi-monitor support.

Matrox lists 19 dual-monitor games on their site.

There may be others.

• Dual-head with tv-out so you can have a movie display on the TV while working on your monitor
• Very good high TV-out quality (some say it is one of the best out there)
• You can pick it up cheap on ebay
• Perhaps the best supported graphics hardware under linux
• Special support in mplayer for beautiful movie display
• Hardware MJPEG compression for capture
• Nice break-out-box with RCA in/out as well as svideo in/out
• All this in one AGP card

• Current Linux driver does not do DMA for plain v4l (non-MJPEG) capture -- it does memcpy() which is CPU intensive. I'm looking to add support to the driver at some point when I finish reading the SPECS.
• Capture driver does not play well with the framebuffer driver. Again I'm looking to help fix this at some point

Matrox G100, G200 and G400 has problems with bios, which sometimes has to be restored. See: relevant Matrox support files. But I still think they are awesome.

If you want crisp 2D on a CRT, you're going to have to pay, just like how you paid for your old Matrox -- I'm sure it wasn't cheap when it was new.

The Matrox products are horrendously expensive. The lowest-price 128MB Parhelia I found was CAN$465 (OEM) versus CAN$97 for the lowest-price 128MB GeForce FX. Sure, the Matrox can do triple display, has specialized support/plugins for various software and undoubtedly better 2D performance but is that worth a few extra hundred bucks? For some, I guess it is.

18 months ago I went from a 32MB G400 to a 128MB GeForce4 on higher-end Misubishi CRTs and didn't notice any 2D quality degradation. I originally wanted to stay loyal to Matrox since they "build" their cards in my home town[1], but I just couldn't justify the extra cost.

[1] Anyone know the details of manufacturing at Matrox? I.E. % of home-grown chips/components.

I used to be an Avid editor but didn't have the budget or clients to afford one of those on my own. Based on some feedback from friends I decided to go with a a Matrox RT2500 and later upgraded to a Matrox RT.X100. The RTX100 is fantastic. It's basically a PCI card with a breakout box that has stereo audio in/out, and component and Y/C in/out. There's also two firewire ports on the back. It uses Adobe Premiere for its editor and installs a plugin which lets Premiere use the RTX100 for realtime effects. Basically anything you find in an online suite you'll find here as a realtime effect. Titling, wipes, ADOs, keying, colour correction, etc.

The RTX100 also comes with DVD burning software called ReelDVD. I've only used it twice so all I can tell you is that it works and has lots of features, none of which I've yet to really take advantage of.

I pretty much use that on a dedicated machine with Premiere 6.0, Photoshop, After Effects, and Sound Forge. I also use some open-source tools such as VirtualDub and DubMan. I haven't upgraded to Premiere Pro yet as the Matrox drivers are still in beta.

My only suggestion is that if you do get a RTX100, then buy one of the recommended systems to use it in. The Matrox forums are full of people who complain that the RXT100 doesn't work right or at all yet admit they don't have a compatible system. Especially watch out for via chipsets as the RTX100 won't work on those at all.

From Matrox's website Matrox Millennium G550 Dual-DVI Matrox has always been a great competitor in the 2D desktop... dual-head technology is strictly Windows based for this card though.

Hmm... Well, I haven't actually tried one out but reading about it on matrox own site it says that it is supposed to drive one 22" LCD screen at 3840 x 2400 using two LFH-60 (that is two dual DVI connections = four DVI channels) for the same screen.
Take a look here

True. IMO Matrox is best for non-gaming applications. One thing a lot of people forget is that Matrox is a significant player in the digital video products that deal with video capture and real time editing. Their RT.X series of DV editing products are among the best in the price range.

A new player dares enters the graphics card market that ATi and Nvidia have dominated for so long
What about Matrox, who've been dominating the multiple monitor graphics card market for years?

The revolutionary new Matrox Parhelia-512 high-fidelity GPU delivers a new level of visual quality, excellent performance and a wide range of innovative technologies. Parhelia-512 is an 80 million transistor, 0.15, 2D, 3D and DVD/video GPU with a true 256-bit DDR memory interface providing over 20 gigabytes per second (GB/s) of raw memory bandwidth. This AGP device supports unified frame buffers up to 256MB in size and integrates two RAMDACs, a TV encoder and support for dual TMDS transmitters. Designed to surpass the expectations of the most demanding professional users and PC enthusiasts, Parhelia-512 has three major goals: to dramatically increase the quality of all aspects of visualization, to sustain high performance for the most complex and demanding graphics rendering and to deliver a number of innovative and substantive features.
Looks like Matrox has found a neche mark for high performance multiple monitor graphics cards

what about matrox?

Are we forgetting about the Matrox Parhelia?

Are we forgetting about the Matrox Parhelia?

Yup, that would do it for me.

Its not a fucking NDA dipshit An NDA basically says "We'll tell you, but you cant tell anyone else" which this clearly is not.

As you don't consider these specs "Publicly Available", what do you think of Matrox? Are they the devil spawn bastards too? Jesus H. Christ, people dance around singing about their beloved nVidia, yet nVidia are the only fucking ones who don't release any specs at all!

Fuck you, you lazy no-nothing fuckwit. If you can't be bothered to do any work, just say so. Don't fuck about with stupid whiney escuses, bitch.

The only trick then becomes getting four video cards (most likely an AGP and a PCI card, both with dual video out, nVidia style) to cooperate and treat the displays as one giant virtual display in a 2x2 arrangement.

Dual and quad headed workstations are pretty common in financial services. We use 'em all the time in dealing rooms, where traders have got to have lots of charts and data up at once, and obviously the developers working on that software use them too.

I agree that 1280x768 is pretty feeble on a 29" display... I have a 15.1" display on my laptop that is perfectly comfortable at 1400x1050. This display isn't suitable for use on a workstation, maybe as a wall-mounted display for a room or something.

Of course, this may become irrelevant, since the consoles (xbox, playstation) may kill off the market for PC games.

Show me a console that can do surround video with full Internet and LAN, then I'll consider switching.

Consoles suck. Who wants to play video games at 720x480i resolution with ... what is it? .90 pixel pitch? I can hear it now - "But you can get a video adapter for you computer."

Doesn't that pretty much defeat the point (the so-called "convenience") of playing with a console... Sitting on a couch in front of the TV?

I always had the manual open while I was programming until the mid-90s. We could not have the documentation on the screen at the same time as the code, so it was easier to have the physical copy nearby. But "pasting" an example into the code requires much typing.

By the late 90s, I had a 20" monitor and would program at 1024x768 or highter resolution. I had one project where I usually ran at 1920x1440 so I could fit several files on the screen at the same time.

Most online technical documentation is still poor since you can only read one page at a time.

The Java documentation changed that. Since it is HTML, you can always choose "Open in a new window". And in IE, you can choose "Edit source" and move/annotate the files. I often move the classes I am currently using to the top of the index files, and add notes and examples to the top of the class files.

I wish Sun could afford to put examples in the code. Even the usually non-working examples from MS and IBM give a little insight into how they planned a function to work. Then you just have to troubleshoot the poor code, rather than writing it from scratch. But I still have to remember how it works. With Sun I have a central repository to keep the code that does work. I can easily put it on my web server so I have my notes while at a client.

---
Online documentation is also easier for the eyes. No, I am not saying that monitors are better for reading than paper. But when the documentation is on the screen, your eyes shift a very small amount. Paper documentation usually involves turning your head, which means moments are lost every time you switch between the screen and the book because you have to refocus.

And while backlighting from monitors is bad compared to reflected light from books, constantly switching between them will tire your eyes quickly. It is better to use one or the other.

Of course you can decide to stick with reflected lighting and write your program on paper. Programs designed on paper tend to be better designed, because more effort is required to record them. And there is a review phase as they are being typed.

I have not noticed other programmers persuing that path. They seem to "design" while typing and expect the compiler to find any issues. I use "design" loosely, since they are usually focused more on getting it working than on getting it to work well.

---
If you really need to bookmark many different "pages", then you need a larger monitor, or maybe several. Check out Matrox video boards. They can do 2048 x 1536 on 4 monitors. That should be enough documentation for anybody, and still leave room to code. BONUS: They support Linux!

As for scribbling, see above. Get all your documentation in HTML. Use a browser that allows you to edit it locally and save it back in place.

(I use Mozilla 1.1 for browsing; I use MSIE 5.5 for my local documentation. Mozilla 1.1 is very old, so maybe they have a decent editor now. Mozilla 1.4 is supposed to have fixed issues with graphics, so I will probably upgrade soon.)

Invest in technology. If you are a professional programmer, you should have a VERY large monitor. Tell your boss to get you one. It takes me 3 times as long to program something using a 17" monitor than it does on a 21" monitor, mostly due to tabbing between windows rather than seeing everything at once. Good 21" monitors are under $600 and last at least 3 years. If you make $20,000 and the monitor doubles your productivity, that is a 9900% ROI. It goes up if you earn more.

