Matrox Parhelia Launch Review - PAGE 1Neumann Lim - Tuesday, June 25th, 2002
The last time I heard from
Matrox was the release of their
G550 multi-display graphics card. For a long time, I thought
nVidia had beaten them but boy was I wrong. Matrox is back and with a powerhouse, the
Parhelia. This card is the first graphics card to utilize 512 bit graphics. Designed to handle multiple displays, the Parhelia has a powerful engine that will provide a worthy challenge to existing
ATI and nVidia boards.
Today, we will pit Matrox’s Parhelia-512 against another high-end graphics card, the ATI Radeon 8500, and the MSI Geforce 4 Ti4600. Now, the difference between these two cards is that the Radeon 8500 has 64MB of DDR while the Parhelia has 128MB of DDR. Without further delay, let’s look at the technology that makes the Parhelia so different from the rest.
Features
512-bit GPU
256-bit DDR memory interface
128 MB DDR memory
Advanced multi-display: Triple-RGB, Dual-DVI, TV output
High performance 2D, 3D & video
Surround Gaming
10-bit GigaColor
AGP 4X
Multi-Display configurations:
Parhelia offers the most advanced multi-display support in the form of DualHead-HighFidelity, TripleHead Desktop, and Surround Gaming. This support is enabled through highly flexible output configuration options including dual-RGB, triple-RGB and dual-DVI. Matrox Parhelia cards feature two DVI-I connectors integrated on the bracket. The full flexibility of display configurations are offered to end users by the standard bundling of three cables/adaptors:
One "Y-shaped" DVI-I to dual HD-15 cable
One DVI-I to HD-15 adaptor
One HD-15 to S-video and composite cable
|
DualHead-HF (2
displays)
|
|
Display 1
|
Display 2
|
|
Analog
monitor (RGB)
Analog flat panel (RGB)
Digital flat panel (DVI)
|
Analog
monitor (RGB)
Analog flat panel (RGB)
Digital flat panel (DVI)
NTSC / PAL TV
|
|
TripleHead
Desktop / Surround Gaming (3 displays)
|
|
Left display
|
Center display
|
Right display
|
|
Analog
monitor (RGB)
Analog flat panel (RGB)
|
Analog
monitor (RGB)
Analog flat panel (RGB)
Digital flat panel (DVI)
|
Analog
monitor (RGB)
Analog flat panel (RGB)
|
Resolution, color depth and refresh rates:
To offer the ultimate in productivity, matrox Parhelia provides the industry’s most comprehensive resolution, color depth and refresh rate support.
|
Max 2D/3D
|
Max 2D/3D
(primary display)
|
|
Resolution
|
Colors
|
|
2048
x 1536
|
Over
one billion
|
|
Resolution and
refresh rates
|
|
Resolution
|
Vertical
(Hz)
|
Horizontal
(kHz)
|
|
2048
x 1536
|
85
|
130
|
|
1920
x 1440
|
85
|
130
|
|
1600
x 1200
|
100
|
130
|
|
1280
x 1024
|
120
|
130
|
|
1152
x 864
|
140
|
130
|
|
1024
x 768
|
160
|
130
|
|
800
x 600
|
200
|
130
|
|
640
x 480
|
200
|
130
|
forums
send article 
hardware newsletter 
article comments (12) 
Lowest prices check
Digg this!
del.icio.us