Simviation Forums

currently my system is a as follows:

windows xp pro, intel pentium 4 xeon 3Ghz, 2gig ddr ram, 150gb hd, 19" monitor

graphics card ati radeon 9200 128mb

i have the chance to fit a Matrox Parhelia 128mb graphics card at mimimal cost

question: is it worth it, is the matrox any better than the radeon...?

That's a tough one. Most people use nVidia or ATI cards. Has a 512-bit GPU and 256-bit memory which is always good. It is better than the 9200.

Unfortunately I couldn't get detailed specs on this card such as GPU and RAM speeds. I did read something saying that the card runs very hot.

With your system I think you'd be better going for a nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra or an ATI X800XT. I've never known anyone to use the Matrox cards before. Give it a shot but check the return policy.

In the mean time, I'll see if I can get some more information for you.

this is a link to the parhelia details if it would help...

im not looking to buy anything else, its a choice between the parhelia or radeon...

http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/parhelia/home.cfm

I found some more info on this card. Needless to say it lags behind the Geforce 4 TI4600 and the Radeon 8500. It's outdated.

It does have all kinds of fancy features like 16x AA but how well does it handle it. It only has SM1.3 while the new nVidias have SM3.0. It's slow and runs hot but has high bandwiths. Then again so do the 6800s and X800s and they're selling for the same prices.

Keep you 9200 or wait for the nVidia 6600GT AGP and the ATI X700 which will retail for $200US. They're a whole lot better.

Here's the article on it.
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphi ... index.html

That site doesn't publish the card's output specification, which is the key to potential performance..... why?

Probably because it could then be compared to other video cards, and the comparison would be unfavourable to the product.

Maybe you could have a look at the VGA chart in my post here in this forum and rethink your purchase options according to a price/performance benefit.

Iroquois, just a reminder that you are advising video cards that are not yet released, are crippled versions of current decent products, require a new mainboard/chipset/platform/PCIe slot, unproven, unsupported.......... Saying that, they will no doubt get their share of the market, and be suitable to some.

I know they aren't out yet. The AGPs will be out next month and I thought the X700 AGPs were out already.

oh sorry, I didn't know they had an AGP release.

oh sorry, I didn't know they had an AGP release.

Nope, I was wrong. I checked their website. There's a lot of conflicting info out there. They're supposed to be comming out soon.  I could even suggest a 6800 to Mog. It's about the same price as the Matrox on NewEgg.

ok, thanks for the advice so far, im gonna try the parhelia anyway tomorrow after the flights i did tonight....

anyone got any thoughts on the post i put in the scenery discussion...?

mog,

You need to forget about the parhelia, it's junk, move on.  

Until recently, my thing was FPS games.  I saw some side by side shots back when I was playing Doom 3 of several cards.  All did well in their class, but the Matrox Parahelia stands out in my mind.  It's processing of the game was very poor in some areas comparatively.  I'd stay away from it if I were you.