---
Electronic documentation just isn't natural, isn't intuitive, isn't human.

Yes, it is not natural. Very little of computers can be considered natural. If that is a concern, you are in the wrong field.

No, it may not be intuitive to you, but it will be to your neighbor's grandchildren. How is:
1. Checking the index i

The not-so-good news but more likely news is that Cisco will decide not to warranty Linksys products and will introduce new, Cisco-branded products at a much higher price.

Well, here's to hoping that Microsoft won't buy Logitech, and Sun won't try to acquire Matrox.

Just found it today, via my gf, which is being showcased at the Softimage XSI Roadshow being the Matrox Parahelia which has a TRIPLE-HEAD OUTPUT....among other things

If only they could afford the $600 to benchmark it against all the other there, eh?

Later
Josh

"ATI did have superior 2D quality (to my eyes) and Video/DVD playback. Given I spend 90% on my time on a desktop, ATI had the right mix of features."

Have you looked at Matrox's product range lately?

If I were building a system for primary 2D operations, that's who I'd be buying from. Their cards are wonderful.

How about this?

I think they're still kicking around. They don't really seem to be up on the superfast3dgamer market, but they make good cards for graphic editing, and the dual-head is nice with the multi-monitor suppose.

If I had the cash, I'd be playing my games on three monitors... which is supposed to work nicely on the matrox dual-head cards.

The article failed to mention Matrox's staple of the stock-trading world, the G200 MMS. It's a quad-head card PCI card with ability to drive 4 DVI panels. I've been using one for about eighteen months now, and after using good DVI panels (I now have IBM 17" LCDs) I will never go back to an MM setup with analog panels. The difference in clarity and response is well worth it.

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/g200_mms/home .c fm

Oh yeah, my dream setup is to have a Matrox Parhelia and a 9X Media 3 pane display.

Just a very satisfied customer.

While you most certainly don't need multiple AGP ports for multi-monitor (there are several solutions: Most video cards nowadays let you multihead with a single card. Examples: GF4 4400 (using that in this PC right now), ATI 8500, Matrox (Matrox even has a triple head solution). Occasionally you need to get a DVI->VGA adapter for the second port if you don't have a DVI LCD screen, but it isn't a biggie.

Right now as I type this I'm typing on the right monitor while on the left monitor I have a game of Urban Terror going (I'm dead right now so I have some downtime). Normally I use dual-monitors to have documentation (i.e. web sites, MSDN, etc) open on one monitor and the development environment on the other. It really is brilliant and I find it difficult operating without it now.

three things:
1) Dual head AGP cards already exist, Matrox even has a triple head AGP card.
2) What's wrong with PCI cards? If you use it for work (like you said in the first part of your comment), I don't see what's wrong with it. I'm using 1 AGP and 1 PCI right now and I'm happy the way it is. usually I use my main monitor, which has a higher resolution, for coding and at the same time my second screen is cluttered with IRC, IM and online-documentation
3) I don't think dual AGP slotted mobo's will become standard real soon: people have lots of PCI slots and that din't encourage people to go dual/triple/... screen. I rather think that dual AGP will remain something for techies, geeks and professionals.

And remember kids: the more monitos you have, the larger your penis is!

Choosing Chips Pt. 3

It's easy to see that assumptions may lead a consumer to believe that the INTEL product is a better processor. These basics may have some validity on paper but not so in the real world. Why the lesson on MHz, die size, bus speeds and cache? The lesson is not which processor is better. The lesson is to not make performance assumptions based in the belief that bigger numbers are better.

AMD has changed the fact that more MHz means better. As mentioned previously, side by side processor comparisons between INTEL and AMD chips prove this. The 64-dollar question is why?

By using a layman's analogy once again, an INTEL CPU engine may run at a higher RPM (MHz) but it doesn't have the equivalent torque to match the high RPM (MHz). An AMD processor may run at a lower megahertz but it does have better torque. This is an incredibly simplified explanation but it gives the needed broad brush strokes. AMD technology on how the processor is geared allows their processors to rival and, in some cases, surpass INTEL processors that are clocked at a much higher frequency.

So how does a consumer decide upon which processor? It's safe to say that the majority of PC buyers only care that it works and works fast enough for their needs. The average consumer either doesn't understand or could care less about Front Side Bus Speed, how many transistors there are, or how small a die is. A lot of PC buyers also do not realize that there is another choice beyond what is widely and visibly available on store shelves. AMD vs. INTEL marketing and product awareness is another topic altogether and best left alone lest we travel down another long road.

To berate a point, AMD has shown that in today's marketplace GHz is not the defining mark of a processor. The important piece to the education puzzle is how each of these processors compares in benchmark tests especially introducing the performance to cost side of the equation. There are many comparisons that pit the AMD processor against rival INTEL in the never-ending battle of who's the best. Read a couple of these reviews and they will show in the multitude of benchmark tests that these processors trade off pole positions. In one test AMD may edge out INTEL and in another INTEL may come out ahead. In most the difference between the two is a matter of seconds, frames, or a handful of points. In real world everyday performance there would be an almost unnoticeable difference in most applications when comparing similar processors.

Bar graphs may show who's ahead but it's important to look at the physical numbers before making a decision. Ask yourself who's ahead and by how much and in what particular application. A 2.8 GHz INTEL processor may achieve more frames per second than an AMD 2600+ in Quake but without insult, the difference is small and most likely unnoticed by the user actually playing the game unless their goal is boasting rights.

That being said what would be another deciding factor? The AMD processor is priced far more competitively than the INTEL processor which means there's more money left over to pocket or spend on more RAM, a better video card or another hard drive.

Processor Prices*

AMD

INTEL

Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13 GHz)

$300

Pentium 4 2.8 GHz

$537

Athlon XP 2400+ (2 GHz)

$200

Pentium 4 2.53 GHz

$240

Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8 GHz)

$146

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz

$206

Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73 GHz)

$112

Pentium 4 2.2 GHz

$202

Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67 GHz)

$59

Pentium 4 2.0 GHz

$161

Athlon XP 1900+ (1.6 GHz)

$78

Pentium 4 1.9 GHz

$154

Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53 GHz)

$64

Pentium 4 1.8 GHz

$139

Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47 GHz)

$59

Pentium 4 1.7 GHz

$125

Athlon XP 1600+ (1.43 GHz)

$52

Pentium 4 1.6 GHz

$117

Athlon XP 1500+ (1.4 GHz)

$53

Pentium 4 1.5 GHz

$102

*Prices in USDfrom www.pricewatch.com August 31, 02 Socket A/478 processors.

But you may think GHz to GHz again and wonder why you are paying $200 for an AMD 2400+ (2 GHz) when for another $6 more the 2.6 GHz Intel processor is available. A buyer may think that $6 for another point four GHz may be better. But that's just not the case. Read a review or three and there will be a performance picture that will form. Combine the performance/price analysis with your expectations and then the answer should be clearer.

The final scoff any nay-sayer of AMD product may volunteer is that of stability. Many consumers state the reason for choosing INTEL is due to the perception that INTEL systems are more stable and require less driver updates and tweaking. This may have been the case years ago but is completely false at present. Any system can be properly set up and IF LEFT ALONE will or should continue to operate as intended. AMD systems are stable. If a consumer purchases a pre-configured AMD system from a reputable source they are going to have the same stability experience as if they purchased a pre-configured INTEL system. Large pre-configured PC suppliers go to great lengths to ensure that all of the components as sold work reliably with each other right out of the box. Intel is also the dominant force with far more processors per PC than AMD. Software and hardware developers would choose to align and optimize their product with the processor product that is in more homes and businesses. It's a marketing move. If a consumer chooses to build the computer from individually purchased components then they run the same risk of hardware conflicts and problems regardless of processor choice.

Which processor is better? Which truck is better, Chevy or Ford? I don't think an overall clear-cut winner can be crowned but when trying to build a powerful system within a budget we think of ourselves as smart shoppers by getting the most with AMD.

The mother of all boards

Selecting an AMD based system has other advantages. AMD based motherboards offer a wider range of motherboard configuration options than rival INTEL based motherboards. Which AMD driven motherboard is a matter of the requirements mixed with a dash of personal experience, a pinch of recommendations from friends, a paragraph or twenty from the forums and a page or four or sixty of research.

I admit I've had a preference for ABIT product. I've grown to rely on ABIT for their stability and flexibility. They offer a wide range of choices to suit almost any need. The ABIT AT7 was supplied to us for this system which proved to be really good...and really bad.

