Matrox Parhelia 512 Preview

SpinnerBait writes "Finally, you don't have to sift through all the unreleased and unauthorized bogus information around the net about Matrox's upcoming 3D Graphics chip, called the Parhelia 512. Matrox has taken the wraps off their next generation GPU and this Preview over at HotHardware goes through its feature set with a fine toothed comb. They also give you a very rare glimpse inside Matrox's Montreal Headquarters, as well as a look at some very impressive technology demos, rendered on their new chip. Looks like impressive stuff for sure."

Comments

What Supporting Hardware Does One Need?

[Vortran]

Ok.. so it has AGP 8x. Nifty! What motherboard do I buy that has AGP 8x? I just bought an Abit KR7A-RAID with Via KT266 chipset, thinking this is a pretty decent board, but I doubt it supports AGP 8x.

Now we move on to monitors. Could someone recommend a monitor that I can use to accurately resolve 1 billion colors? I tend to run my 2 Viewsonic PT775's at 1600 x 1200 so I've grown accustomed to that much "real estate".

This sounds like an awesome card, but I really don't know where to go or what to get to reap all the benefits of it.

Lastly, precisely when and where can a fellow technogeek acquire one? Since the HotHardware site seems to be experiencing some serious "Slashdot Effect" I was unable to finish reading the entire article. MRP $$ and a release date would be very useful.

Vortran out

Specs VS G450

[LoudMusic]

I'm currently running an AGP Matrox G450 with 32mb of RAM with two CRTs. I like the card because it allows me to go up to 3200 x 1200 resolution with 32bit color.

I really like the prospect of having three monitors to eliviate the issue of having a giant gap between displays due to the thick boarder of any display. However ...

This new card claims it only does 3840 x 1024 resolution on three cards. It still has the max color depth, but the resolution has to drop. By going to this big fancy new card I'd only gain 100,000 pixels, which in reality is next to nothing.

Is it a driver limitation, or does it take more than a 512bit dual 400mhz 256mb video card to push 4800 x 1200 for simple 2D functions?

~LoudMusic

Hmm. If history repeats itself no one will notice

[Shivetya]

Matrox doesn't actually have a good history of getting cards out in a decent time frame. Figure that by the time this card is actually available (anyone remember the g400? how many months did it take to get one after it supposedly became available?) it will be irrelevant.

The next problem is that Matrox ruined their reputation in my eyes with the G200 by lieing about OpenGL. Lieing about how they were going to have it in November, then December, and so on... they kept this up until they announced the G400 and then suddenly the g200 was a no-go.

Ever since the G400 series it seems Matrox has been coming up with feature laden cards... trouble was no one asked for the features they chose to offer. Now they added even more features and a buttload of performance to boot. Yet as before, GF5 will be announced about the time this card is supposed to ship, and most likely be in stores at the same time.