Matrox's new Parhelia line of graphics accelerators is based on the company's 512-bit Parhelia-512 graphics processing unit (GPU), which includes 80 million transistors and 256-bit DDR memory that provides more than 20gb/s of memory bandwidth.
Although Matrox is known for making 2D graphics cards, and the new line is designed to provide high-end 2D performance, Parhelia also offers some novel 3D capabilities. A notable feature is Surround Gaming, which is designed to provide a three-display immersive game environment supported by titles such as Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2002 and ID Software's Quake III Arena. Parhelia's TripleHead Desktop environment and Surround Design feature also provide three-display viewing for a variety of applications running under Windows 2000/XP, including AutoCAD, SolidWorks 2001, and 3ds max. Drivers for additional applications are planned. A board with 128mb of DDR memory will cost $399. Matrox also plans to ship a 256mb version. —JD
Matrox Graphics; www.matrox.com/mga