Review at Extremetech

[majello]

You can find the Parhelia review at the following URL:

Extremetech

all in all not overly satisfying but pretty balanced, i would say.

cu
Majello
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When the going gets tough, the tough get .....
.... going somewhere, where the going is a little easier

[GT98]

Yeah its not that bad...much better then what was said over at THG

[Dogbert]

I must say it is a great review.

After reading this review, not only you can't feel any disapointment with the Parhelia, you would be prouf to have one.

For a new technology (unlike nVIDIA's 'recycled' core), I think the Parhelia gives a truely dazzling "out of the box" experience.

[MrGaribaldi]

Dogbert> My thoughts exactly! After reading THG's yesterday, and some of the german reviews today, I was starting to think about canceling, but after reading ET's...

though I really can't afford the card, I'm still buying it

[majello]

[initializing asbestos suite 2.11, please wait...]

From what i gather from the reviews so far, it seems to me that most are pretty impressed with the card and its features, while at the same time finding the performance lacking.

Not having the card myself (which may change :-) I can't really judge, but I think what matrox has here is very strong technology core which may yield the performance in future with higher clock speeds and additional optimizations in the rendering pipeline.

i found the speed problems with vertex and pixel shaders especiall worrying, combined with what seems inefficient use of the available memory bandwidth. I would not expect the current (first) incarnation of the Parhelia to hold up well against the upcoming chipsets from ATI and nVidia. But, given matrox does its homework, the second generation parhelias should be able to leapfrog the competition.

As for the driver issue, i think better drivers will bring the parhelia up to GF4 levels in terms of performance, but not beyond that, making the current parhelia not exactly a future proof investment for gamers.

On the other hand, the non 3D features of the card will make a lot of people happy, so I expect matrox to sell this card to the business market a lot, which is what they said all along.

All in all a case of "not quite there yet", but still rather impressive, especially for non-gamers.

[asbestos suite 2.11 is fully active now]

/me runs for cover and ducks

cu
Majello
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Life is a bitch, but i'm not going to be the one to tell her

[Dogbert]

Throwing asbestos suite aside (and quote me @ any nVIDIA / ATi forum):

Once [M]atrox gets a certified OpenGL driver for the Parhelia, for 400$ it'll be an el-cheapo GOD DAMN FERRARI compared with the competition.

With further optimisations (like good wine, drivers need to mature a bit) and newer board revisions like 256MB higher clocked model (Pahelia MAX ?) and maybe later with .13 or .09 process, Parhelia will be the king of graphic cards.

I'd happily put my money where my mouth is but sadly I can't afford it

[majello]

I'm not about to quote you anywhere, dogbert, and least of all on Ati or nvidia forums.

I just can't see that much of an improvement from drivers alone. As for higher clock speeds, i agree, once they are able to do that, performance should improve nicely. "Parhelia MAX" is definitely an option they should look into.

on the other hand, matrox will nedd to upgrade their shaders to DX9 standards sooner or later, and a redesign there should help improve performance with newer games too.

i just hope hey manage to pack in a few optimizations in the render pipeline too. I remember a discussion abould culling an the matrox forum, which sounded like an obvious thing missing from the parhelia design. I hope they find a little spare space on the chip for that too :-)

cu
Majello
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License Agreements - they lie, I lie :-)