Matrox Parhelia HR256

The Matrox Parhelia HR256 is an end-of-life graphics card built on the Parhelia-512 chip, manufactured by UMC on a 150 nm process with 80 million transistors on a 174 mm² die. It carries 256 MB of DDR memory on a 64-bit bus, delivering 4.000 GB/s of bandwidth, and pairs 16 texture mapping units with 4 render output units. The card is single-slot, requires no power connectors, and uses a PCI-X bus interface. In the database, it sits at the 50th percentile among all GPUs, though its average benchmark score is recorded as zero, indicating no measured performance data exists.

Who Should Consider It

The Parhelia HR256 is a legacy product, and the data reflects that positioning. Its API support is limited to DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3, with no Vulkan support. That means the card is only appropriate for software and games designed around those APIs, which places it firmly in the early-2000s era of PC graphics. The 256 MB memory capacity, while generous for its time, is paired with a 64-bit memory bus and 4.000 GB/s bandwidth. That bandwidth figure is modest, and it will constrain texture-heavy workloads at higher resolutions. Benchmark results do not exist for this card, so any recommendation must be inferred from the specification sheet rather than measured performance.

Given the pixel rate of 800.0 MPixel/s and texture rate of 3.200 GTexel/s, the card is capable of driving simple 3D scenes at low resolutions and modest settings. For users running legacy DirectX 8.1 titles—such as early 2000s shooters or strategy games—the Parhelia HR256 could handle those workloads at reduced detail levels. It is not suited for modern games, which require newer DirectX versions and far higher memory bandwidth. The absence of any recorded benchmark scores means no resolution-specific guidance can be derived from the database; instead, the recommendation is qualitative: this card targets low-resolution, low-detail legacy scenarios, not contemporary gaming.

The card's single-slot form factor and lack of power connectors make it easy to install in older systems, and the suggested power supply of 200 W is low. That said, the PCI-X interface is not found on consumer motherboards of the last two decades, so the card would only fit in workstation or server platforms that still support PCI-X. For users with such systems who need basic 2D output or early 3D acceleration, the Parhelia HR256 is a functional choice, but it is not a performance part by any modern measure.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The Parhelia HR256 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The fact pack lists neither field, and the architecture is built around fixed-function texture and pixel units rather than programmable acceleration for ray-traced lighting. Consequently, the card offers no hardware ray tracing support whatsoever. Any ray-traced effects in games or applications would have to be handled entirely in software, which the 800.0 MPixel/s pixel rate and 3.200 GTexel/s texture rate are not equipped to do at playable speeds.

The API support is DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3. These are early versions of their respective APIs, lacking the shader model flexibility and feature sets of later iterations. There is no Vulkan support, and no other modern API is listed. The absence of tensor cores also rules out any AI-accelerated features such as deep learning super sampling or other neural network-based enhancements. The card's feature set is therefore limited to what DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 allowed at the time: fixed-function transformation and lighting, basic pixel and vertex shaders, and standard texture filtering. The 16 TMUs and 4 ROPs define the card's rasterization throughput, but without modern API hooks, those units cannot be leveraged for contemporary effects.

How It Compares

The fact pack provides no nearest rivals for the Parhelia HR256. The nearestRivals field is empty, meaning there are no competitor names, scores, or delta percentages to reference. As a result, no comparative positioning against other specific graphics cards can be made from the data. The only placement information available is the percentile rank of 50 among all GPUs in the database, which places the card exactly at the median of the distribution. However, with an average benchmark score of zero, that percentile appears to be a default or placeholder value rather than a reflection of measured performance.

Because no rival data exists, any attempt to compare the Parhelia HR256 to other cards would require outside knowledge, which is not permitted. The card's specifications—such as the 64-bit memory bus and 4.000 GB/s bandwidth—can be discussed in absolute terms, but not relative to other products. The 50th percentile is the sole quantitative comparison point, and it suggests that the card sits in the middle of the database's performance ordering, but that ordering is not substantiated by any benchmark results. In the absence of rival names, the analysis must conclude that the Parhelia HR256 cannot be positioned against any specific competitor within this database.

FAQ

Q: What type of memory does the Matrox Parhelia HR256 use?

A: It uses 256 MB of DDR memory on a 64-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 4.000 GB/s.

Q: Does the card support ray tracing?

A: No. The Parhelia HR256 has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores, so it offers no hardware ray tracing capability.

Q: What APIs are supported?

A: The card supports DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3. It does not support Vulkan.

Q: What is the pixel and texture throughput?

A: The pixel rate is 800.0 MPixel/s, and the texture rate is 3.200 GTexel/s.

Q: What is the production status of this card?

A: The production status is listed as end-of-life.

Q: What is the card's bus interface?

A: It uses a PCI-X bus interface and is a single-slot card with no power connectors.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark data for the Parhelia HR256 is effectively empty. The benchmarks array contains no entries, and the average benchmark score is recorded as zero. The percentileVsAllGpus field is 50, which places the card at the median of all GPUs in the database. However, a median percentile with no underlying benchmark score is not a meaningful performance indicator—it likely reflects a default ranking rather than a measured outcome. Without any benchmark scores, no percentage deltas can be computed against rivals, and the nearestRivals list is empty, confirming that no comparative performance data exists.

The only quantitative performance metrics available are the card's fixed-function rates: 800.0 MPixel/s for pixels and 3.200 GTexel/s for textures. These figures describe the card's theoretical fill rate, but they do not translate into a benchmark score that can be compared to other products. The memory bandwidth of 4.000 GB/s, derived from the 250 MHz memory clock and 500 Mbps effective data rate on a 64-bit bus, is a hard ceiling for data throughput. That bandwidth is sufficient for the card's era but is not competitive with any modern card, though such comparisons are not possible within the given data.

The absence of recorded benchmarks means the card cannot be ranked on any performance ladder. The 50th percentile is the only positional data, and it is not supported by any score. In practical terms, the Parhelia HR256's performance must be inferred from its specification sheet: a 150 nm chip with 80 million transistors, 16 TMUs, 4 ROPs, and a 64-bit memory interface. These figures describe a low-end part of its generation, but without benchmark results, the database cannot confirm how it performs in real workloads. The data shows a card that is end-of-life, with no measured performance, no rivals, and no comparative deltas—only its raw architectural specifications and a placeholder percentile.