CPU

• Supports AMD-K7 Athlon /Athlon XP Socket A 200/266MHz FSB Processors
  
• Supports AMD-K7 Duron Socket A 200 MHz FSB Processors
  
  

Chipset

• VIA KT333 / VIA VT8233A
  
• Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 IDE protocol
  
• Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
  
• Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 2X(3.3V)and 4X(1.5V)mode (Sideband) device
  
• Supports 200/266/333 MHz (100/133/166MHz Double Data Rate) Memory Bus Setting
  
  

Ultra DMA 133/ RAID

• High Point HPT374 IDE Controller
  
• Ultra DMA 133MB/sec data transfer rate
  
• RAID 0 (striping mode for boosting performance)
  
• RAID 1 (mirroring mode for data security)
  
• RAID 0 + 1(striping and mirroring)
  
  

Memory

• Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 DDR DRAM modules
  
• Supports DDR333 unbuffered DRAMs up to 2GB and registered DRAMs up to 3GB
  
• Supports 6 banks up to 3GB DRAMs for unbuffered DDR200/266 modules
  
• Supports 8 banks up to 3.5GB DRAMs for registered DDR200/266 modules
  
  

Audio

• Realtek ALC650 (AC-Link)
  
• Supports 6CH DAC for AC3 5.1 CH purpose
  
• Professional digital audio interface supporting 24-bit SPDIF OUT
  
• Card Reader (Optional)
  
• Supports Memory card (MS or SD) Interface
  
• Supports SONY Memory Stick Interface/ SD Memory Card Interface
  
• Supports Compact Flash ROM Interface
  
  

System BIOS

• SoftMenu III Technology to set CPU parameters
  
• Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
  
• Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI)
  
• Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI)
  
• Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS
  
  

LAN

• On board Realtek 8100B single chip Ethernet controller interface
  
• 10/100Mb Operation
  
• User friendly driver included
  
  

Multi I/O Functions

• 2 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to 4 Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 devices
  
• 4 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to 8 Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 (RAID 0/1/1+0) devices
  
• 4 USB 1.1 Connectors
  
• On board VIA VT6202 USB 2.0 header for four extra USB channels
  
• Three 1394a fully compliant cable ports at 100/200/400 megabits per second
  
• Audio connector (Line-in, Center/Sub, Surround Spk , Front Spk , Mic-in)
  
  

Miscellaneous

• ATX form factor
  
• 1 AGP 1.5v slot, 3 PCI slots
  
• Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature
  

Motherboard Pros and Cons

It boils down to a few obvious reasons why this board made the top of the list. The AT7 has the capacity to support an obscene amount of hard drive space. When working in broadcast design with uncompressed video it's going to be needed. External storage solutions of any substance are extremely expensive. The AT7 could feasibly run eight 160 Gigabyte drives off the highpoint controller. That's over a terabyte of hard drive space which is almost 1000 hours of video at DVD quality. As I said before...it's an obscene amount of hard drive space. Data integrity is of a concern but a mirrored array can be easily set up. As a rule, in a professional work environment, projects should and are backed up to external media as completed.

The AT7 has 4 USB headers which is becoming commonplace but is always of benefit. The AT7 also features USB 2.0 support and it's good to have technology that looks forward anticipating options rather than falling quickly into obsolescence.

Two built-in 1394a (FireWire) ports were of great value. Shoving large files (400-800 MB) around a network can be excruciatingly slow. A quick solution was to transfer data to an external FireWire drive and then walk the drive from system to system as it was required and that isn't too often. It's a reusable and fast conduit for large file transfer between the graphic workstations and the edit suite, MAC or PC. It's true. Not every business is perfect and the IT folks just haven't got around to connecting the graphic design workstations with the non-linear suites on their own large bandwidth network.

The AT7 came with other onboard features that presented a cost effective solution compared to purchasing 3rd party PCI cards and these include surprisingly good 6 Channel sound and NIC.

There is only one caution with the AT7 and one issue.

The AT7 does not have parallel or serial ports on the back plane. It is a legacy free motherboard. If there is a need to attach these types of peripherals then the AT7 will disappoint.

The issue with the AT7 was of questionable support of the new AMD Thoroughbred processors. The AT7 wasn't totally compatible with this new series of processors. It was extremely unstable with any amount or combination of DIMMS of Registered ECC ram. Unbuffered RAM in any amount or combination would eventually generate a HARDWARE MALFUNCTION blue screen. This occurred every 3-5 hours for no apparent reason. It is hoped that a future BIOS will fix this or future AT7 boards have been tweaked at the assembly plant.

Please note that a 1900+ Palomino processor functioned beautifully with 4 DIMMS of 256 MB PC2100 memory in either Registered ECC or unbuffered sampling. The AT7 test system chugged magnificently through render after render without a problem. I hope ABIT is focused on the concerns pointed out and will hopefully have a solution soon.

A Clear Choice

This comment comes from the art director and makes me cringe as powerful hardware costs powerful bucks. Complex 2D and 3D work has a tendency to eat video cards for breakfast. A fast gaming card usually does not have the supporting features and will quickly expose its shortcomings under a task especially in 3D design. Enter a powerful Matrox Parhelia at a significantly less than powerful cost.

A clear choice

The background on the Matrox Parhelia 512 comes from Icrontic's initial review.

The Parhelia-512 is the world's first 512-bit Graphics Processing Unit packed with 256 MB DDR on board. A 256-bit memory interface shoveling out a hefty 17.6 GB/s 275 MHz memory bandwidth.

Matrox is well known for their world class DualHead dual monitor support and now they have taken it one step further by adding a third monitor. The third monitor opens up a new era of gaming that Matrox has dubbed Surround Gaming. How are they going to do this and maintain frame rates AND take gaming environments to the next level? Matrox created a Quad Vertex Shader Array made up of four 128-bit vertex shader engines. Add the highest quality trilinear and anistropic filtering through their 64 Super Sample Texture Filtering. Matrox also boasts that their 36-Stage Shader Array is the most complex rendering engine ever built. Smooth it all out with 16x Fragment Antialiasing (FAA-16x).

SURROUND GAMING obviously wasn't a priority in a video card for broadcast design. It wouldn't be productive for the designers to be fragging away in Quake instead of doing their work. But they still did anyway. The term used was research but I didn't believe that for a minute. Below Softimage XSIoccupies two monitors and the third is available for Illustrator. This is very handy for changing any textures inside Softimage.

Another phrase floating about the Matrox offices these days is SURROUND DESIGN. In the past PC monitors got larger as graphic designers needed more elbow room to work. Then came two monitors providing space to place and there isn't a system in the author's design department that isn't dual monitor. If it's single monitor then it's for e-mail and that's because that hardware hasn't been replaced yet.

Then in came the Parhelia sporting triple monitors and the designers looked at me as if I was nuts. Sebastian MacDougal of Matrox explains:

Matrox Parhelia and Surround Design are enjoying a lot of support from design focused Independent Software Vendors (ISV's) who agree that the more you can see, the more productive you will become. The ability to either spread a project across three displays or having the ability to place various windows strategically across your desktop for better organization is something that workstation users have been asking for, for years. However, in the past it required using multiple cards which drastically reduced performance, and unless you are using Parhelia, this is still the case with competing graphics solutions today. But perhaps the most substantial benefit for the ISV's that we work so closely with is that Surround Design, in most cases, requires no direct intervention at the SW level in order to get it to work, meaning it is very easy for most ISV's to support and the advantages are enormous. To give you an idea, with the current 1.01 driver, Parhelia and Surround Design is optimized for: Softimage|XSI , 3ds max, AutoCAD and Microstation, with many other applications to follow shortly. At Siggraph 2002 in San Antonio Texas, the reception on the part of attendees to Parhelia and Surround Design was tremendous and it is completely understandable. An interesting analogy is how designing on one monitor is similar to a horse with blinders, having three displays just opens things up and allows you to be more productive.

Initially the designers didn't know what to do with the third monitor but in time they began using the extra display each in their own way. Due to the fact that the system had sufficient power and resources they could work in two or three programs simultaneously. For example After Effects is much easier to work in over two monitors and, thus, the third monitor allowed for Photoshop or Illustrator to remain open and easily accessible to adjust or create any elements for use within the After Effects project. The Parhelia has the memory size and graphics processing power to allow for smooth interaction with these programs. Combine this with the strength of the CPU and available system RAM and many a designer were kept happy.

How a user may work with three monitors is up to them but a third desktop enables a user to work within a program that is better suited for two monitors AND keep access to other tools without having to minimize or hide the main program. For example Adobe After Effects stays open in two monitors and Photoshop remains accessible on the third. Pictures above speak louder than words.

One of the Parhelia's strong selling features is, what Matrox has termed, GigaColor. This feature and its benefits were expanded upon in Icrontic's first review.

