Matrox Parhelia-512

[Earl]

Well, it's been a long time since Matrox has released a new graphics card chipset - so long, in fact, that 3d users have completely given up on Matrox as a 'big player.' nvidia and ATI have pretty much ruled the 3d graphic card market, leaving Matrox and their frail G400/450/550 (all same chipset) in the dust.

But after 3 years of silence, Matrox strikes back. This time, they don't just go for top dog status, they aim to completely dethrone the known leaders of the graphic card industry.

Just to make a side-note: while nvidia and ATI have lead the 3d graphic card market, they have always suffered poor 2D display quality (when compared to Matrox). As far as 2D display quality is concerned, Matrox has always lead the pack. Now, they not only lead the pack, but they left the pack behind in a cloud of innovative smoke.

This newest graphics chipset from Matrox, called the Parhelia-512, is the first chipset to process at 512-bits. Incredible, if you think about it. Not only that, but it BOASTS a memory bandwidth of 256-bits, enabling TWICE the data transfer rates of the current leading graphics cards, giving it an astounding 20.0 GB/sec. The 3D speed of this card has yet to be benchmarked, but theoretically, it is a monster. It should score some three times as fast (if not more) than the current 3d graphics cards (this is a guess - again - no benchmarks are available yet). The hardware on this thing is amazing. Not just that, but it can utilize three monitors at once - all 3d accelerated too.

Another important feature to note: it renders everything all the way out to the monitor at 10-bits per color channel - as opposed to the traditional 8-bits. Some other noteworthy features of the card are: hardware accelerated anti-aliased text for Win2k and WinXP (no performance loss), hardware displacement mapping (for 3D), 16xFragment Anti-aliasing for 3d rendering (adaptive), TWO 400 MHz 10-bit RAMDAC's with an optional THIRD RAMDAC, plus a lot more.

Check out the impressive specs of this next card by going to the link below:
Matrox Parhelia-512

If this card turns out to be what it is on paper, it will truly be a dream-come-true for all graphic designers, 3d animators, and gamers.

[Earl]

Well, it's been a long time since Matrox has released a new graphics card chipset - so long, in fact, that 3d users have completely given up on Matrox as a 'big player.' nvidia and ATI have pretty much ruled the 3d graphic card market, leaving Matrox and their frail G400/450/550 (all same chipset) in the dust.

But after 3 years of silence, Matrox strikes back. This time, they don't just go for top dog status, they aim to completely dethrone the known leaders of the graphic card industry.

Just to make a side-note: while nvidia and ATI have lead the 3d graphic card market, they have always suffered poor 2D display quality (when compared to Matrox). As far as 2D display quality is concerned, Matrox has always lead the pack. Now, they not only lead the pack, but they left the pack behind in a cloud of innovative smoke.

This newest graphics chipset from Matrox, called the Parhelia-512, is the first chipset to process at 512-bits. Incredible, if you think about it. Not only that, but it BOASTS a memory bandwidth of 256-bits, enabling TWICE the data transfer rates of the current leading graphics cards, giving it an astounding 20.0 GB/sec. The 3D speed of this card has yet to be benchmarked, but theoretically, it is a monster. It should score some three times as fast (if not more) than the current 3d graphics cards (this is a guess - again - no benchmarks are available yet). The hardware on this thing is amazing. Not just that, but it can utilize three monitors at once - all 3d accelerated too.

Another important feature to note: it renders everything all the way out to the monitor at 10-bits per color channel - as opposed to the traditional 8-bits. Some other noteworthy features of the card are: hardware accelerated anti-aliased text for Win2k and WinXP (no performance loss), hardware displacement mapping (for 3D), 16xFragment Anti-aliasing for 3d rendering (adaptive), TWO 400 MHz 10-bit RAMDAC's with an optional THIRD RAMDAC, plus a lot more.

Check out the impressive specs of this next card by going to the link below:
Matrox Parhelia-512

If this card turns out to be what it is on paper, it will truly be a dream-come-true for all graphic designers, 3d animators, and gamers.

