Matrox Parhelia Precision SGT

The Matrox Parhelia Precision SGT is an end-of-life graphics card built around the Parhelia-512 chip. The fact pack records the manufacturer as Unknown and does not list a series or codename. Its architecture and generation are both labeled Parhelia. The chip is manufactured by UMC on a 150 nm process and contains 80 million transistors on a 174 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 459.8K per mm². Memory is 256 MB of DDR on a 64-bit bus with a 250 MHz memory clock, a 500 Mbps effective data rate, and 4.000 GB/s bandwidth. The card supports DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3, has no Vulkan entry, no RT cores, and no tensor cores. It sits at the 50th percentile among all GPUs in the dataset, while its average benchmark score is 0 and its benchmarks list is empty.

How It Compares

The nearestRivals list in the FACT PACK is empty. There are, therefore, no named competitors to place against this card, and no rival-by-rival paragraphs can be generated. The only position metric is percentileVsAllGpus, which is 50. That value places the card at the median of the GPU distribution used by the database. A 50th-percentile rank is neither a lead nor a deficit; it is the exact midpoint of the ranked set. The fact pack also provides an average benchmark score of 0, but with no benchmark entries and no rival deltas, this score cannot be compared to other parts. The card's concrete throughput facts are a pixel rate of 800.0 MPixel/s from 4 ROPs and a texture rate of 3.200 GTexel/s from 16 TMUs. Those are the only quantitative performance anchors available. No predecessor or successor is listed, so there is no product-family context either.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The feature set of the Parhelia Precision SGT is defined by the absence of modern compute and ray tracing hardware. The FACT PACK does not list RT cores, and it does not list tensor cores. The card does not have a Vulkan API entry. It is limited to DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3. The underlying chip is the Parhelia-512 from the Parhelia architecture, in the Parhelia generation. The GPU contains 16 TMUs and 4 ROPs, which are the fixed-function units that drive the 800.0 MPixel/s pixel rate and 3.200 GTexel/s texture rate. No shading unit count, no FP32 throughput, and no FP16 throughput are listed in the FACT PACK. The absence of Vulkan is particularly important: applications written for Vulkan cannot be used. Dedicated ray tracing features are also absent because there is no RT core field. Tensor-based workloads likewise have no hardware support, as no tensor cores are listed. The API profile of DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 means the card is oriented toward software designed for those interfaces.

Power and Cooling

The FACT PACK does not specify a TDP for the Matrox Parhelia Precision SGT. What is specified is a suggested power supply of 200 W. The card requires no power connectors. It is a single-slot board, which means it occupies one expansion slot in a system. Its length is 190 mm, or 7.5 inches, a figure that informs case clearance. The bus interface is PCI-X, so the host system must have a PCI-X slot. Since no auxiliary power connector is present, installation does not involve connecting a power cable to the board. The combination of a 200 W PSU recommendation and no power connectors suggests a modest overall system power envelope, though the TDP field itself remains null.

FAQ

Q: What chip is at the core of the Matrox Parhelia Precision SGT?

A: The chip is the Parhelia-512, with Parhelia architecture and generation. It is built on a 150 nm process at UMC and contains 80 million transistors on a 174 mm² die, for a transistor density of 459.8K per mm².

Q: How much memory is installed and what is its bandwidth?

A: The card has 256 MB of DDR memory on a 64-bit bus. The memory clock is 250 MHz, with a 500 Mbps effective data rate, yielding a bandwidth of 4.000 GB/s.

Q: Which rendering APIs does it support?

A: It supports DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3. There is no Vulkan entry in the FACT PACK.

Q: Does it have RT or tensor cores?

A: No. The FACT PACK lists no RT cores and no tensor cores.

Q: What power supply and power connectors are required?

A: The suggested PSU is 200 W. The card has no power connectors, so no auxiliary power cable is needed.

Q: What display output is available?

A: The card has 1x DVI output.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark record for this card is nearly empty. The benchmarks array contains no entries, and the average benchmark score is 0. Because nearestRivals is empty, there are no percentage deltas to report against named competitors. The percentileVsAllGpus value of 50 places the card exactly in the middle of the ranked set. This median standing is a useful positional fact, but it is not a substitute for workload-level scores. The two numeric throughput rates in the FACT PACK are the pixel rate of 800.0 MPixel/s and the texture rate of 3.200 GTexel/s. These are generated by 4 ROPs and 16 TMUs respectively. Memory bandwidth is 4.000 GB/s, which bounds how quickly textures and geometry can be fed to those units. There are no game-specific results, synthetic benchmark scores, or FP32/FP16 compute figures in the fact pack. Therefore, the performance assessment must be built from the 50th-percentile rank, the fill rates, and the memory subsystem, not from direct benchmark deltas. The zero score should be treated as a sign that no normalized benchmark value is recorded rather than as a measured zero-performance result.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem is a critical part of the Parhelia Precision SGT's profile. It consists of 256 MB of DDR memory, which is the frame buffer capacity available to applications. The bus width is 64 bit. Memory clock is 250 MHz, with an effective data rate of 500 Mbps. These figures combine to produce a memory bandwidth of 4.000 GB/s. High-resolution rendering places heavy pressure on both capacity and bandwidth. A 256 MB buffer can hold a limited number of high-resolution textures and render targets. A 64-bit bus directly sets the width of each memory transfer. The 4.000 GB/s bandwidth is the upper limit for data moving to and from memory. The pixel rate of 800.0 MPixel/s means the display pipeline must touch memory frequently when rendering frames. With a texture rate of 3.200 GTexel/s, textured scenes also require repeated memory reads. Thus, high-resolution, high-quality settings are likely to be constrained by the memory subsystem. The card also has a single DVI output, so display connectivity is limited to one digital monitor.

Who Should Consider It

The Parhelia Precision SGT is a niche product in this database. It sits at the 50th percentile, which is median performance among all recorded GPUs, but with no benchmark entries and a 0 average score, it cannot be recommended on the basis of measured wins. The card is appropriate for a PCI-X system that requires a single-slot board with no power connectors and a 200 W PSU recommendation. Its API support of DirectX 8.1 and OpenGL 1.3 makes it usable for legacy applications built around those APIs. The lack of Vulkan, RT cores, and tensor cores rules out modern rendering workloads that depend on those features. For lower resolutions and modest settings, the 800.0 MPixel/s pixel rate and 3.200 GTexel/s texture rate may be adequate. For high resolutions and high settings, the 256 MB memory capacity and 4.000 GB/s bandwidth are likely limiting factors. The 1x DVI output provides a single digital display connection. As an end-of-life product with no successor listed, it falls to individuals with matching hardware and software needs. It is not a performance leader based on the available data; it is a compatibility-oriented card for a specific platform generation.