Dig around and there's a feature that most may not pay attention to but for the 2D/3D graphics professional and even the home user it will mean stunning images right to the desktop. Matrox hung the term 10-bit GigaColor on it. To you and me it is 10-bit video technology and it runs through a very speedy dual integrated 400 MHz 10-bit RAMDAC. That leaves the competition many MHz back. 10-bit technology is the same technology that allows for precise picture control in home theatre DVD players. 10-bit technology can partially be found in high-end video cards that cost thousands of dollars.

The difference is that Parhelia-512 delivers 10-bit technology through the entire card.

It must be told that 10-bit GigaColor still remains a bit of a mystery though it has been literally beaten into my ears by the kind folks over at Matrox. 10-bit GigaColor provides for an increase in the shades of any given color from the standard of 256 to 1024. The color palette leaps up from 16.7 million to 1 billion. This is a benefit when acquiring images such as through the use of a scanner where image control will be to a greater precision at time of capture. A greater range of the shades of a color is available thus greater control over what is kept or discarded is possible. This would primarily benefit print and magazine pre-press artists.

But sadly we people in television deal in comparatively grainy and low rest images and the benefits of GigaColor didn't jump out and bite us on the nose. For the record the designers did notice the desktop appeared more saturated and colorful when it was pointed out to them. You have to understand that designers work with what they have. Technology is not such a big deal. They care about what they can do with it rather than what it has under the hood. Though we would be much more satisfied if the rest of the computer system moved to 10-bit color base but that would mean new technology for ...well...everything.

There is good news on the horizon about GigaColor according to Matrox.

Upcoming OS's from Microsoft (i.e. Longhorn) will include support for greater than 8-bit per color channel precision at the desktop level, which is why you are seeing more and more companies include support for higher precision color depths. But of course, we were the first and are the first shipping product to offer that functionality, and as we make our own boards you know you'll get the right components for sustained image quality

The designers were quick to adapt to the flexibility the Parhelia offered and enjoyed working in an environment that produced clear, crisp images to the desktop. The only drawback is each of them would like a Parhelia of their own and 3 digital flat panels. That means a few more dollars added to this year's capital purchase forms. More paperwork....just what I enjoy.

Keeping Cool

The heatsink is also just another player in the heat game. As the Case Cooling Tweaks articles point out the correct choice of a PC case and additional fan modifications can help win the battle against heat and noise.

On the Case

Breaking out of the beige box...the right way.

AMK Computers came to the table with the SX1000 and set up a workstation case that delivers looks, cooling efficiency and a few other treats. The base SX1000 case comes standard with

• Space 4 drives in a removable bay
  
• Space for a zip and floppy in a removable bay.
  
• fan mounts (two front-two rear)
  
• space for 4 external 5.25 inch drives
  
• locking access panel
  
• locking front drive cover
  
  

To this AMK added:

• A side window with 2 more fans
  
• A top blowhole
  
• VBLOCK sound dampening material
  
• Cable Loom
  
• Rounded cables
  
• Digital Doc 5
  
• Enermax 465 PSU (FC)
  
• Fan filters
  
  

The neon lights were thrown in for this article just to make the case look better. I think they add a few MHz here and there due to the fact the case looks faster.

Seven fans plus the two Enermax PSU fans and heatsink fan may seem like a lot and loud. Quite the opposite as all the case fans were kept to ADDA 25 CFM/ 25 dBA specifications and regulated by the Digital Doc 5 fan controller. When the fans were not needed they were shut off. Only two fans, the top exhaust blowhole fan and one of the rear exhaust fans, were kept constantly running. (In addition to the PSU and heatsink fans). The two always on fans provided continual airflow yet emitted a minimum of noise. Again the computer in non-stress applications or when not rendering ran at below 30 dBA...less than a normal whisper.

The heatsink is warmed by the processor as the system was stressed. The fin design of the CAK4-76T allowed for the tips of the Digital Doc 5 thermistors to be inserted between the fins. This did not block airflow but this configuration allowed the Digital Doc 5 to directly read the temperature of the heatsink. Fans were turned on or off in a preset order to compensate for the increases or decreases in temperature. A full roar my cat was louder.

The last cooling tweak was to apply the WPCRSET tweak to enable the CPU halt command. This halts the processor and allows it to drop 5-10 degrees Celsius off pre-tweak levels. Besides updating the drivers the WPCRSET tweak was the only software OS hack if it could be called that.

In order to test this configuration a SOFTIMAGE project followed by an After Effects project were rendered out. The Softimage render took approximately 50 minutes (the first flat peak) and the After Effects render (the second peak) took 10 minutes. The following graph shows the temperatures never exceeded 46 degrees Celsius (23.5 C room temperature) which is only a 10-12 degree Celsius increase over base line temperature. That's a very satisfactory result especially with a system that operates through a range of 25-35 dBA.

The neon lights are available as an option and it was rather humorous watching designers and other employees wander by, stop, and back up to take a second look. Most came in and peered into the side window of the PC and said the word cool a lot. It is true that these people know of nothing other than the beige box. They asked why the window? The answer was why not?

Computers can become very dusty even in apparently clean offices. Filters are the solution to greatly cut down on the amount of dust that collects and clogs a PC after months of use. Filters do reduce airflow but they are worth it. A picture is worth a thousand words and this was the result of only 3 weeks of operation. The fans these filters covered were also not spinning at all times. This dust was the result of what was sucked into the case (or tried to be) from the airflow generated by the back plate and PSU fan. The filter on the left is clean and the one on the right...ugh.

The plethora of benchmark programs can be important when determining what does what task faster or better. These are specific assessments of individual functions. For this article it was decided to add a few more of what is our assessment of real world tests. It was also thought important to show how a change in one particular component could affect end results. It is hoped that the result of these tests will help you assess priorities in system configuration to match the priorities in system expectations.

The test system.

• AMD 2100+ Thoroughbred Core Processor
  
• AMD 1900+ Palomino Core Processor
  
• ABIT AT7 motherboard
  
• Matrox Parhelia 512 triple head video card in single head mode* 1.01.69 beta driver
  
• 2 x 512 MB Micron PC2100 RAM
  
• Sony 52x CD
  
• LG 32x10x40x CDRW
  
• 16 x DVD (not included in pricing)
  
• 40 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
  
• 60 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
  
• 2 x Samsung 950p 19 Monitors
  
• USB Keyboard and Logitech USB wireless Optical Mouse
  
• Globalwin CAK4-76T HSF
  
• AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
  
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
  
• Windows XP Professional build 2600 updated
  
• Digital Doc5
  
  

*dual and triple monitors enabled for Adobe After Effects and Softimage benchmarks only.

Programs used:

• Sisoft Sandra 2002
  
• ZD Media Business Winstone 2001
  
• ZD Media Content Creation Winstone 2001
  
• MadOnion 3DMark 2001 SE
  
• Quake III Arena
  
• Passmark Performance.
  
• Commanche 4
  
• Serious Sam: the Second Encounter
  
• GL Excess
  
• Drone Z
  
• SpecviewPerf 7.0
  
• PSBench
  
• Adobe Photoshop 7.0
  
• Adobe After Effects 5.5
  
• SoftimageXSI 2.0.1
  
• MediaCleaner Pro 5
  

The above benchmark programs are publicly available. For more about Ziff Davis and the etesting labs program go here.

Choosing Chips Pt. 3

It's easy to see that assumptions may lead a consumer to believe that the INTEL product is a better processor. These basics may have some validity on paper but not so in the real world. Why the lesson on MHz, die size, bus speeds and cache? The lesson is not which processor is better. The lesson is to not make performance assumptions based in the belief that bigger numbers are better.

AMD has changed the fact that more MHz means better. As mentioned previously, side by side processor comparisons between INTEL and AMD chips prove this. The 64-dollar question is why?

By using a layman's analogy once again, an INTEL CPU engine may run at a higher RPM (MHz) but it doesn't have the equivalent torque to match the high RPM (MHz). An AMD processor may run at a lower megahertz but it does have better torque. This is an incredibly simplified explanation but it gives the needed broad brush strokes. AMD technology on how the processor is geared allows their processors to rival and, in some cases, surpass INTEL processors that are clocked at a much higher frequency.

So how does a consumer decide upon which processor? It's safe to say that the majority of PC buyers only care that it works and works fast enough for their needs. The average consumer either doesn't understand or could care less about Front Side Bus Speed, how many transistors there are, or how small a die is. A lot of PC buyers also do not realize that there is another choice beyond what is widely and visibly available on store shelves. AMD vs. INTEL marketing and product awareness is another topic altogether and best left alone lest we travel down another long road.

To berate a point, AMD has shown that in today's marketplace GHz is not the defining mark of a processor. The important piece to the education puzzle is how each of these processors compares in benchmark tests especially introducing the performance to cost side of the equation. There are many comparisons that pit the AMD processor against rival INTEL in the never-ending battle of who's the best. Read a couple of these reviews and they will show in the multitude of benchmark tests that these processors trade off pole positions. In one test AMD may edge out INTEL and in another INTEL may come out ahead. In most the difference between the two is a matter of seconds, frames, or a handful of points. In real world everyday performance there would be an almost unnoticeable difference in most applications when comparing similar processors.

