Graphics Matrox parhelia or ATI Fire GL?

first of all: i did search, but all i found was eiter old or not what i was looking for... (i'm not wery good at searching though..)

I'm going to buy a couple of LCD monitors for a dualhead setup.

for that i need a graphics card with dual DVI (i'm NOT running a LCD of VGA)..

I have looked at Matrox parhelia and ATI FireGL 9500... Both are the 128MB versions...

they both look like good cards, but i'm not sure how they perform... i will do a littlebit gaming, but nothing serious (currently running a ARI Radeon 7500 for my dual monitor setup, and that works OK.. allthough a littlebit slow).. Most of the time i'm doing 2D work... (IRC, and surfing @bit is pretty 2D, isn't it? )

Anyone have any experience with these two cards?

(i know there is a few nvidia cards out there with dual dvi, but i don't really want Nvidia, but if they are way better and cheaper i might look into them...)

 

Go for the FireGL.

 

Parhelia sucks, only kool thing is the 512bitness...

 

ok... sounds like i should go for FireGL then... what is actually the difference between Radeon and Fire GL?

 

mostly just the dual dvi bit, most of the time the radeon and firegl boards are almost exactly the same to keep costs down.

The ATI Radeon To ATI FireGL Mod Guide Rev. 2.0!

u can save lots of money and convert a radeon to a firegl but u'll often loose the functionality of the second vga, which kinda is a problem if u want dual-dvi :S

 

yeah.. i guess, since basicly the only reason i'll go for the fireGL is the dual DVI feature ...

but thanks alot guys... you made my choice easier

 

Actually as someone who has owned a parhelia for some time i can say it's a great card

It speeds up my work greatly with the Tri-Head feature, it plays the latest games, and has plenty of advanced features.

Just because it's not geared around games or getting pointlessly high framerates doesn't mean it's not a good card, depends if you do more desktop/work stuff on your PC or if it's just a game machine.

The tri-head feature is amazingly cool in games though, if only i could afford tft's instead of burnt out old 15" monitors as my secondary and tertiary displays.

 

http://usa.asus.com/products/vga/v9520vs/overview.htm
second card down here: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/FX5200_Series.html

I think there was a 5700 version but I havn't seen it on sale anywhere.

 

hmm... now i'm getting doubtful again... hehe... i see that the parhelia is 512bit... will this really be noticeable? i have heard that matrox cards in general have a littlebit better picturequality, allthough they are slower....

Good point about the framerates... it seems like the parhelia has more multimonitor features than all other... is this correct?

i was thinking about 3 19" LCD's but then i'll have to run two of them on VGA... besides, i don't have enough space for 3 monitors..

 

hehe, sorry.

Have a nosey around here: http://www.matrox.com/mga/products/home.cfm

 

i know.. i have looked alot on that page... but all those numbers and acronyms doesn't tell my anything really...

It's years since i lost the clue on graphicscards... it got way to complicated...

*remembers when memory was the most important thing on GFX cards *


I don't really know any more.. but i might go for parhelia after all... just to try out something new

 

First I have to say there is huge difference between the fireGL and a regular radeon. Yes they use the same GPU's but the drivers for the fireGL goes through a far more strict validation process and has better support for the openGL standard than the radeon does. A fireGL is made for graphic workstations that do CAD/CAM and stuff like that, where a radeon is pretty much just for gaming and regular desktop crap. if you were to take a fireGL card and the radeon that has the same GPU the radeon would tear up the fireGL in all gaming benchmarks, in most cases by as much as 50%. The fireGL shows its value in its precesion and the fact that most high end CAD/CAM software won't run on regular video cards, they require either a fireGL or an nvidia Quadro or the matrox equiv. to run. saying they are the same is the same as say you can take a 350 v8 out of a chevy truck and drop it in a corvette and get the same performance cus they both use 350 v8's.

 

have you ever used one?

yes, agreed.

 

AutoCAD 2004 runs fine on a Radeon 9000 Pro AIW (which is good, because there aren't any FireGLs at the local stores!).

 

I didn't say that none of them would run on a regular radeon, i just said that most high end CAD/CAM software won't, the biggest exception being the AutoCAD series. I've just run into many that want a certified card.

 

well u'll notice i said

and if u ever mod a radeon to a firegl u use the firegl drivers at the end of it all which optimises it for cad/cam etc... and not for gaming.

and as for v8 analogies, the difference between a truck and a corvette is huge whereas the difference between a firegl and a radeon board is far smaller.

read the article i linked

 

do not know what you want but link it seems good. i do not realy know what they are like, seeing as your looking.