This web-site interviewed Mr. Sebastian Macdougall from Matrox who was so kind to answer some questions about the new Matrox Parhelia-512 chip. I can’t say that the questions and answers were very original, but we still managed to collect some interesting info about the new solution. According to Mr. Macdougall, Parhelia-512 should be a basis for the entire product family. Here is a quote:

The Parhelia-512 will become the basis for a whole slew of products in the future. We’ll be offering different versions of the chip and boards to cater to different markets, however, we won’t be radically changing this architecture in six months.

And to tell the truth this sounds very attractive to me. They could launch a "lite" version (more than one even) of the Parhelia-512 chip without some excessive features (like 4 TMUs per pipeline). Then they could try conquering some part of the gaming market. Unfortunately, the biggest problem here is the time frame. If the "lite" version (or versions) haven’t been developed yet, the whole thing may simply get stuck somewhere in the middle of the way.