Hmm... Well I'm definitely looking forward to the upcomming Parhelia review @ [H]OCP

[MrGaribaldi]

Well, I must admit that I'm now looking forward to [H]|OCP's take on the card...

Why?
Because they tend to oc every card they get, which should show more of what the Parhelia can do...

Haig stated that the card could reach much higher speeds than it's clocked at, but it'd need a larger hsf than the AGP specs allows...

[Dogbert]

Kyle could just OC his FSB. He'll go nuts looking for an OC tool for the Parhelia. After driving himself nuts trying to OC it, he'll compare it to an OC Geforce 4, claiming it's not his fault you can't OC a Parhelia.

[Jake]

Originally posted by HyggeDK
There's a review of the Parhelia available at a Danish hardware site called HardInfo. They've got some nice pictures of the driver installation and setup. Looks like Matrox really made it easy to set up the Parhelia!

The test also shows several benchmarks. They really disapoint me. Parhelia cannot match even a Geforce 3 Ti500 in most benchmarks. I know, fps scores are not considered to be a meassure of card quality in these forums (which I also totally agree with). The fps number are not what decides whether I will buy this card or not, but really, I had hoped for something better than this. On the other hand it could be a driver issue. Time will tell when more reviews show up.

Anyway, see for your self at:

http://www.hardinfo.dk/tests/Grafikkort/default.asp?ID=426

Unfortunately it's all in Danish, but I guess you can still get some info from the pictures and the benchmarks.

I'll just add, that I am not my self related to HardInfo in any way. I've followed this forum the last year, and I've got the impression that any hands-on reviews are welcomed by you MURC'ers


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My computer:

Pentium 4 2.266GHz@2,266GHz, 533 MHz FSB (4 days old)
Asus P4S533 Motherboard
Matrox Millenium G400Max
512MB DDR333 TwinMOS RAM
Hauppauge WinTV Go (replaced my Marvel G400 because of lack of driver support)

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Yup, this has to be the best review of P yet. Thorough, precise and judging ALL parameters of this exellent peice of hardware. It's get a "recommended by Hardinfo award" btw. Too bad it's only in Danish. you guys would love to read this.

Maybe try a babelfish on this page http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?

Regards,

Jake

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by Dogbert
Kyle could just OC his FSB. He'll go nuts looking for an OC tool for the Parhelia. After driving himself nuts trying to OC it, he'll compare it to an OC Geforce 4, claiming it's not his fault you can't OC a Parhelia.

Maybe... But I don't care if he tests it against a GF4 4600 oc'ed with Liquid nitrogen or whatever else he's got...

I'm just interested in what figures he'll get out of the parhelia...

I know most of the problems with the P now is driver related, but how much increase will you get from the P with an increased FSB, or increased clock and ram speed?

Jake> Yeah, it's a good review...

[HyggeDK]

Originally posted by Jake


Yup, this has to be the best review of P yet. Thorough, precise and judging ALL parameters of this exellent peice of hardware. It's get a "recommended by Hardinfo award" btw. Too bad it's only in Danish. you guys would love to read this.

Maybe try a babelfish on this page http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?

Regards,

Jake

Generally the reviews seem to be coming quickly. I just saw the list of sites with review on the MURC front page. This gave me a very unpleasant surprise

The German site TecChannel have posted a review, although a short and not very thorough one. But guess what!? They claim that the 2D performance of the Parhelia is not even on level with the G550! This is a translation of their comment:

No competitor to date has been able to come up with a weapon against the excellent signal quality of the Matrox G550. Not even the next generation Parhelia-512.

Here is the output signal from the Parhelia-512:

http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/907/images/0010456_PIC.gif

Here is the output signal of the G550:

http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/907/images/0009904_PIC.gif

Their comment on the above signals are:

Disapointing: Except for the signal amplitude the Parhelia-512 has worse signal values than its predecessor, the G550.

I really hope that people are right when they say that signal values don't always represent actual quality, like High End/HiFi people claim. According to Toms Hardware they will post a Part II of their Parhelia review covering the 2D quality of the card. Hopefully it will bring pleasant news, or else my world will start to fall apart

According to Toms Hardware the Parhelia simply can't compete with the Geforce 4 Ti series when it comes to 3D image quality, not framerates. Now wasn't that what the Parhelia was ment to? And now it allegedly seems that the 2D quality might not even be perfect. But the Danish HardInfo site was very pleased with the 2D quality and saw a noticeable difference between ordinary and 10 bit graphics. I'm very confused about the Parhelia. Hopefully time will prove that I don't have to be.

