Matrox announces two new cards

[seer]

@JoannaK,

Have you tried the Parhelia yourself ? Or are you basing it on some reviews ? The speed difference compared to a GF4 isn't that much, and  like Mad-Matt sais, the framerate doesn't drop when using 3 displays... Playing Quake III, Unreal 2, Wolfenstein, Jedi Knight is in 1 word great, people should try it sometime... I wouldn't call a framerate of 90 vs 100 FPS underpowered. Besides, the screen display is supperior and having your desktop 3 screens wide is a real bonus...Just hate to go to work and use a big 19" (CRT) screen when I at home I can use 3 15" (TFT) screens  :-)

I do hope however that like the Dual Monitor feature all cards "took" from Matrox, that tripple head will make it's way to the big boys (ATI/nVidia) someday..

[seer]

> the 2D is great...but ATI/Nvidia's 2D is  great also...and much cheaper...

Cheaper yes, the Parhelia is overpriced now compared to the GF4,, but I didn't buy it recently, but when it was just released. The price was similar to the GF4, and I wasn't impressed by the 10 FPS speed difference, nor with the 2D display of the GF4.. And yes, I did compare the GF4 4600 with the Parhelia myself, and yes it's a personal opinion.

[seer]

> hardly... cheapest parhelia is (NOW) 325$ that I've been able to find thats from newegg.com perhaps
>GeForce4's cost near that some places...but I got a Ti4400 ages ago for 250.

When I bought the Parhelia it was 499 Euro. A GF4 4600 was also 499 Euro. This was when it was released in the Netherlands.

>the differance was/is MAJOR not 10FPS... it was quality/speed and stability... all major factors...
>parhelia choked on them...

Personal experience ? Or read in a review ? Some cards seem to have banding problems but I'm not sure how many cards have problems, besides, people have problems with nVidiaATI cards as well. As for stability, this card is more stable with a res of 3072X768*32 then my old GF2 at 1024*768^32. The drivers seem better at release then nVidia drivers.

>  parhelia's 10bit per component reduced Alpha to
> 1 bit ... it was a hack

Nothing wrong with that, Matrox did (does) tell that you only get 1 bit Alpha , and some games look better in 10Bit GFX mod, some don't.