Matrox delivers Dual-Link Extio F1240 remote graphics unit

Look, you never know when you'll be 820 feet away from your gorgeous duo of dual-link displays, audio inputs, six USB 2.0 ports and piping hot cup of joe, but Matrox is here to make sure that's never a concern you'll have to sweat. Upping the ante from last year's Extio F1220, the Dual-Link Extio F1240 now plays nice with those swank 30-inchers that are gracing your desk and extends of all the aforesaid parts some 250 meters via a single fiber-optic cable. Better still, the whole thing is fanless, and there's even a mini-Toslink audio port, VGA sockets and stereo audio in / out connectors to boot. Mum's the word on a price for the currently available unit, and just FYI, that whole transfer of coffee thing is totally not recommended.

[Via BIOS]

[Rafer @ May 14th 2008 4:49PM]

WAIT... where are the video card/s

[Rob @ May 14th 2008 4:53PM]

They sit outside the case in that blue ring. It's clearly shown in that picture.
Actually, this would be great for those working in areas which require extreme silence. Audio and video production can benefit a lot from this. I hope the price is not too high.

[Tom @ May 14th 2008 5:05PM]

Your hope is futile. The price will likely be absolutely staggering, but things like this are completely necessary in an audio/video shop. Well, you could build a 100% fanless rig with hard drives in another room - but nobody wants that. This makes life much simpler, albeit at a pretty penny or 200,000.

[DLaugh @ May 14th 2008 7:26PM]

The unit is replaces is ~$2,500, to give you some idea of the likely price.

[Billy Fiul @ May 14th 2008 10:12PM]

LOL, for 2000 pennies, you could build a pretty silent rig. LOL

[TheCow5 @ May 14th 2008 5:23PM]

so how to u power on the system when the PC is on the first floor in the car port. I can see setting the bios to have the unit power on from a keyboard funcition key but what if you want a physical button to force the unit off/on.

I want one but I can't imagine what the price would be.

[EricH @ May 14th 2008 5:31PM]

Product already in production environments for years. http://www.amulethotkey.com/products/dxr2

[Mike @ May 14th 2008 9:08PM]

Does this mean that this lets me have a small portable computer or tablet pc, and still power (2_) 30 inch monitors at high resolution?

[Sean O @ May 15th 2008 1:53AM]

I have a setup like this. It cost about $200 total. You get a USB extender for $30 (available everywhere via Google). Then you get a couple of HDMI cat5 extenders on ebay (there are hundreds of buy it now auctions) for $70 each. Instead of trying to extend your audio ports, you simply get a USB audio adapter for $20.

The limitations are that you have USB 1.1 instead of 2.0. And you have single-link DVI instead of dual link. Hardly worth the 1000% price increase. USB 2.0 devices, like hard drives, don't need to be next to your monitor, so extending that is pointless. 30" monitors are lame IMO. I prefer 40" 1080p TV sets that cost about the same and only require single-link DVI/HDMI.

[Eric Tousignant @ May 15th 2008 8:22AM]

I completely agree with you...

But 30" monitor used to have much bigger resolution than HDTV... just so you know. So it's better for audio/video workers ;)

[arcsine @ May 15th 2008 11:28AM]

I miss the days when you could still buy video cards with stable drivers, bug-free output, and accurate color at commercial PC stores. Come back, Matrox!

[Demnurf @ May 15th 2008 2:37PM]

Terradici has been working on this for the past five years...http://terradici.com/technology/index.html

Not much different than a thin client.