Matrox Parhelia 128mb
March 6th, 2003 | by Brian Clark
Full Review
This card is the very latest offering from a grizzled veteran in the Video Card War. We have not seen much of Matrox in the last couple years as they have been overshadowed by ATI and NVIDIA with more powerful specifications. However, the Parhelia is a powerful contender in this year's crop of high-end graphics cards. While gaming with a triple head display is nothing short of fantastic, Matrox is also aiming this card at the workstation market. They are hoping that this card offers the largest array of solid, useful features for the business class graphics professions. The Parhelia offers a wealth of power and features for the graphics hungry professional out there and we're going to see how the card performs in real world situations. This includes using tools such as Adobe Premier and AutoCAD.
Features
The features that really make this video card stand out include a 512 —bit GPU, 256-bit DDR memory interface, Surround Gaming and 10-bit Gigacolor. On the down side of this card, there is no AGP 8x capabilities, you are limited to AGP 4X. The Parhelia features the first Triple Head Display incorporated into a graphics card. This means that you can setup 3 monitors to use as a single or separate desktop. Gaming with two displays may have seemed like a novelty, but there was always the “dead space” in the center between the two displays which was a turn-off for hardcore gamers. With a triple head display, the dead space is gone and the two side displays really add more to your peripheral vision, making gaming on the Parhelia a real treat.
The Parhelia is also the first card to support true a 10-bit per color channel which means this card can simultaneously display over one billion colors in not only 2D and 3D but in DVD playback as well. The 10-bit Gigacolor will really appeal to graphic artists looking for that extra detail. The Parhelia supports both DirectX 8.1 and the upcoming DirectX 9 which you will want in order to take advantage of any upcoming gaming graphical features.
We found support for the Parhelia to be above par overall. Matrox has a 3 year warranty which should last for the lifetime of the card as well as phone support via a toll free number, online support with FAQs, manuals and a user forum which is a valuable resource for real user experiences. The phone support however is only active during business hours Monday through Friday 9am to 5pm Eastern Time. This will be disappointing for the home user who typically makes tech support calls after 5pm.
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by Spike on June 20, 2004:
“Card is great for suround gaming and is better than my 9600 256mb by far, i never really needed high quality games but i always fancied widescreen mode :) Bring it on...” More...