Some news from Matrox

Czar

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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First the 256mb version of the Parhelia is out and you can preorder it.
http://www.matrox.com/mga/archive_story/oct2002/p256mb_launch.cfm
http://shopmatrox.com/preorder/parhelia256.asp

though I doubt anyone here will buy it.

and then the other news from murc

-The sterile 64 megabyte version of Parhelia has been put on hold. In its place will be a 256 megabyte version of the same card. It will be roughly the same chip with the same or lower clocks. Expect an announcement tomorrow, but as with anything dealing with Matrox Graphics, don't place all your money on it.
-There is a revision of Parhelia waiting in the wings, it will be higher clocked all around and will support the latest and greatest 8X AGP interface. It will perform measurably better from the way things look. Don't expect it to be out in the very near future as they are set on selling what they currently have in production, then they may move to the revised Parhelia.
-"Parhelia 2", from my most reliable sources, is said to be taped and ready to move forward from there. It has improved shaders, will be fully DX9 compliant and exceed, will have improved Fragment Anti Aliasing, improved 'free' aniso filtering, a revised memory interface, pipeline improvements to allow higher clock speeds, and should support more memory on board than the current Parhelia (512 vs 256). On paper, it looks like a good prospect and should perform better all around than the current cards. In the real world no one will know until it's here. Don't expect the card to appear sooner than next summer.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
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I'd like to see Matrox get in the running. Hopefully they'll be able to make something that a good portion of the market will be willing to buy, before they go under.
 

ElFenix

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Mar 20, 2000
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if parhelia 2 is taped out then i think matrox may be ahead of nvidia... the revised memory interface sounds nice... maybe it'll have some HSR early in the pipe so its not overdrawing everything...
 

AnAndAustin

Platinum Member
Apr 15, 2002
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:eek: 256MB is as much a waste as AGP8x on current gfx cards. Even higher clocks will mean very little to the Parhelia as compared to both ATI and nVidia it simply isn't remotely efficient or intelligent enough. With the way Matrox price their cards the Parhelia512 256MB will sell for about $500 and will still be stuck with GF3/Rad8500 3D (sub-$100 cards). I think it's time even Matrox fans admitted that there are better choices elsewhere!
 

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
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I saw a comment somwhere made about the price of 256 MB version being $599. It looks like the biggest rip-off of 2002 is about to get even worse. As for the Parhelia 2, well, I don't have any faith in it at all and I'm certainly going to ignore all pre-release hype about it.

256MB is as much a waste as AGP8x on current gfx cards.
Well I wouldn't go that far. 256 MB might not be required for most games but it's probably not a total waste. UT2003 and Doom3 have some pretty big textures and a lot of them.
 

Mloot

Diamond Member
Aug 24, 2002
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After reading the article, it seems that the Matrox card is being promoted almost solely as a workstation card for CAD work. I didn't see any mention of promoting this card's gaming performance. I agree, 256mb for gaming would be extreme overkill for today's games, but is this much memory usable for CAD work? I honestly don't know enough about CAD to answer that question. And Czar is right, probably not many people on the forums will purchase it, since almost all video card discussions revolve around gaming. My $0.02.
 

dpopiz

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2001
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sandorski:

matrox isn't going to "go under"....maybe they'll quit the pc graphics sector, but they're still THE BIG NAME in high end video editing and production equipment
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
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Originally posted by: dpopiz
sandorski:

matrox isn't going to "go under"....maybe they'll quit the pc graphics sector, but they're still THE BIG NAME in high end video editing and production equipment

I hope you're right.
 

Chadder007

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Read My SIG....This is what is happening to Matrox now.
If this goes down tomorrow, A 256 meg Parahelia with the SAME or LOWER even clock speed...Something is d@mn wrong with the CEO.
 

RaynorWolfcastle

Diamond Member
Feb 8, 2001
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Originally posted by: Chadder007
Read My SIG....This is what is happening to Matrox now.
If this goes down tomorrow, A 256 meg Parahelia with the SAME or LOWER even clock speed...Something is d@mn wrong with the CEO.

Matrox is a private company...
 

NOX

Diamond Member
Oct 11, 1999
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Originally posted by: BFG10K
I saw a comment somwhere made about the price of 256 MB version being $599. It looks like the biggest rip-off of 2002 is about to get even worse. As for the Parhelia 2, well, I don't have any faith in it at all and I'm certainly going to ignore all pre-release hype about it.

256MB is as much a waste as AGP8x on current gfx cards.
Well I wouldn't go that far. 256 MB might not be required for most games but it's probably not a total waste. UT2003 and Doom3 have some pretty big textures and a lot of them.
Yeah $599 sounds about right... here they are $399 still, and the ATI 9700 Pro is $379. Everyone is buying the 9700, or waiting for NV30. At that price Matrox is in some deep dodo...
 

sechs

Golden Member
Oct 6, 2002
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I was pretty stoked about the Parhelia before it came out... I was thinking, there will be a third horse in the race. Then the lead zeplin was unmoored.

Looking at the 256MB version, I can't see how it competes with other workstation graphics cards. Quadros and FireGLs are so much cheaper and offer similar performance. Except for triple head, I really don't know what it has on them... and how many people really need that?
 

majewski9

Platinum Member
Jun 26, 2001
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When will Matrox make Panhelia cheaper? Im sorry I dont see any reaason why to buy one!
 

Tab

Lifer
Sep 15, 2002
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I had alot of faith in Matrox when the Parhelia was first announnced. It has some great technologies behind it, but the low FPS and buggy code make it undesirable.
 

ElDonAntonio

Senior member
Aug 4, 2001
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matroxusers.com has some sad news about matrox graphics on its front page... :( I really hope they can turn things around, matrox used to be a great company and it's too bad to see them dig their own grave.

If things were how they ought to be, matrox should've bought or merged with 3dfx. THAT would have been da bomb...