***Matrox Parhelia....It's Coming......

[Adul]

<<

<< Attn: Matrox Insiders:

I know that you may not be able to divulge this info, but I am just wondering if there are plans for low cost versions of Parahelia to be relased? To be honest, I am about to buy a Radeon 7500 for my Dual Monitor setup, and I did think about getting a G400, but the performance is just too low, so I am wondering if there are going to be $100 versions of Parahelia that will have at least performance compareable to the R7500? I know i'll prolly just have to wait, but I am jw if there's any info like this around that you can divluge, thanks!!! >>



To begin with, the low-end version will still be $200 or more. They could release a sub-par model later, maybe...





<< Electric, this card better cure cancer, and end the conflicts in the Middle East the way you are talking about it. Despite about 50 posts in the 2 current Matrox threads by you, you have yet to post anything of any substance related to card that someone else's didn't post first (specs, name, price, release date, NDA date, etc...), or post anything at all that lends evidence to you claiming to have inside knowledge of this product. If this wasn't a Matrox product, I would ask you how much you were getting paid to flood the board with superficial propaganda. >>



Well, believe me that I'd love to tell everyone how cool this card is going to be, but I get my info from a good friend that is generous enough to hook-up a trusted fellow enthusiast. If I break that trust, I'll be left out in the doghouse like the rest of you sods, not to mention get him in trouble and most likely lose a friendship.

So, unless he's lying to me about the card's capabilities, I'll tell you again that sliced bread ain't nothin' next to this card!


Of course, if I was saying this about a Nvidia card, you would all believe me...

amish >>



i believe that this card has potentional, now lets see it in action.

 

[PG]

I just saw THIS link on Hadocp.com and if it's even remotely true I'll need help picking my jaw up off the floor.

I'd do a cut and paste, but the page is a big .jpg file.

 

[Electric Amish]

<< I just saw THIS link on Hadocp.com and if it's even remotely true I'll need help picking my jaw up off the floor.

I'd do a cut and paste, but the page is a big .jpg file. >>



THAT FILE IS A HOAX!!

First of all, Millennium is mispelled.

Secondly, it WILL NOT be called G1000

A reply from Haig, head of Tech Support, on theMatrox.com Forums.


<< Caine - [The Name] won't have any #'s in the name nor will it be associated with the G cards. Keeping it nice and simple with 1 word. >>



Third, no "Full DirectX 9".

Fourth, "64, 96, and 128-bit color depth", yeah, whatever.

The human eye can't distiguish color as high as 128-bit.

Other than that......

amish

 

[bluemax]

On thing sure caught my eye.....

Up to 16x AntiAliasing. :Q

 

[sharkeeper]

In A.D. 2002 war was beginning.
NVidia: What happen ?
Nv30: Someone set up us the bomb.
Sony F520: We get signal.
NVidia: What !
NVidia: Main screen turn on.
Nvidia: It's you !!
Matrox Parhelia: How are you gentlemen?!?!
Matrox Parhelia: ALL YOU BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
Matrox Parhelia: YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO DESTRUCTION.
NVidia: WHAT YOU SAY !!
Matrox Parhelia: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Matrox Parhelia: HA HA HA HA HA ....
NVidia: Take off every 'zig' !!
NVidia: You know what you doing.
NVidia: Move 'zig'.
NVidia: For great justice.


Cheers!

 

[bearmeat]

that was lame

 

[merlocka]

The human eye can't distiguish color as high as 128-bit.

Captain Obvious to the rescue... The 64 bits (or 128 if a reality...) is't all for color depth.

64bit color allows for 16bit per channel RGB (plus alpha). This adds precision which will eliminate banding when multiple layers of blending and fog and stuff are used.

 

[Pariah]

"i believe that this card has potentional, now lets see it in action."

I agree that this card has tremendous potential and I am looking forward to it as much as the next guy. Unless it turns out to be a ridiculous failure I will buy one at some point to replace the V5 in my main system that has served me well and longer than any other card I've owned to date. But enough with the onslaught of fanboy posts that tell us nothing. Especially if you haven't even seen the card let alone seen a running demonstration of its capabilities. There has never been a card that has dominated across the board in every aspect since the dawn of 3D accelerators, and I don't think it will happen, at least not at a reasonable price ($500 or less), certainly not from Matrox. Who cares what some Matrox employee says, what do you expect him to say...