Regards,
Claus

(Btw Jake, I'm also from Esbjerg although I now study in Lyngby)

[Jake]

Originally posted by HyggeDK


(Btw Jake, I'm also from Esbjerg although I now study in Lyngby)

Kuul, lad mig gætte.... DTU?

[HyggeDK]

Originally posted by Jake


Kuul, lad mig gætte.... DTU?

Jeps, lige præcis! Læser på kemiretningen, men er tosset med alt elektronik og andet der bare minder om teknik :-)

[FrgMstr]

Originally posted by Dogbert
Kyle could just OC his FSB. He'll go nuts looking for an OC tool for the Parhelia. After driving himself nuts trying to OC it, he'll compare it to an OC Geforce 4, claiming it's not his fault you can't OC a Parhelia.

Maybe we'll just compare it to a Voodoo5 so it won't look so bad against current other cards you can buy for half the price. Actually, you know a V5 / Parhelia shoot out sounds pretty good!

[Ryu Connor]

Disapointing: Except for the signal amplitude the Parhelia-512 has worse signal values than its predecessor, the G550.

I have to disagree with TecChannel. I see what they are saying. They are taking a look at the rise and fall values of the G550. They are correct, the G550 manages to respond quicker (rise and fall) than the Parhelia, but at the same time check out how imbalanced it is in that regard. The result of that imbalance are those troughs at the top of the signal and the spikes at the bottom as the signal falls.

Being faster at your rise and fall times doesn't mean a whole lot if your signal doesn't remain constant. If you take a look at the Parhelia image it makes that abundantly clear. See how the rise and falls are even and smooth? Notice how it's rise and fall times, while higher, are actually only tenths of a decimal point away from each other?

The Parhelia puts off a rock solid analog signal and that is exactly what you want: no hiccups, no jumps, and no dips. The trade off for faster rise and fall time isn't worth it if it's going to cause your signal to buckle.

The Parhelia is better.

[BuddMan]

Originally posted by FrgMstr


Maybe we'll just compare it to a Voodoo5 so it won't look so bad against current other cards you can buy for half the price. Actually, you know a V5 / Parhelia shoot out sounds pretty good!

Yep...you're a real professional.

[FrgMstr]

Originally posted by BuddMan


Yep...you're a real professional.

Sorry, I will leave my sense of humor at home next time. I forgot how serious you guys take you MATROX cards.....

[BuddMan]

I'm sure you meant good intentions with it.

Honestly Kyle, what kind of response were you expecting with that?

[FrgMstr]

Originally posted by BuddMan
I'm sure you meant good intentions with it.

Honestly Kyle, what kind of response were you expecting with that?

Did not expect anything else but something of that nature from you. Sorry I hurt your feelings about your Matrox. I won't do it again....well actually I probably will, but at least it sounded good. We still have that review to do you know?!

[MrGaribaldi]

Originally posted by FrgMstr
We still have that review to do you know?!

Kyle> How do you plan on doing that review?

Will you just run a few benchmarks and be satisfied with that, or will you check IQ, min, avg, and max fps, "smoothness" of play, how well it oc's, and the diff uses for the features (fps/iq in TH, DVD on one monitor, html editor on the other etc.)?

The reason i ask is that the P isn't a hardcore gamer card, but has a lot of other strengths... It would be nice to see more reviews who has done the testing with this in mind..

And since most ppl think you've allready made up your mind about the P, it'd be a good way to show you're neither bought of nv, nor an FPS hoe...

.02$

[BuddMan]

Originally posted by FrgMstr


Did not expect anything else but something of that nature from you. Sorry I hurt your feelings about your Matrox. I won't do it again....well actually I probably will, but at least it sounded good. We still have that review to do you know?!

Something mature huh....well, maybe you should try practicing what you preach first. Again, if you act like a baby, I'll treat you like one. I will not respond any more to any of your posts here at MURC because its obvious what your intentions are.