G450 vs G400Max for gaming performances?

[Gretz99]

Hi Everyone,

I just posted this on the Matrox forum but realized I should have posted it here...

I have been contemplating purchasing the G400Max (I am a G200 owner now) for quite some time but with the potential release (when?) of the G450, I am just wondering what the "gaming" (3D) performance of the G450 vs the G400Max is. With the G450 being branded as a "businness" solution, does that mean it will have "less" gaming perfromance vs the G400Max in terms of D3D and OpenGL?

Also, I have been trying to follow news regarding the G450, but is there any official news as to it's release date for the public?

Thx in advance,
Gretz99



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My system specs:
PII 300@450, Asus P2B Rev 1010, 128MB PC100 SDRAM, Millenium G200 Bios 2.6, Maxtor 27.2 GB DiamondMax 6800+, Maxtor 98040D6 8.4GB, Matshita CR-588, HP CD-Writer 7200, SB AWE32, Logitech MouseMan +, 17" Samnsung 17GLsi.

OS:
Running Triple Boot-
1. Windows NT4SP6 Workstation (Matrox Powerdesk 4.45 at 1152x864/1600x1280)
2. Windows 98 Lite SE (Matrox Powerdesk 5.52 at 1152x864)
3. Windows 2000 at 1152x864

[paulcs]

Welcome Gretz99. Unfortunately, anyone here who has tried the G450, and I can't imagine that would be anyone outside of Matrox itself, isn't at liberty to talk about it. The rest of us, and I assume that includes Matrox's beta testers, haven't seen or heard much about the board outside of what Matrox has made public.

It certainly sounds like a faster board, although Matrox isn't really marketing it to gamers.

You've had that G200 for such a long time, you might want to wait a month or two and see what the G450 has to offer. If worse comes to worse, the G400 will be cheaper. The price is bound to drop when the G450 is released and starts showing up in stores.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[MadCat]

My own personal, informed opinion:

For starters, I happen to believe that the G450 will be less expensive then the G400 MAX. after all, they are catering to businesses here, and if you look around youll see the target pricerange for a business vc (not for professional 3d apps) is around $100-150. Plus, like many business solutions, the card will probably come with less memory, I would wager 16mb.

Second, I believe memory bandwidth is going to kill this thing. To get the same memory bandwidth (theoretical) as the G400 MAX (200mhz SDR, 128-bit bus between DualBus queue and memory), you would have to equip this thing with 400mhz DDR. Thats not going to happen with a moderately priced business solution. If they use 300 or 333mhz DDR (much more likely), performance will be closer to a vanilla G400. Of course, like like other bandwidth-limited, high fill-rate cards, the G450 will have excellent framrates at low-res 16-bit with no eyecandy.

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[This message has been edited by MadCat (edited 30 May 2000).]

[APV]

The G450 is geared towards professional/business 3D applications, don't expect it to do well in games at least better than G400 Max. Matrox will move out of the 3D gaming market if their forecoming G450 do good in the business/professional arena.

There are many reasons for this but to make it short, it is mostly based on the fact that the research/development cost of a 3D gaming card don't justify the life span and sales of today's 3D gaming card.

[APV]

before you fame me, you will understand what matrox's idea of justify by looking at the sales figures of Nivida TNT compare to other manufacturers' number

[Joel]

How Matrox markets the card is not going to have any bearing on how it performs compared to the G400MAX. I feel that most of you here will be more than pleased when it does finally reach the market.

Joel

[MadCat]

Yes, but how Matrox markets a product DOES put a bearing on price. Youre not going to find many non-3d geared businesses willing to buy anything more than a generic video card, and those that do are on a tight budget. I fully expect this to be an attempt by Matrox to gain some OEM marketshare, and if thats the case the target price of the card could be under $100.

In any case, you want to tell me how this card is going to outperform a G400 MAX? Even if you discount the fact that DDR delivers slightly less than double the performance of SDRAM, you will still need 400MHz DDR to match the memory bandwidth of the MAX. And as Nvidia has learned both with the GeForce SDR, and the GeForce 2, you can shrink your die and boost the fillrate to hell and back, but its useless without more bandwidth. Did I mention 400MHz DDR is not even shipping yet, and when it finally does it will cost a bundle.

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[Eric B]

Madcat, you've got your memory bandwidth backwards (kinda).

The G450 uses 64bit DDR which performs (roughly) equivalently to 128bit SDR.