Bar graphs may show who's ahead but it's important to look at the physical numbers before making a decision. Ask yourself who's ahead and by how much and in what particular application. A 2.8 GHz INTEL processor may achieve more frames per second than an AMD 2600+ in Quake but without insult, the difference is small and most likely unnoticed by the user actually playing the game unless their goal is boasting rights.

That being said what would be another deciding factor? The AMD processor is priced far more competitively than the INTEL processor which means there's more money left over to pocket or spend on more RAM, a better video card or another hard drive.

Processor Prices*

AMD

INTEL

Athlon XP 2600+ (2.13 GHz)

$300

Pentium 4 2.8 GHz

$537

Athlon XP 2400+ (2 GHz)

$200

Pentium 4 2.53 GHz

$240

Athlon XP 2200+ (1.8 GHz)

$146

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz

$206

Athlon XP 2100+ (1.73 GHz)

$112

Pentium 4 2.2 GHz

$202

Athlon XP 2000+ (1.67 GHz)

$59

Pentium 4 2.0 GHz

$161

Athlon XP 1900+ (1.6 GHz)

$78

Pentium 4 1.9 GHz

$154

Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53 GHz)

$64

Pentium 4 1.8 GHz

$139

Athlon XP 1700+ (1.47 GHz)

$59

Pentium 4 1.7 GHz

$125

Athlon XP 1600+ (1.43 GHz)

$52

Pentium 4 1.6 GHz

$117

Athlon XP 1500+ (1.4 GHz)

$53

Pentium 4 1.5 GHz

$102

*Prices in USDfrom www.pricewatch.com August 31, 02 Socket A/478 processors.

But you may think GHz to GHz again and wonder why you are paying $200 for an AMD 2400+ (2 GHz) when for another $6 more the 2.6 GHz Intel processor is available. A buyer may think that $6 for another point four GHz may be better. But that's just not the case. Read a review or three and there will be a performance picture that will form. Combine the performance/price analysis with your expectations and then the answer should be clearer.

The final scoff any nay-sayer of AMD product may volunteer is that of stability. Many consumers state the reason for choosing INTEL is due to the perception that INTEL systems are more stable and require less driver updates and tweaking. This may have been the case years ago but is completely false at present. Any system can be properly set up and IF LEFT ALONE will or should continue to operate as intended. AMD systems are stable. If a consumer purchases a pre-configured AMD system from a reputable source they are going to have the same stability experience as if they purchased a pre-configured INTEL system. Large pre-configured PC suppliers go to great lengths to ensure that all of the components as sold work reliably with each other right out of the box. Intel is also the dominant force with far more processors per PC than AMD. Software and hardware developers would choose to align and optimize their product with the processor product that is in more homes and businesses. It's a marketing move. If a consumer chooses to build the computer from individually purchased components then they run the same risk of hardware conflicts and problems regardless of processor choice.

Which processor is better? Which truck is better, Chevy or Ford? I don't think an overall clear-cut winner can be crowned but when trying to build a powerful system within a budget we think of ourselves as smart shoppers by getting the most with AMD.

The mother of all boards

Selecting an AMD based system has other advantages. AMD based motherboards offer a wider range of motherboard configuration options than rival INTEL based motherboards. Which AMD driven motherboard is a matter of the requirements mixed with a dash of personal experience, a pinch of recommendations from friends, a paragraph or twenty from the forums and a page or four or sixty of research.

I admit I've had a preference for ABIT product. I've grown to rely on ABIT for their stability and flexibility. They offer a wide range of choices to suit almost any need. The ABIT AT7 was supplied to us for this system which proved to be really good...and really bad.

CPU

• Supports AMD-K7 Athlon /Athlon XP Socket A 200/266MHz FSB Processors
  
• Supports AMD-K7 Duron Socket A 200 MHz FSB Processors
  
  

Chipset

• VIA KT333 / VIA VT8233A
  
• Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 IDE protocol
  
• Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)
  
• Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 2X(3.3V)and 4X(1.5V)mode (Sideband) device
  
• Supports 200/266/333 MHz (100/133/166MHz Double Data Rate) Memory Bus Setting
  
  

Ultra DMA 133/ RAID

• High Point HPT374 IDE Controller
  
• Ultra DMA 133MB/sec data transfer rate
  
• RAID 0 (striping mode for boosting performance)
  
• RAID 1 (mirroring mode for data security)
  
• RAID 0 + 1(striping and mirroring)
  
  

Memory

• Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support PC1600/PC2100/PC2700 DDR DRAM modules
  
• Supports DDR333 unbuffered DRAMs up to 2GB and registered DRAMs up to 3GB
  
• Supports 6 banks up to 3GB DRAMs for unbuffered DDR200/266 modules
  
• Supports 8 banks up to 3.5GB DRAMs for registered DDR200/266 modules
  
  

Audio

• Realtek ALC650 (AC-Link)
  
• Supports 6CH DAC for AC3 5.1 CH purpose
  
• Professional digital audio interface supporting 24-bit SPDIF OUT
  
• Card Reader (Optional)
  
• Supports Memory card (MS or SD) Interface
  
• Supports SONY Memory Stick Interface/ SD Memory Card Interface
  
• Supports Compact Flash ROM Interface
  
  

System BIOS

• SoftMenu III Technology to set CPU parameters
  
• Supports Plug-and-Play (PNP)
  
• Supports Advanced Configuration Power Interface (ACPI)
  
• Supports Desktop Management Interface (DMI)
  
• Write-Protect Anti-Virus function by AWARD BIOS
  
  

LAN

• On board Realtek 8100B single chip Ethernet controller interface
  
• 10/100Mb Operation
  
• User friendly driver included
  
  

Multi I/O Functions

• 2 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to 4 Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 devices
  
• 4 Channels of Bus Master IDE Ports supporting up to 8 Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 (RAID 0/1/1+0) devices
  
• 4 USB 1.1 Connectors
  
• On board VIA VT6202 USB 2.0 header for four extra USB channels
  
• Three 1394a fully compliant cable ports at 100/200/400 megabits per second
  
• Audio connector (Line-in, Center/Sub, Surround Spk , Front Spk , Mic-in)
  
  

Miscellaneous

• ATX form factor
  
• 1 AGP 1.5v slot, 3 PCI slots
  
• Hardware monitoring - Including Fan speeds, Voltages, System environment temperature
  

Motherboard Pros and Cons

It boils down to a few obvious reasons why this board made the top of the list. The AT7 has the capacity to support an obscene amount of hard drive space. When working in broadcast design with uncompressed video it's going to be needed. External storage solutions of any substance are extremely expensive. The AT7 could feasibly run eight 160 Gigabyte drives off the highpoint controller. That's over a terabyte of hard drive space which is almost 1000 hours of video at DVD quality. As I said before...it's an obscene amount of hard drive space. Data integrity is of a concern but a mirrored array can be easily set up. As a rule, in a professional work environment, projects should and are backed up to external media as completed.

The AT7 has 4 USB headers which is becoming commonplace but is always of benefit. The AT7 also features USB 2.0 support and it's good to have technology that looks forward anticipating options rather than falling quickly into obsolescence.

Two built-in 1394a (FireWire) ports were of great value. Shoving large files (400-800 MB) around a network can be excruciatingly slow. A quick solution was to transfer data to an external FireWire drive and then walk the drive from system to system as it was required and that isn't too often. It's a reusable and fast conduit for large file transfer between the graphic workstations and the edit suite, MAC or PC. It's true. Not every business is perfect and the IT folks just haven't got around to connecting the graphic design workstations with the non-linear suites on their own large bandwidth network.

The AT7 came with other onboard features that presented a cost effective solution compared to purchasing 3rd party PCI cards and these include surprisingly good 6 Channel sound and NIC.

There is only one caution with the AT7 and one issue.

The AT7 does not have parallel or serial ports on the back plane. It is a legacy free motherboard. If there is a need to attach these types of peripherals then the AT7 will disappoint.

The issue with the AT7 was of questionable support of the new AMD Thoroughbred processors. The AT7 wasn't totally compatible with this new series of processors. It was extremely unstable with any amount or combination of DIMMS of Registered ECC ram. Unbuffered RAM in any amount or combination would eventually generate a HARDWARE MALFUNCTION blue screen. This occurred every 3-5 hours for no apparent reason. It is hoped that a future BIOS will fix this or future AT7 boards have been tweaked at the assembly plant.