[gidgit]

yahoo, this is terrific news...thanx for the posting

I use ATI, which also offers pretty good color quality and performance, and always questioned my buddy, who own's a Matrox, why he did, when it was a slower card and for all intensive purposes, only those who had the same configuration as he did would be able to see the same greaat results if posted anyhoo...but...now that it looks to be this quick, I will have to take another look in the Matrox direction [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

more speeeeeeeed

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

[Earl]

Matrox basically invented great 2D display quality - and they've always led in this area. I used to be a DIE-HARD Matrox fan. It all started back when I first got into computers 8 years ago or so. Back then, (I was under my parents wing), they didn't want to spend a BUNCH of money on my (at the time) latest obsession - they figured I'd get bored with it shortly and thus paid for a pretty cheap machine. Well, the graphics card in the machine was a Trident card, which I quickly switched with an Oak Technology card. But, with either of these cards, I can into so many incompatibilies. I couldn't play all the latest games (which at the time were JUST beginning to display in VGA - lol!). So, I was determined to only get top-of-the-line from that point on, and purchased (on dealer recomendation), the newest and greatest thing at the time - the Matrox Millennium!

Well, to make a long story short - I never had a graphics problem since, and the quility was utterly astounding (for the time). But, sadly, when the 3d graphics market took flight, Matrox turned its back on 3d acceration. They only catered to 2D display. Since 3d modeling and animation is my primary department, I had to break my die-hard loyalty to them and buy an nvidia 3D chipset.

ANYHOW... to see that Matrox is making another stab at the 3d market is AWESOME - because they're bringing their unsurpassed display quality with them. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

I would DEFINITELY watch their product line in the next couple of months to see what develops.

[Klaus Nordby]

Earl, I'm a fellow Matrox devotee! I've owned several ATI cards and two Matrox cards, and there's NO doubt that the output from Matrox - on the same monitor - is MUCH sharper than from the ATI cards. I don't give a damn about 3D game performance, as I don't own a single game (I hate ALL games). The supposedly poor 3D performance of the G200/G450/G550 cards are totally irrelevant for people who only do 2D work, in XaraX or Photoshop or whatever.

Re this: "Another important feature to note: it renders everything all the way out to the monitor at 10-bits per color channel - as opposed to the traditional 8-bits."

But if there is no support in our software for 10 bit color, that won't get us far! But luckily, Matrox will be releasing a Photoshop DLL which will let you see 10 bit color if you work in the high-bit, 16 bit formats! Now that's good news!


K

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[Klaus Nordby]

Earl, will the speed of the Parhelia-512 matter for any of the previews in 3D rendering programs? Like Bryce, Vue 'd Esprit, MojoWorld, Cinema 4D, etc.? I've always thought this was a CPU-issue only - but please feel free to tell me I'm wrong! You know 3D stuff, I only 2D.

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[Klaus Nordby]

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/...rhelia-09.html

The "Glyph Anti-Aliasing" features sounds intriguing, too - especially that it will be possible to adjust the gamma of the anti-aliasing of text! User-tweaking of text anti-aliasing! Of course, will this work with our software? That's the tough question.

K
www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/kn/
www.klausnordby.com/xara

[Earl]

Agreed Klaus. I was so sad the day I had to take out my Matrox card and replace it with an nvidia GeForce3. I only did so because I needed powerful OpenGL acceleration for LightWave. To answer you question, YES, 3d acceleration has EVERYTHING to do with using applications such as Bryce, LightWave, Cinema 4D, etc. If you don't have a powerful 3d accelerater, then your CPU has to make all the calculations to display the real-time 'mesh.' What this means is that if your CPU has to put ALL its energy into simply displaying your image, then it has no power left to perform deformations, boolean cuts, transformations, etc.

Here's an example: LightWave. Since version 6 (released a couple years ago), LightWave redesigned their interface to use OpenGL exclusively. OpenGL is a type of real-time 3d display. It added so much more power to LightWave, because you could see all of your work without having to "render." The only drawback was that without a 3d accelerater card that was FAST, your display was really slow, making working in the program very frustrating and difficult - much of your time was simply spent waiting for the screen to draw. Anyhow, I'm happy because now I can go back to my old friend Matrox (back to their SUPERIOR display quality), and still have fast (VERY FAST) 3D acceleration.

And to make something clear, the last Matrox card, G400/G550, did NOT accelerate OpenGL in hardware - it had to rely on the CPU to do it in software. That's why up until now, Matrox cards were unacceptable for applications like LightWave.

That 10-bit color precision per channel is so exiting! Even if you don't have a plugin for PhotoShop, it will still mean more accurate representation of color on the screen - and less color banding. But yeah, it will require the plugin to make full use of it - but hey, that's fine for me. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Mike Bailey]

I am still using a Matrox Millennium in my old dinosaur, it has served me well.
Some day I may upgrade, Its nice to see Matrox is getting there act together.

[gidgit]

and triple display ....oooooh ya gotta like it [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
there goes this year's budget...haha