Hand on heart, who of you remembers the manufacturer Matrox? We assume that unless you are over 30 years old , you have never heard the name in your life. Matrox – Once a legendary graphics card manufacturer that fought side by side with icons like 3dfx and ATI in the 1990s. Today, it’s in the imaginary hall of fame in the graphics card world, but it still exists and does exactly what it does best, and that’s superbly mastered multi-screen interfacing at the same time with perfect stability and quality. This is where Matrox recently burned everyone’s pond and introduced the LUMA Pro A380 Octal, a graphics card that can connect up to EIGHT monitors at once.
So let’s get down to specific numbers and figures, the MATROX LUMA Pro A380 Octal is built on two Intel Arc A380 cards and each one can handle four screens, so there must be two GPUs in there at once. Each of the eight mini-DisplayPort 2.0s, can gamely handle 5K resolution at 60Hz, or you can use the combination of the two ports to drive an 8K monitor at 60Hz or 5K at 120Hz and with HDR support. The card has a TDP of 130W and requires an external power supply, whether it will be 6-pin or 8-pin we don’t know yet but we expect this to be announced soon. It also lacks hardware synchronization and framelocking, which means that all screens run completely simultaneously.
Who could take advantage of this potential, you ask ? The MATROX LUMA Pro A380 is ideal for doctors’ offices, banks or control centres, modern transport stations – in short, where every detail has to be spot on. And if even eight outputs are not enough, you can connect two of these cards and synchronise up to 16 screens at once. What’s more, Matrox has included its own PowerDesk software that lets you set everything up to suit your needs.
If we were to compare this card to some ordinary graphics card, for example from NVIDIA, performance-wise on paper it’s close to the GeForce RTX 3050, maybe a bit weaker, but we know that paper can take a lot, and that’s no exception in our case, because Matrox is about something completely different. While NVIDIA is betting on graphics performance and tailoring its products to its biggest target audience, Matrox is playing in a completely different league. the “old king” has bet everything on stability, multi-screen management, synchronization accuracy, and special options for enterprise, medical, and large installations.
Try to imagine needing to power a video wall in a hospital, airport or bank all at once, that’s exactly where the MATROX LUMA Pro A380 Octal is headed, so even if it doesn’t seem like it at first glance, the uses for this card are really varied and even a bit different from regular graphics cards.
If you are tempted by the possibility of owning such a piece of technology, know that Quad versions are available today at well-known retailers. But if you’re craving this latest piece that lights up to eight monitors at once and can handle even the most demanding installations, you’ll have to turn directly to Matrox. Also, be warned that these conveniences will air out many a wallet and thus this card won’t be for everyone. Its price tag will be well over four thousand euros, but in the professional world, where reliability, stability and precise synchronization are absolute priorities, this investment is really worth it.
So if you’re looking for a solution that will take your corporate presentation, control centre or medical imaging or vision systems to the next level, the Matrox LUMA Pro A380 Octal will open the door to a world where even eight screens is just the beginning of the possibilities.