New 3D graphics for the Mac
Graphics hardware maker IXMicro has rolled out a new line of 3D graphics boards for Apple Macintosh computers.
The ix3D line features products that come preinstalled with a variety of graphic production software by companies such as MetaCreations, Totally Hip, Adrenaline, and Artifice.
Graphics boards are circuit boards equipped with graphics processors which plug into the "slots" inside of a Macintosh.
The high-end Ultimate Rez comes with 8 MB of video RAM and is priced at $699. The board can support high-resolution applications such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as QuarkXpress.
The Pro Rez is a $359 midlevel component aimed at multimedia-intensive Web designers and publishers. This includes 8MB of synchronous graphics RAM (SGRAM) that can operate at a resolution of 1152-by-870 pixels.
The Mac-Rocket, built upon a TwinTurbo 3D controller chip, is a 128-bit graphics accelerator that can support high-resolution QuickTime playback and MPEG video. MPEG is a major industry standard for playing back video. The board is priced at $279.
All three models come prepackaged with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0, Charts SE by Adrenaline, and Alien Skin's Eye Candy 3.0.