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Matrox Parhelia Benchmarks and Review

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-want-my-fast-3d dept.

Crankshaft writes "Matrox Parhelia boards are due to hit retail shelves by the end of the month. Cards have been sent out and the benchmarks are up, showing the card's strengths and weaknesses. You want great looking Anti-Aliasing? The Parhelia is for you. You want killer frame rates? You might have to look elsewhere."

4 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. More reviews by InnereNacht · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here:http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i =1645

    Here:http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/02 06 25/index.html

    And here:http://www.theinquirer.net/24060221.htm

  2. Re:what am I missing about vid cards? by GauteL · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Well a couple of points:
    1. The noted fps is average, not worst case. The actually interesting part for gaming is worst case. If a gaming card gives you 150 fps average, you are mostly pretty sure that worst case is good enough. If a gaming card gives you 40 fps average, you have a bigger chance of hitting unacceptable frame rates. I'd like to see reviewers report worst case though
    2. A 150 fps in todays games does not equal 150 fps in tomorrows games. This means that a a card generating very high frame rates are more future proof than a card that generates 90 fps, which shouldn't be noticably less than the above.
  3. Matrox cards always look good on paper by e40 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    However, there are always problems:

    1. The hardware never lives up.

    2. Three words: drivers, drivers, drivers. Or, should I have just said "software, software, software"? Putting out beta drivers and leaving them out there for over a year without a final release is par for the course at Matrox. OpenGL promises, you say? Yeah, been there, done that.

    I won't trust Matrox ever again. I was screwed by two generations of cards. Yeah, yeah, shame on me for trusting them a second time.

  4. Anandtech looked at UT 2003 by pm · · Score: 5, Informative

    The review at Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com) uses the latest demo from Unreal Tournament 2003 as one of the core benchmarks. It didn't make much of a difference. In the review, the Parhelia scored about as well as Radeon 8500LE.

    In the review Anand attributed it to three things. Quoting from Anand's review:

    1) Low GPU Clock (220MHz vs. 250 - 300MHz)
    2) Sub optimized drivers
    3) A lack of serious occlusion culling technology

    Whatever the reasons, the Parhelia didn't score well on one of more anticipated and graphically intensive games that will be released in the near future.