If Matrox slaps on 166mhz 64bit DDR ram then the G450 will likely perform faster than the Vanilla but slower than the Max. If it's 200mhz 64bit DDR ram then it'll likely be slightly faster than the Max. The card will definitely be memory bandwidth limited rather than fillrate limited.

Gaming performance should be the same even if it is a business solution - the drivers are/should be the same since it's the same chip, just on a better process.

I expect the card to sell for less than the G400 Max unless it comes with 200mhz DDR - should be quite a steal for graphics pros who like to play the odd game (like myself).

[MadCat]

Eric,

First of all, some clarification. Most of the world refers to DDR speeds assuming perfectly double performance over actual speed. Thus the 333MHz I referred to is really DDR clocked at 166MHz, same idea for the 400MHz.

More clarification:

Im afraid you arent up to date on ram speeds
The vanilla comes with a 166MHz memory clock
The MAX comes with 200MHz memory clock

Lets review:

DDR has approximately %180 - %190 greater performance than SDRAM at the same clock speed. Due to overhead, DDR is not exactly twice as fast as SDR

With the overhead taken into consideration,
And with your painfully obvious observations, A G450 equipped with 166MHz DDR will have less bandwidth than a Vanilla G400. A G450 equipped with 200MHz DDR will have less bandwidth than a G400 MAX.

Taking this fact into consideration, and taking Nvidia's multiple cards that lacked proper memory bandwidth < *cough* GeForce SDR *cough* GeForce 2 *cough* >, we can predict the following:

- Great low-res performance.
- At higher resolutions with eyecandy turned on, the G450 will perform on-par or slightly worse than its G400 counterpart.

Just take a look at GeForce SDR or GeForce 2 benchamarks and youll have to agree. these two cards are both limited by memory bandwidth from reaching their full potential. Thats why the GeForce SDR was totally smoked by the DDR variant. And youll note that even though the GeForce 2 smokes the Voodoo 5 5500 at low resolutions, the Voodoo 5 catches up at higher res. The V5 has half the fillrate of the GF2, but they both have similar bandwidth.

Beleive it or not Eric, bandwidth is more important than you realize.

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[Eric B]

Madcat,

I see few people ever refer to DDR speeds using your equivalencies. Your 400mhz is what everyone else refers to as 200mhz DDR.

And I'm well aware of what RAM the G400 is using right now and I don't feel that either card is maximizing the bandwidth available to it (maybe the Vanilla but not the Max). IMHO, the Max is as much fillrate limited as it is bandwidth limited.

I could be wrong on this but I don't see it based on the benchmarks that Anand and, more recently, Ace's (I think) have put out on the card.

The G450 is going to be a memory bandwidth limited card but it'll have the fillrate to push the memory to its limits unlike the current chip.

[MadCat]

Eric,

It does not take the G400 much more processing power to render a 32-bit pixel than a 16-bit one, assuming all other settings are the same. Given that fact, try pushing your G400 card to a popular gaming resolution (800x600 or 1024x768). Now try benchmarking your card in 16-bit and 32-bit color.

Now, youll notice a major discrepancy in framerates. Now, Eric, thats BANDWIDTH limitations. You see, At 32-bit color each texture the G400 core works with demands twice as much bandwidth as in 16-bit mode. Each operation demands twice as much bandwidth. Are we understanding my point yet?

Take a look at how the Matrox G400 MAX perform vs other cards in bandwidth-limited situations like, say, 1024x768x32. Youll notice that it outruns cards like the TNT2 and catches up with the GeForce SDR in this type of situation. Now, do keep in mind, ALL of these cards are bandwidth limited in this test, but the G400 obviously performs so well because its already making the most of its memory bandwidth.

The point is, IF you like 32-bit color and eyecandy, then ill tell you right now we have already seen the physical limits of the G450. G400 cards already tax to the limit the extra efficiency provided by the DualBus, that is when you turn on all the good features that make owning a Matrox card worthwhile.

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[archangle]

Eric B,

If you don't belive MadCat then try some tests yourself. Get MGATweek and do benchmarks altering the core speed with a set memory speed to see what effect it has over different resolutions.

The G400 is Core limited below 800*600*16 and memory limited above 800*600*16, well on average that is, some games will be different like Quake 1.

Sure having a faster core speed will almost always make a faster card even if it is memory limited due to the way a card works. Get the time the GPU takes to proccess the information from the memory down and hense the overall lag from being instructed to do something to dispalying it and it will be faster. Just not as fast as increasing both core and memory speeds.