Matrox Parhelia 128mb March 6th, 2003 | by Brian Clark
Full Review - Page 3
Benchmarking and Performance
Using AutoCAD 2002 we found a (65%) increase in rendering times over the Matrox G550 card. This is due in part to the Parhelia's PrecisionCAD driver which according to Matrox provides increased stability and compatibility in the following programs: Autodesk Building Mechanical 2, Autodesk Map 5, Autodesk Architectural Desktop 3.3, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 6, Autodesk Land Desktop 3 and Autodesk Architectural Studio 2 as well as AutoCAD 2002. During all of our AutoCAD 2002 tests, AutoCAD worked seamlessly and the display stayed sharp and crisp. A designer may not find the performance increase as important as the increase in stability and desktop space.
For those buying the card for workstation graphics the Parhelia's 2D capabilities, the Matrox card boasted a Winmark 99 2.0 score of 496 which is the highest we have seen in a video card thus far. Matrox always have had the best 2D capabilities on the market and the Parhelia is no exception.
For our 3DMark benchmarks, we ran all tests with 16X fragment antialiasing enabled which increases image quality but hurts most video cards due to the lack of memory bandwidth. We also used the latest drivers from Matrox as of September 16th 2002. We found the Parhelia 3DMark scores to be in between the Geforce4 MX 440 and the Geforce 4 4600 cards. At 32-bit color and 1,024x768 resolution settings we clocked in a score of 3764, about 1500 points more than our Leadtek Geforce 4 MX 440 (64mb) and 2000 points lower than our Leadtek Geforce 4 4600 (128mb).
The Parhelia is cutting edge technology and as such there are always a few kinks to be worked out. One of the biggest problems is the lack of truly powerful drivers. Without a doubt the stock drivers that Matrox provides work great with Windows XP, but it is apparent after some use that the drivers just are not pushing the capabilities of the card. Matrox is coding new drivers and will release updated drivers soon. Matrox has made a commitment to this architecture so they will be providing the latest in driver technology as fast as possible.
Often it seems that ATI and NVIDIA are only trying to capture the gaming market and have forgotten that professionals need high-end performance too. This card retails for $400. It may be a bit of sticker shock, but the Parhelia does provide superior performance for the business users while sacrificing none of the technology that makes this card an industry leader. Feature for Dollar, the Parhelia provides the best of high-end graphics for the business professional. Make sure you grab the latest drivers and check back to their site often. You may also need additional computer cooling as well.
by Spike on November 8, 2009:
“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...