Please note that a 1900+ Palomino processor functioned beautifully with 4 DIMMS of 256 MB PC2100 memory in either Registered ECC or unbuffered sampling. The AT7 test system chugged magnificently through render after render without a problem. I hope ABIT is focused on the concerns pointed out and will hopefully have a solution soon.

A Clear Choice

This comment comes from the art director and makes me cringe as powerful hardware costs powerful bucks. Complex 2D and 3D work has a tendency to eat video cards for breakfast. A fast gaming card usually does not have the supporting features and will quickly expose its shortcomings under a task especially in 3D design. Enter a powerful Matrox Parhelia at a significantly less than powerful cost.

A clear choice

The background on the Matrox Parhelia 512 comes from Icrontic's initial review.

The Parhelia-512 is the world's first 512-bit Graphics Processing Unit packed with 256 MB DDR on board. A 256-bit memory interface shoveling out a hefty 17.6 GB/s 275 MHz memory bandwidth.

Matrox is well known for their world class DualHead dual monitor support and now they have taken it one step further by adding a third monitor. The third monitor opens up a new era of gaming that Matrox has dubbed Surround Gaming. How are they going to do this and maintain frame rates AND take gaming environments to the next level? Matrox created a Quad Vertex Shader Array made up of four 128-bit vertex shader engines. Add the highest quality trilinear and anistropic filtering through their 64 Super Sample Texture Filtering. Matrox also boasts that their 36-Stage Shader Array is the most complex rendering engine ever built. Smooth it all out with 16x Fragment Antialiasing (FAA-16x).

SURROUND GAMING obviously wasn't a priority in a video card for broadcast design. It wouldn't be productive for the designers to be fragging away in Quake instead of doing their work. But they still did anyway. The term used was research but I didn't believe that for a minute. Below Softimage XSIoccupies two monitors and the third is available for Illustrator. This is very handy for changing any textures inside Softimage.

Another phrase floating about the Matrox offices these days is SURROUND DESIGN. In the past PC monitors got larger as graphic designers needed more elbow room to work. Then came two monitors providing space to place and there isn't a system in the author's design department that isn't dual monitor. If it's single monitor then it's for e-mail and that's because that hardware hasn't been replaced yet.

Then in came the Parhelia sporting triple monitors and the designers looked at me as if I was nuts. Sebastian MacDougal of Matrox explains:

Matrox Parhelia and Surround Design are enjoying a lot of support from design focused Independent Software Vendors (ISV's) who agree that the more you can see, the more productive you will become. The ability to either spread a project across three displays or having the ability to place various windows strategically across your desktop for better organization is something that workstation users have been asking for, for years. However, in the past it required using multiple cards which drastically reduced performance, and unless you are using Parhelia, this is still the case with competing graphics solutions today. But perhaps the most substantial benefit for the ISV's that we work so closely with is that Surround Design, in most cases, requires no direct intervention at the SW level in order to get it to work, meaning it is very easy for most ISV's to support and the advantages are enormous. To give you an idea, with the current 1.01 driver, Parhelia and Surround Design is optimized for: Softimage|XSI , 3ds max, AutoCAD and Microstation, with many other applications to follow shortly. At Siggraph 2002 in San Antonio Texas, the reception on the part of attendees to Parhelia and Surround Design was tremendous and it is completely understandable. An interesting analogy is how designing on one monitor is similar to a horse with blinders, having three displays just opens things up and allows you to be more productive.

Initially the designers didn't know what to do with the third monitor but in time they began using the extra display each in their own way. Due to the fact that the system had sufficient power and resources they could work in two or three programs simultaneously. For example After Effects is much easier to work in over two monitors and, thus, the third monitor allowed for Photoshop or Illustrator to remain open and easily accessible to adjust or create any elements for use within the After Effects project. The Parhelia has the memory size and graphics processing power to allow for smooth interaction with these programs. Combine this with the strength of the CPU and available system RAM and many a designer were kept happy.

How a user may work with three monitors is up to them but a third desktop enables a user to work within a program that is better suited for two monitors AND keep access to other tools without having to minimize or hide the main program. For example Adobe After Effects stays open in two monitors and Photoshop remains accessible on the third. Pictures above speak louder than words.

One of the Parhelia's strong selling features is, what Matrox has termed, GigaColor. This feature and its benefits were expanded upon in Icrontic's first review.

Dig around and there's a feature that most may not pay attention to but for the 2D/3D graphics professional and even the home user it will mean stunning images right to the desktop. Matrox hung the term 10-bit GigaColor on it. To you and me it is 10-bit video technology and it runs through a very speedy dual integrated 400 MHz 10-bit RAMDAC. That leaves the competition many MHz back. 10-bit technology is the same technology that allows for precise picture control in home theatre DVD players. 10-bit technology can partially be found in high-end video cards that cost thousands of dollars.

The difference is that Parhelia-512 delivers 10-bit technology through the entire card.

It must be told that 10-bit GigaColor still remains a bit of a mystery though it has been literally beaten into my ears by the kind folks over at Matrox. 10-bit GigaColor provides for an increase in the shades of any given color from the standard of 256 to 1024. The color palette leaps up from 16.7 million to 1 billion. This is a benefit when acquiring images such as through the use of a scanner where image control will be to a greater precision at time of capture. A greater range of the shades of a color is available thus greater control over what is kept or discarded is possible. This would primarily benefit print and magazine pre-press artists.

But sadly we people in television deal in comparatively grainy and low rest images and the benefits of GigaColor didn't jump out and bite us on the nose. For the record the designers did notice the desktop appeared more saturated and colorful when it was pointed out to them. You have to understand that designers work with what they have. Technology is not such a big deal. They care about what they can do with it rather than what it has under the hood. Though we would be much more satisfied if the rest of the computer system moved to 10-bit color base but that would mean new technology for ...well...everything.

There is good news on the horizon about GigaColor according to Matrox.

Upcoming OS's from Microsoft (i.e. Longhorn) will include support for greater than 8-bit per color channel precision at the desktop level, which is why you are seeing more and more companies include support for higher precision color depths. But of course, we were the first and are the first shipping product to offer that functionality, and as we make our own boards you know you'll get the right components for sustained image quality

The designers were quick to adapt to the flexibility the Parhelia offered and enjoyed working in an environment that produced clear, crisp images to the desktop. The only drawback is each of them would like a Parhelia of their own and 3 digital flat panels. That means a few more dollars added to this year's capital purchase forms. More paperwork....just what I enjoy.

Keeping Cool

The heatsink is also just another player in the heat game. As the Case Cooling Tweaks articles point out the correct choice of a PC case and additional fan modifications can help win the battle against heat and noise.

On the Case

Breaking out of the beige box...the right way.

AMK Computers came to the table with the SX1000 and set up a workstation case that delivers looks, cooling efficiency and a few other treats. The base SX1000 case comes standard with

• Space 4 drives in a removable bay
  
• Space for a zip and floppy in a removable bay.
  
• fan mounts (two front-two rear)
  
• space for 4 external 5.25 inch drives
  
• locking access panel
  
• locking front drive cover
  
  

To this AMK added:

• A side window with 2 more fans
  
• A top blowhole
  
• VBLOCK sound dampening material
  
• Cable Loom
  
• Rounded cables
  
• Digital Doc 5
  
• Enermax 465 PSU (FC)
  
• Fan filters
  
  

The neon lights were thrown in for this article just to make the case look better. I think they add a few MHz here and there due to the fact the case looks faster.

Seven fans plus the two Enermax PSU fans and heatsink fan may seem like a lot and loud. Quite the opposite as all the case fans were kept to ADDA 25 CFM/ 25 dBA specifications and regulated by the Digital Doc 5 fan controller. When the fans were not needed they were shut off. Only two fans, the top exhaust blowhole fan and one of the rear exhaust fans, were kept constantly running. (In addition to the PSU and heatsink fans). The two always on fans provided continual airflow yet emitted a minimum of noise. Again the computer in non-stress applications or when not rendering ran at below 30 dBA...less than a normal whisper.

The heatsink is warmed by the processor as the system was stressed. The fin design of the CAK4-76T allowed for the tips of the Digital Doc 5 thermistors to be inserted between the fins. This did not block airflow but this configuration allowed the Digital Doc 5 to directly read the temperature of the heatsink. Fans were turned on or off in a preset order to compensate for the increases or decreases in temperature. A full roar my cat was louder.

The last cooling tweak was to apply the WPCRSET tweak to enable the CPU halt command. This halts the processor and allows it to drop 5-10 degrees Celsius off pre-tweak levels. Besides updating the drivers the WPCRSET tweak was the only software OS hack if it could be called that.

In order to test this configuration a SOFTIMAGE project followed by an After Effects project were rendered out. The Softimage render took approximately 50 minutes (the first flat peak) and the After Effects render (the second peak) took 10 minutes. The following graph shows the temperatures never exceeded 46 degrees Celsius (23.5 C room temperature) which is only a 10-12 degree Celsius increase over base line temperature. That's a very satisfactory result especially with a system that operates through a range of 25-35 dBA.