"well.. we were really ambitious with this product, but we just couldn't seem to get it right. The performance isn't what we expected, certainly not good enough to beat upcoming products from NVidia and ATI. We already had the best 2D, so we decided to rest on our laurels and wait for everyone else to catch up before we try to improve it. The worst part is this card is far more complex than we anticipated, and the resulting drivers are so bad, they will leave customers longing for Creative Labs to take over our driver development...."

No thanx, I'll wait for concrete info, from reliable sources with actual experience with the hardware.

 

[Goi]

Well, all I wanna know is...when??? I'm building a new system in June, probably the worst of times, since the Barton and Clawhammer's not gonna be out yet, nor this Matrox card, nor the other 3DLabs card that might as well cure cancer as well...but I just can't wait no longer...

 

[Bluga]

<< NVidia: What happen ?
Nv30: Someone set up us the bomb.
Sony F520: We get signal.
NVidia: What !
NVidia: Main screen turn on.
Nvidia: It's you !!
Matrox Parhelia: How are you gentlemen?!?!
Matrox Parhelia: ALL YOU BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
Matrox Parhelia: YOU ARE ON THE WAY TO DESTRUCTION.
NVidia: WHAT YOU SAY !!
Matrox Parhelia: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Matrox Parhelia: HA HA HA HA HA ....
NVidia: Take off every 'zig' !!
NVidia: You know what you doing.
NVidia: Move 'zig'.
NVidia: For great justice.? >>



halarious!

 

[Electric Amish]

<< No thanx, I'll wait for concrete info, from reliable sources with actual experience with the hardware. >>



My info is from reliable sources that have actual experience with the card. I just can't divulge anything without getting people in trouble.

amish

 

[SpaceRanger]

It's a card.. With Specs due out on 5/14.. That's about all we can say about it for now.

 

[mastertech01]

THis new arrival may well be out of the ordinary users financial reach. But if it is exceptionally successfull in doing all that is rumored, it may very well accellerate other companies to give more bang for our buck. It gets tiring to see the next gen Gforce offer tidbits of new tech every 6 months for another 300.00 a shot. Id rather wait two or three generations and pay 500.00 in one shot and get a lot more for the money. Look how Intel took us for huge amounts every time they upped thier processor speed little tidbits untill AMD became more competitive. Even in recent times I have paid 700.00 for a 700MHZ processor. Now you dont even pay that for a Xeon class processor. Competition is a great thing for the consumer.

 

[Instagib]

<< THis new arrival may well be out of the ordinary users financial reach. But if it is exceptionally successfull in doing all that is rumored, it may very well accellerate other companies to give more bang for our buck. It gets tiring to see the next gen Gforce offer tidbits of new tech every 6 months for another 300.00 a shot. Id rather wait two or three generations and pay 500.00 in one shot and get a lot more for the money. Look how Intel took us for huge amounts every time they upped thier processor speed little tidbits untill AMD became more competitive. Even in recent times I have paid 700.00 for a 700MHZ processor. Now you dont even pay that for a Xeon class processor. Competition is a great thing for the consumer. >>



I hope things will heat up more industry wide.

 

[DocM]

Things will heat up allright.....a lot.

There will be several models with scaled prices. As for standard features on all boards; the list is very long. Many of them are geared to improving Matrox's already high 2D quality while applying it to 3D graphics as well. At the same time much effort went into upping frame rates (a lot) and providing more display options than I've ever seen in a single card.

You get to see what all the hubub is about on May 14th. Matrox posted this teaser to announce the big day;

http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm

DocM

 

[McCarthy]

I thought it was kinda funny, sharkeeper

These threads move awfully fast, but just wanted to chime in to say as a gentleman gamer (in other words, I play a little) I'd be very interested in a 3 panel view. Been wishing for support in games for this by way of multiple video cards for a long time, to have it done by one card may get the ball rolling. Won't be using 19" displays for the secondary views personally, but with the cheap availability of 15" monitors I'm in. To start with, huge LCDs later (dreaming).

--Mc

 

[skace]

This thread reeks of "Revenge of the Nerds". I almost expect someone to say, "Take that nVidia for dominating the industry over our favorite loveable video card maker". Like everyone in this thread was somehow kicked in the nuts by nVidia and now Matrox is here to save the day. Get a grip...



...Luckily my GF4 hasn't turned into a paperweight yet... maybe tomorrow? Maybe in June? Maybe September? Maybe next year? I guess if you like waiting... I'm enjoying my purchase now..

