The Parhelia HR256 was a graphics card by Matrox, launched in September 2003. Built on the 150 nm process, and based on the Parhelia-512 graphics processor, the card supports DirectX 8.1. Since Parhelia HR256 does not support DirectX 11 or DirectX 12, it might not be able to run all the latest games. The Parhelia-512 graphics processor is an average sized chip with a die area of 174 mm² and 80 million transistors. It features 4 pixel shaders and 4 vertex shaders, 16 texture mapping units, and 4 ROPs. Due to the lack of unified shaders you will not be able to run recent games at all (which require unified shader/DX10+ support). Matrox has paired 256 MB DDR memory with the Parhelia HR256, which are connected using a 64-bit memory interface. The GPU is operating at a frequency of 200 MHz, memory is running at 250 MHz.
Being a single-slot card, the Matrox Parhelia HR256 does not require any additional power connector, its power draw is not exactly known. Display outputs include: 2x LFH60. Parhelia HR256 is connected to the rest of the system using a PCI-X interface. The card measures 190 mm in length, and features a single-slot cooling solution.