The neon lights are available as an option and it was rather humorous watching designers and other employees wander by, stop, and back up to take a second look. Most came in and peered into the side window of the PC and said the word cool a lot. It is true that these people know of nothing other than the beige box. They asked why the window? The answer was why not?

Computers can become very dusty even in apparently clean offices. Filters are the solution to greatly cut down on the amount of dust that collects and clogs a PC after months of use. Filters do reduce airflow but they are worth it. A picture is worth a thousand words and this was the result of only 3 weeks of operation. The fans these filters covered were also not spinning at all times. This dust was the result of what was sucked into the case (or tried to be) from the airflow generated by the back plate and PSU fan. The filter on the left is clean and the one on the right...ugh.

The plethora of benchmark programs can be important when determining what does what task faster or better. These are specific assessments of individual functions. For this article it was decided to add a few more of what is our assessment of real world tests. It was also thought important to show how a change in one particular component could affect end results. It is hoped that the result of these tests will help you assess priorities in system configuration to match the priorities in system expectations.

The test system.

• AMD 2100+ Thoroughbred Core Processor
  
• AMD 1900+ Palomino Core Processor
  
• ABIT AT7 motherboard
  
• Matrox Parhelia 512 triple head video card in single head mode* 1.01.69 beta driver
  
• 2 x 512 MB Micron PC2100 RAM
  
• Sony 52x CD
  
• LG 32x10x40x CDRW
  
• 16 x DVD (not included in pricing)
  
• 40 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
  
• 60 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
  
• 2 x Samsung 950p 19 Monitors
  
• USB Keyboard and Logitech USB wireless Optical Mouse
  
• Globalwin CAK4-76T HSF
  
• AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
  
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
  
• Windows XP Professional build 2600 updated
  
• Digital Doc5
  
  

*dual and triple monitors enabled for Adobe After Effects and Softimage benchmarks only.

Programs used:

• Sisoft Sandra 2002
  
• ZD Media Business Winstone 2001
  
• ZD Media Content Creation Winstone 2001
  
• MadOnion 3DMark 2001 SE
  
• Quake III Arena
  
• Passmark Performance.
  
• Commanche 4
  
• Serious Sam: the Second Encounter
  
• GL Excess
  
• Drone Z
  
• SpecviewPerf 7.0
  
• PSBench
  
• Adobe Photoshop 7.0
  
• Adobe After Effects 5.5
  
• SoftimageXSI 2.0.1
  
• MediaCleaner Pro 5
  

The above benchmark programs are publicly available. For more about Ziff Davis and the etesting labs program go here.

This is the full text of the article, unlike an earlier post, but it's going to appear as a series of posts. Bear with me, I'm having issues getting this in as one post, since it's about 90k. I thought the only problem was going to be finally retrieving all the pages after suffering through countless error messages. Unfortunately, slash-friendly HTML eliminates the pictures and tables, but I tried to keep the data in the tables. (Posting AC to avoid Karma wh0ring.) Enjoy.

Introduction

The power to create. Creative souls toil away inside the walls of the design department or I the dark confines of an edit suite in a television station. As the production manager I often see the graphic designers leaning back in their chairs staring at their monitors. When questioned I usually get the response...rendering. I'm often told there's a need for a second or third computer so they can do other work while one system is busy rendering. In the broadcast environment rendering usually means 1-4 hour waits for finished elements. If waiting for one system to finish a piece for use in commercial or promotion it can be hell when there are deadlines to meet. Time is money. Waiting is frustration. Hardware should not dictate creativity.

People often assume that I work with immensely powerful computing power in the television production world. Sometimes I do and those computers can come with price tags that the computer itself couldn't work out. Professional 2D/3D workstations are thought of as expensive and in today's market of shrinking profit margins the saying that you have to spend money to make money takes a back seat come capital request time.

So we here at Icrontic set out to build a bigger, better, badder workstation on a home PC budget.

The question of what is the best is not easily answered. Determining what is the best for your needs and expectations is a matter of knowing what your demands are and learning how to fulfill them. What is expected from the PC workstation? Do you want fast renders? Do you want to easily manipulate complex 3D scenes or drawings? Do you need the fastest processor, biggest video card, the most RAM or the fastest hard drives?

Can you do more for less?

That's what every manager wants to hear especially when assembling the yearly departmental budget. I'm in a unique position in my professional life and it allows a look at this problem from many sides; financial, user and builder. I wear one hat as the department manager. I wear a second hat as an active writer/producer/director who works daily with the department on television commercial projects. I wear a third hat as PR manager and a hardware reviewer for Icrontic. It means that I have no one to complain to but myself when it comes to the equipment not being fast enough. It also leaves me frustrated that the IT people dictate that I have to buy overpriced workstations when I know I can build two or even three systems for the same price.

So I unleashed a room full of designers on an affordable system we put together. (The image reminded me of a commercial, now a decade or three old, that features a gorilla doing his best to destroy a piece of luggage.) The designers are rooted in the MAC world and if a PC is required it has to be the hugely expensive and well-known order off the web workstations. (I'm not going to point fingers) Even the art director's personal home system is a three to four thousand USD dual 1.7 GHz Xeon workstation with an nVidia Quadro card.

Did we do it?

Simple answer? There isn't one. What looks good on paper may not perform well in reality. Benchmarks give some information but not the complete experience. More isn't necessarily better.

The best is a matter of debate but the smart consumer knows a lot about what they expect, a little about how it may work together and enough to choose the right combination of hardware. The following pages are just that; a guide to determine your expectations, answers to how it all works and a little bit of knowledge to make the right choices. Armed with this information you can more easily navigate the world of what's best for you through the ever-changing landscape of computer technology.

The big picture

The majority of PC consumers buy pre-built systems based on assumptions and budget. Today's PC consumer has more information at hand to select or build a PC that is better suited for their needs. Choosing or configuring the particular components is often based on how much, how fast and how big can it get while staying within a budget. The MHz rating of the processor is often the first consideration in this equation. The PC consumer looks for simple answers. Compromises are often made in order to divert budget to obtain a faster processor. The trap is the assumption that more megahertz is better could short-change other components in a system and the consumer ends up frustrated by a lack of desired performance to suit their needs.

The goal of this article was to build a PC, on an acceptable home buyer's budget, to function as a workstation capable of taking on 2D and 3D jobs in a broadcast television station. The hopeful conclusion will be to teach you that what you expect from the PC is the first question that must be answered before choosing the parts.

Defining broadcast industry standard in a PC has some grey area depending on where it is in the production chain. Broadcast video has to meet a set of parameters that can only be measured by a video waveform monitor. Expect to shovel out approximately $4000 USD to add this option for home use.

This PC will be used to output work that will eventually find its way to a non-linear editing system that assembles and outputs it to tape. While the display image is extremely important for the graphic designer it is the finished file itself that is eventually transferred to a format for playback to air. The video card will not be used to output a signal that will be recorded or used straight to air.

The work produced is either a completed piece or a collection of elements that are to be used in a completed piece. These elements may be produced solely or through the combination of 2D and 3D software applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects and Softimage. For example, Photoshop files may be used as name supers or background elements. On a larger scale, After Effects may be employed to composite Photoshop, Illustrator and Softimage elements plus internally generated elements and effects to build a complex timeline that is rendered producing a finished piece or pieces. A waveform monitor is referenced at certain stages to ensure the output does not exceed acceptable levels.

The PC workstation needed to be the right balance of components that have the power to manipulate complicated 2D and 3D applications real time then render at an acceptable rate. Image quality was important to display sharp, true images. This combination would be easy to obtain if money was no object...

But money is the object.

Is it possible to build a workstation on a budget then have it stand up against a room full of graphic designers? Broadcast production requires expensive specialty hardware but technology is making some leaps and bounds at the consumer level. Is it possible for the home PC buyer to have an affordable system that stands up to professional expectations?

As the old saying goes time is money and in the time it took to click a mouse a few times the price tag of a popular retail pre-configured workstation rocketed up to just over $11,000 Canadian or nearly $7,000 USD! That's not a typical home PC buyer's budget. Dude...we didn't have to get one!

So this is what we got.

