AGPx8 and higher clocked Parhelia's by Christmas?

[McElvis]

Humm...Interesting article at The Inquirer -


SOURCES CLOSE TO a Taiwanese manufacturer claimed that the 8X Parhelia card is scheduled to hit the streets October.
But as we've noted before, AGP 8X doesn't necessarily give that much, just yet, with improvements to the Parhelia card only benefiting machines with slow or narrow frame buffers.

By which we presume is meant machines which use the 845G Intel chipset with 128-bit memory interfaces.

But ATI's Radeon R300 will likely beat anything Matrox can come up in the near term, although the graphics chip in the Parhelia will give the edge on more complex 3D scenes, depending on the games.

The Taiwanese manufacturer also claimed that towards the end of the year we'll see cards overclocked to billy-o, which might really give Matrox competitors a run for their money.

And Matrox is apparently releasing a new driver, version 1.1, towards the end of this week which will also boost performance, he claimed.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4822

[Wombat]

They've barely launched the card, you think they're going to refresh the design 3 months after initial availability?

[Snakebitten]

Maybe the agp 8x version is the 256mb version? I wouldn't be surprised to see a new/faster Parhelia by Christmas. Goes in line with all the other manufacturers. 4-5 months after the initial launch, there is some sort of "Ultra" version of the chip.

[Cobos]

As far as I know the only ones I know that make "Ultra" versions (basicly just higher clocked versions) is Nvidia and they wait 6 months. That's how they can keep their (in)famous 6-month-cycle. But as Wombat has been hinting and Haig, the 256MB version will be clocked at the same speed and will be just as fast/slow as P128. And the next refresh will probably be on a 90nm process and thus a bit into the future. And why oh why does anyone want AGP 8x, it is sooo slow, you might as well turn of all but one of the P's pipelines or they'll die of boredom waiting for something to do while they transfer the data through the AGP bus...

Cobos

[ALBPM]

I have some cheap NV-30's I'll sell ya

Paul

[GT98]

What needs to be changed for AGP8X?? I don't see any major problems making an AGP8X complaint card since the G400 was 2X at first then became 4X after a couple months.

[DGhost]

if i had to select AGP 8x or not, i guess i would rather see the 256MB card being an AGP Pro card before AGP 8x. why? AGP Pro can give more power to the card, and also defines that the heatsink can take up one or two adjacent slots. i think that is enough of an explanation =)

[Greebe]

Having a card that consumes more power and/or AGP Pro reduces what MB's can support it, if it willl work in most systems, wasting away PCI slots etc... all disadvantages.

Running faster with lower power consumption (cooler too) is what we all need.

[DGhost]

disadvantages to some, including the regular everday consumers, yes.

disadvantages to the professional market, where the 3d Labs and FireGL4 cards exist, not nessicarily. many low-mid range workstation vendors already take motherboard and chassis compatability into consideration when designing systems.

it does limit market penetration, yes, but the extra performance would make it a competetor to the upper end Quadro 4's and ATI's FireGL line...

edit: also, on a lot of motherboards the first PCI slot shares IRQ's with the AGP slot. it does depend on manufacturer, and sometimes they do some strange things with it, but for the most part that is accurate. often times if the first slot does not share, the second slot does. just about every vid card manufacturer has said that devices sharing IRQ's w/ video cards == bad mojo. not that it always is a problem, just that it can be.

[Greebe]

Maybe I should add to my sig, "Clueless n00b"

[Kruzin]

This thread really belongs in the Crystal Ball forum.
So that's where it can now be found....

[impact]

So is this rumour true or not? Or what?

[Ssin]

Well guys.. guess what just landed on my desk and now you guys tell me : wait for another revamped version? darn I already waited so long...

[CaineTanathos]

don't think there will be a revamped version
revamped drivers yes

[Ssin]

Just installed it into my computer.. wow. First thing I said to myself when I saw the screen : "Now THAT's a graphic card." It was before installing the drivers under windows XP... it was already noticeable... imagine my face AFTER driver installation.. that's it I'm in Parhelia's charm. Only one thing, Neverwinter wasn't so good looking than with a GeForce 2 GTS. And strange but true, the card seemed much more fast with gigacolor on (I'm talking 2D, I didn't have time to try Gigacolor in games).