by Greg King on June 22, 2006 in Graphics & Displays
We have all dealt with products that, on paper, are full of promise. These products generate a lot of hype and buzz but once they become hands on, the magic surrounding them seems to disappear. Today we are taking a look at a product that seems almost too good to be true.
Back in late March, I was fortunate enough to attend the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California. San Jose is somewhat of a nerd Mecca in the sense that in this town, so much technology has started. It seems fitting that this was my first look at Matroxs latest offering to the surround graphics crowd.
To most, Matrox needs no introduction. Founded in 1976 in Montreal, Canada, Matrox has been an innovator in the graphics industry. With a primary focus on the professional user, Matrox is the leader in multi display graphics solutions. You might remember them from the days of the Parhelia. The Parhelia was a Matrox graphics card that allowed the user to use up to 3 displays for a true surround experience. The Parhelia was also the first video card to use a 256-bit memory bus. Unfortunately it could not compete with the GeForce 4 Ti or the ATI 9700 and slipped in sales. Matrox was still able to sell the card mainly because of its unique feature of allowing the user to experience surround gaming.
Today, we are taking the Matrox TripleHead2Go for a spin. This name might sound familiar to you as the Matrox DualHead2Go has been out for a while. Like its older brother, the TH2Go allows the user to span their desktop across multiple screens. While the DH2Go allowed users to use 2 displays, the TH2Go allows users to use up to 3 displays. This is referred to as Surround Gaming by Matrox and should provide for added productivity as well as an enjoyable gaming experience. Before we jump to any conclusions, lets take a look at the unit.
Packaging
The TH2Go comes packaged in a colorful blue box with a trio of LCD monitors on the front, allowing anyone looking at the box to experience what the end result could be should you purchase this product.
On the back of the box, there is a bit of information about the TH2Go and examples of the different configurations you can have with hooking up your unit.
Once inside the box, we find the pieces sorted neatly inside another fold out box. These pieces include the power supply and power cord, a VGA to VGA cable, a driver CD, a DVI to VGA cable and the TH2Go unit itself.
Now that we have a feel for how the unit came packaged, lets move onto the unit itself.