The broadcast box:

• AMD 2100+ Thoroughbred Processor
  
• ABIT AT7 motherboard
  
• Matrox Parhelia 512 triple head video card
  
• 2 x 512 MB Micron PC2100 RAM
  
• Sony 52x CD
  
• LG 32x10x40x CDRW
  
• 40 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
  
• 60 GB Maxtor ATA133 Hard Drive
  
• 2 x Samsung 950p 19 Monitors
  
• USB Keyboard and Logitech USB wireless Optical Mouse
  
• Globalwin CAK4-76T HSF
  
• AMK SX1000 modded PC case (window, fans, cables, loom)
  
• Enermax 465 Watt FC PSU
  
• Windows XP Professional
  
• Digital Doc5
  
  

The price tag came in just over $3500 Canadian or approximately $2200 USD.* That's 70% less than the well known pre-configured workstations priced out initially. It may still be expensive for family use but it had to do a little more. The crucial step in choosing a system is determining what is expected of it. If it is there to surf the Internet, write the occasional school essay and send/receive e-mail then a very economically priced computer can be built.

It's just that e-mail was the last of the concerns in a workstation.

*prices including monitors and OS as of September 1, 02 currency converted from CNDto USD. Source: www.atic.ca

Choosing Chips Pt. 1

Choosing a system does begin with the processor as it determines choice of RAM and motherboard. This may lead to price differences that greatly affect the end product performance especially where a budget is concerned.

Choosing a processor used to be as simple as the most MHz for your money then add the other components to fit the budget. Intel has exploited public perception by raising the MHz bar ever higher. The question remains; is more...better?

AMD or INTEL: which to choose? These two companies play a rival game akin to David and Goliath where Intel's market share and marketing capital seemingly overwhelm AMD. Meanwhile AMD is the enthusiast's choice and many of these enthusiasts vehemently defend AMD for performance and where the smart money is. It's a lively discussion on whether the tables have turned and if INTEL is on the defense while AMD is on the offense. One cannot ignore the fact that the balance of power is shifting with AMD clawing away at INTEL market share. Why AMD is gaining chips away at the very foundation of INTEL claims that faster is better.

The introduction of the highest-performing PC processor in the world is a victory for application performance and a resounding defeat for the 'megahertz myth,' said Ed Ellett, vice president of marketing for AMD's Computation Products Group. As the performance leader, the AMD Athlon XP processor 2600+ reigns as the superior choice and delivers outstanding application performance for richer, high-powered digital computing.

The chip wars float around catch phrases to attract consumer attention. The most common is the megahertz or gigahertz rating. The buying public believes more is better. INTEL proudly trumpets this fact and AMD challenges it squarely. In side by side comparisons between INTEL and AMD processors the difference in the performance line between the two can be very thin. To some the choice is quite simple but if it's not then you need to know a little bit about what is coming to market and why to at least help in the decision process between models of processors.

The latest advancement is the recent move from 0.18-micron technology to 0.13-micron technology by both INTEL and AMD.

What's a micron and how big is it?

A micron is pretty darn small. There are twenty-five thousand four hundred microns to one inch. A human hair can be anywhere from about 40 to 300 microns wide. A powerful microscope is needed to see an object that is one micron wide. An object that is one micron wide is smaller than most bacteria. That's how small a micron is.

AMD and INTEL have reduced processor manufacturing to the 0.13-micron scale. That means the smallest circuit in the processor is only 13 microns wide. It's not like you could use your soldering iron to fix a broken connection. This is pretty close to the nanotechnology scale that is so often bantered around in the science fiction shows we watch.

Why is smaller better? Processor chips are etched onto wafers of silicon. If the overall size of the chip is reduced then more chips can be etched onto a single wafer of silicon. This increase in the number of chips per wafer reduces the cost of manufacture which, we hope, will be passed on to the consumer.

Processor manufacturers aim for a balance between reducing size and increasing processor capability. If a 0.18-micron processor is made using 0.13-micron technology then the overall space taken up by the circuitry is reduced. Let's put this on a scale that is easier to visualize. If a home theater system is shrunk in size by 50% and the bulky 33 TV is replaced by a flat panel TV then there would be a lot of room left over in that wall unit of yours for more stuff. You may choose to buy a smaller wall unit or cram more stuff into it. Perhaps a compromise could be reached between adding more stuff and reducing the size of the wall unit.

Processor manufactures do the same striving to reduce the overall size but still pack on more stuff.

Choosing Pt. 2

Good things in small packages.

Smaller is better and the additional stuff is notably an increase in L2 Cache. This may be a term that is familiar but not quite understood. Cache is small, fast memory located on the CPU. CPU Cache holds the most recently accessed code or data. This SRAM is accessed much faster than your main system memory because it's located right on the processor core. Processor manufacturers started to increase the amount of L2 Cache due to demands that software was making on the CPU. Manufacturers are also looking to increase the speed of this cache. The more data or code the L2 cache can contain and the faster it can process should mean an increase in system performance.

Voltage x resistance = bad.

The more that is packed onto a processor and the more it can do takes electrical power or voltage. This simply translates into an increase in thermal heat as MHz and technology increases. Reducing the scale or die size of the processor reduces the required voltage for the processor to properly function. An electrical signal traveling through a circuit meets resistance along the pathways. This resistance becomes heat similar to heat friction when you vigorously rub your hands together. If the distance the signal needs to traverse is reduced then the signal requires less energy to get around and thus encounters less resistance. Less voltage and less resistance equal less heat.

If the die size has been reduced then why the increase in heat as MHz increases? Quite simply no matter how small an engine is made it will get hotter as it runs faster. An important point to note is that faster processors do require more voltage at certain stages but they always generate more heat as the MHz climbs. By building processors on a smaller scale the heat curve has effectively been bumped down from previous, larger processor dies. AMD has also engineered other design and manufacturing tweaks to assist in the challenge of reducing thermal output and increasing speed. We all know heat is the enemy of any processor. Heat is a hot subject of discussion. Consider the following equation.

(Faster + voltage) = temperature - (fans x dBA)

This equation was just made up for this article but it states that faster requires more voltage and where temperature is the variable the number of fans or dBA of those fans must increase to provide balance to the equation in an air-cooled system. The faster you want to go means you need more cooling which could mean more fans to provide that cooling and thus more noise. There are solutions later on in this article.

Get on the bus.

The Front Side Bus speed is the MHz rating at which data is transferred to and from the processor to the rest of the system. Theoretically higher the FSB results in a faster processor. The goal is to maximize the processor speed to perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Currently the Front Side Bus with AMD processors it is at 266 MHz with speculation that AMD has a 333 MHz FSB processor in the works.

Lastly is the inner working of the processor circuitry. This cannot be easily explained but it is safe to say that each of the rivals in the chip wars are constantly developing, refining and perfecting their processors to crunch numbers faster and in greater gulps.

Now you know everything....not a chance.

This little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing when it comes to determining which processor is better. A consumer may come to the conclusion that INTEL processors are faster than AMD processors on the details that were just explained that:

• The higher the MHz the better
  
• The higher Front Side Bus Speed the better
  
• The more L2 Cache the better
  
• The lower the voltage the better
  

INTEL

AMD

Processor Frequency

2.8 GHz

2600+ (2.133GHz)

Thermal Design Power

68.4W

62 W

Bus Speed

533 MHz

133MHz (266MHz DDR)

Core Voltage

1.50 V

1.65 V

L1Cache Size

8K

128K

L2 Cache Size

512K

256K

L2 Cache Speed

2.53 GHz

2.13 GHz

Die Size

0.13 micron

0.13 micron

It's easy to see that assumptions may lead a consumer to believe that the INTEL product is a better processor. These basics may have some validity on paper but not so in the real world. Why the lesson on MHz, die size, bus speeds and cache? The lesson is not which processor is better. The lesson is to not make performance assumptions based in the belief that bigger numbers are better.

(Not quite what's asked for here, but worth a mention anyway: the dual-head 'DVDMax' output in the Matrox Windows drivers, which displays a video overlay full-screen on a second monitor, is absolutely excellent, and works with the video window in the background: quite useful for displaying video on a larger monitor while using a smaller one to operate the computer, which is ideal for certain residents of Betelgeuse 5).

I'm not sure about your specific application, but Matrox has always been pretty progressive with DVI support. I think they have at least one model of the G400 series with two DVI ports, and the new I think the new Parhelia card has three.

OK, I know that Matrox makes a dual and 4 headed video cards . But who makes decent cards for gaming? Does such a card exists, or do you have one monitor on AGP, and the other two on PCI based cards?

They have a large list of games with dualhead support-not all of them simply wrap your display. Serious Sam (and the second encounter) allows two players to use the same computer by giving them independent displays, while Dogs of war allows you to view the battle from a distance while in close on the other. So not only has this been around for quite some time, it also has plenty of current games out for it. This is in addition to the triple monitor support (surround gaming) which was mentioned earlier.

They have a large list of games with dualhead support-not all of them simply wrap your display. Serious Sam (and the second encounter) allows two players to use the same computer by giving them independent displays, while Dogs of war allows you to view the battle from a distance while in close on the other. So not only has this been around for quite some time, it also has plenty of current games out for it. This is in addition to the triple monitor support (surround gaming) which was mentioned earlier.