[Blitz_Lightning]

Tom's hardware has one of the first reviews of the Matrox Parhelia card. (Although it is in German, the graphs should still tell you quite a bit).

From HardOCP

Aquanox - Parhelia was beaten by ATI's 128MB 8500 and the Ti4600 nearly doubled the score.
Comanche 4 - Parhelia not breaking the 30FPS barrier at 1024x768 while the Ti4600 broke 40.

Jedi Knight 2 - At 1024x768 the Parhelia was about 30% behind both the 8500 and the Ti4600.

3DMark2002 SE v330 - Just breaking into the 7000s while their test system was breaking 10K with the Ti4600. The 8500 dusted it again as well.

Quake 3 Arena - Parhelia lagging way behind both cards and not even giving deathmatch playable frame rates at 1600x1200 in my opinion.

[Shrike]

So.... don't get one in other words?

[Fineus]

Going by what it says there, yeah - unless you don't mind low FPS...

[Eternal One]

I think Matrox has publicly stated that Parhelia doesn't match with 8500 and Gf4's in games not using dx9 technology.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Eternal One
I think Matrox has publicly stated that Parhelia doesn't match with 8500 and Gf4's in games not using dx9 technology.

translation: it doesn't match both cards in a single existing game so far. cool, talk about long time investisment
Is that a new markething thing, selling hardware for  software that don't even exists yet?

[wEvil]

Don't be so quick to slag off new technology.

Matrox have other things going for them except speed.

This benchmark is on a pre-release board with immature drivers, and beleive me on this technology where the graphics chip is more a huge array of programmable SIMD pipelines driver optimisation means a HUGE amount.

Wait for more and better reviews to appear - specially from places like CADENCE and other pro resources.  Toms Hardware do good work (sometimes) but like all these toy review sites they just don't dig deep enough most of the time.

You cannot expect such a radically different architecture to perform top notch before its even available.  Take Intels Itanic/Mkinley/ IA-64 chips.  Their performance is dire compared to IA-32/x86 platforms, although it remains to be seen as to wether intel can pull a rabbit out of the hat on this front.

[Nico]

well, as there's no link providen, as it's said it's a review ( and not a preview ), I assumed it was out already I blame cana... I blame blitz

[Unknown Target]

The big thing about the Parhelia is that it supports 16x Fractal AA, at a barely perceptable performance hit, and it supports three monitors at once, for a 150 degree view of a given gameworld.

[Fineus]

Wont that require 3 monitors or the desire for insanely AAs gameplay? I mean those are some nice points but are they really going to get used by your average gamer?

[wEvil]

Matrox are having some fabrication problems with the silicon,, nothing more.

As soon as they quish the bugs and ramp the clockspeed up, everything should turn rosy

[Unknown Target]

Exactly. I think the chip is really only ment for the really rich Xtreme gamers.

BTW, you should see 16x AA, it looks absolutely stunning!

[Blitz_Lightning]

Whoops... forgot to post the link... well, here  it is anyway... sorry:D

[CP5670]

The money is not too much of a problem for me as long as it is not really bad, but it needs to be fast, which from that review it does not appear to be.

[Blitz_Lightning]

BTW, you should see 16x AA, it looks absolutely stunning!

The GF4 is almost as good at it as well, and a lot faster at it.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by Blitz_Lightning

The GF4 is almost as good at it as well, and a lot faster at it.

the Nvidia AA algortyhm is pretty awful to be honest.

[Blitz_Lightning]

the Nvidia AA algortyhm is pretty awful to be honest.

hmm, really? Take a look at these  pictures.

Also, the textures are much better on the GF4.

[wEvil]

Originally posted by Blitz_Lightning


hmm, really? Take a look at these  pictures.

Also, the textures are much better on the GF4.

Right - go into Mental Ray or Renderman.

plug in the Parhelia 16x FSAA algorythm.

then try plugging in quincunx.

No prizes for guessing which one comes out tops.

Remember benchmarks on directX 8 platforms are automatically biased the GF4's/Radeons' featureset.

[Blitz_Lightning]

Well, prolly u r the graphics xpert...I ain't gonna argue