 

[Czar]

Originally posted by: skace

...Luckily my GF4 hasn't turned into a paperweight yet... maybe tomorrow? Maybe in June? Maybe September? Maybe next year? I guess if you like waiting... I'm enjoying my purchase now..

only when games start to reqire fetures not supported by your card.... 5 years or so

 

[PG]

From the AT main page:

Matrox Parhelia-512 Preview
May 12th, 2002 11:05 AM - Brandon Hill
Source: Digit-Life
Category: Video

Digit-Life has posted the first english preview of the new Matrox Parhelia-512. Here's the scoop:
According to one of Matrox engineers: "We've made this chip to show everybody that we are still capable to develop the most up-to-date solution". Another worker said something less serious: "Just for fun". Obviously this expensive solution won't affect the market in the near future, but it'll improve Matrox reputation for sure. Even if the company sells less than 10000 Parhelia-512 cards. The announce of this unique chip alone can draw the fixed attention.
So, the local video memory bandwidth is twice as wide in comparison with the former-generation GPUs. But the speed is not the main feature of Matrox products. Parhelia-512 surprisingly doesn't support any memory bandwidth saving technologies. This is strange - such solutions are present in all latest products of ATI and NVIDIA. But it seems that Matrox decided to speed up and reduce the price of chip development, the chip itself being a symbol more than a market takeover attempt.

The tests of engineer samples with very raw drivers show only 20...30% advantage of Parhelia-512 comparing to NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600. Even in case successful software tuning, the twice advantage isn't that possible. 1.5 - that's the limit. Obviously, usual consumers should buy cards on the new Matrox GPU due to the quality and unique features, but not the speed. On the other hand, Matrox can't pretend to be successful on the professional market without certified OpenGL drivers (they might appear along with the planned professional Parhelia-512 cards line). The card is very expensive for the "just the nice 2D fans" niche. So, initially this is for enthusiasts, semi-professionals, brand fans and us - videocard specialists .

Matrox Parhelia-512 Preview




Oops.......only 20 - 30% faster than Nvidia now and Nvidia will have a new card this fall?????? And no certified OpenGL drivers???? That's very disapointing.
Well Matrox fans, keep waiting. Maybe in another 3 years they can come up with something that will stay ahead of Nvidia for more than a few months.

 

[Eug]

Oops.......only 20 - 30% faster than Nvidia now and Nvidia will have a new card this fall?????? And no certified OpenGL drivers???? That's very disapointing.
Well Matrox fans, keep waiting. Maybe in another 3 years they can come up with something that will stay ahead of Nvidia for more than a few months.

Does anyone else find these statements strange? We all have to wait until the real reviews come out, but assuming that this 30% speed advantage is real, that seems to me to be a pretty significant achievement: ie. nearly 1/3rd faster than the previous fastest gaming card ever made.

I have some doubts about those speed claims, but even if it "only" equals the Ti4600 it's still gonna mean a significant shakeup of the market. At the same price point, same performance for 3D, and same 3D driver stability (which is a big if), I'd pick a Matrox card every time, specifically because of their prowess in 2D. And that's not just because of their 2D quality, but also because of their 2D driver ease of use.

As for the speed issue, one also has to remember that Matrox will also have time to tweak their drivers too for faster speed, and hopefully Matrox will be developing new chips as well, just like nVidia is doing.

All that said, I currently run neither nVidia nor Matrox on both my home desktop and main work desktop, with ATI cards.

I guess we'll see at 12:01 am on the AnandTech front page...

 

[bluemax]

Well, let's see....
~25% faster than nVidia's best
Best 2D in the business
3 Monitor support
Much better DVD playback than nVidia
DX9 features

... and who really knows what else. If they sell it for about the same as a Ti4600 I'd take the Matrox!

 

[Eug]

From Anand's Ti4200 review:

With the rest of the cards coming out between now and next Spring being focused at the very high-end of the market, it will be a while before we find another affordable GPU as compelling as the Ti 4200.

Hmm.... I wonder how much Parhelia is gonna cost. Hopefully an affordable budget version will be available by spring 2003.

 

[grant2]

NSF4 so much for vaporware! This card seems to basically meet the MURC speculation.

It will be interesting to see how it benchmarks!

 

[Nemesis77]

Originally posted by: PG
The tests of engineer samples with very raw drivers show only 20...30% advantage of Parhelia-512 comparing to NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600.

Oops.......only 20 - 30% faster than Nvidia now and Nvidia will have a new card this fall??????

Do you have problems reading? When compared to fastest card NVIDIA has to offer, Parhelia seems to be 20-30% faster with pre-release board and early drivers!

Pre-release board = Not optimized. Propably running slower than the final card will run at. Still room for performance-increase.

Early drivers = Not optimized, has bugs. ALOT room for performance-increase

 

[Nemesis77]

Double post