G450- Review

[Rick]

Here you go.
More over at Anandtech

[This message has been edited by Rick (edited 05 September 2000).]

[paulcs]

Seems to be faster than the Max.

I believed all those predictions that it would be slower.

I should do a search on "slower" to find out who led me astray.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 05 September 2000).]

[Kruzin]

He did not run a Max in his tests.

[Livius]

Actually, there are two reviews. The more comprehensive one also has Max scores. They are somewhere between 10-20% higher than the G450. It's somewhat of a disappointment, although it seems pretty obvious that the G450 is a great OEM card in terms of features. Nevertheless, I believe that the high price and the fact that it will make no impact on the gaming market (which is starting to become a good indicator of OEM success, it seems) will hamper the G450 even in this department.

Here are the two links (for German speakers): http://www.hartware.net/review.html?.../62.26.211.77/
Any idea why both sites are German?

[paulcs]

I should have said it was faster than my Max. He got 3484 3D Marks in 3DMark2000 with a PIII 700 MHz.

Ace's Hardware has a review as well. I haven't read it yet:
http://www.aceshardware.com/Spades/r...le_id=15000168

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[paulcs]

Wow. Ace's hardware benched it slower than the vanilla. They conclude it's severely bandwidth limited.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Dyre]

It is a 'buisness card'... Just reminding everyone before the flame throwers get pointed at Matrox...

I think i need to get one though, as id rather run 2x 19in monitors in 1600x1200 each than 1280x1024 each.

[paulcs]

GamePC has a review here:

http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardwa...ew=g450&page=1

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[uberlad]

Anand also has a review - consistently out performed by vanilla but he points out it's not a gaming card.
www.anandtech.com

Uberlad

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8 out of 10 women say they would feel no qualms about hitting a man.
5 out of 10 referred to me by name.

[Cloudy]

Sorry to be the one saying it bu the G450 isn't a card, the G450 is an excuse. An excuse for making us wait more and more for the G800 - I sure hope they've innovated there cause currently ATi and nVIDIA are slapping us silly. I love matrox, but when people are asking me what is the curent best video card on the marked I must answer - nVIDI GeForce MX.

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Cloudy
Asus P2B-DS, 2 x Celeron 400@75Mhz, 192Mb Ram, SB Live! Platinum,
2 x IBM 4.3Gb scsi,IBM 22GB IDE, Pioneer DVD ROM scsi, G400 32MB DH (Oc to 111.1%).

[paulcs]

Here's Sharky's "preview." They seemed to like it, making it their business choice:

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardwar..._g450_preview/

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[RAB]

I found it curious that the clock on the review samples is slower than the actual shipping version. Quoting Ace's:

The new process should allow the G450 to achieve higher clock speeds than the G400, but MGA Tweak (available at MURC) reported that the chip is running at 66 MHz, while the memory is running at 166 MHz. Powerstrip reported the same thing. I am not sure whether this is correct, because all Matrox says is that "the review sample runs at a slightly lower speed than the final production samples." It is more likely is that the chip runs at 125/166 MHz, just like the G400 did.

What was Matrox thinking? This brings up two immediate questions. 1) Will the first shipping cards really have a faster clock? and 2) What is the performance with the "real" clocking?

I hope we will get some answers. I was thinking of getting one, but not until I see benchmarks on the final shipping version.

RAB

[Jeff]

In Amand's test the Max outperforms the newer G450, whatever.

What I liked was that the Max beat the nVidia TNT Ultra2 in almost all of the tests and the Geforce in 2 or them. Oh yea, in your face nVidia!

JP

[LAMFDTK]

"Adding more CPU power did not help, while NVIDIA's offerings appreciate the raw CPU power. The 64 bit interface is severely crippling the G450 here. We hope that, for Matrox sake, the G800 arrives soon. This kind of performance will certainly scare away 3D gaming enthusiasts and even home users who occasionally play such games will be uninterested."

"Many thanks to Marije Stijnen, Matrox UK for lending us the board."

No freebies here!

This card is exactly what I thought it would be, a good 100 dollar solution. You will have to wait until 2nd quarter 2001 for the 100$ price.

Why did it take so long? That is the mystery.

The geforce MX is a better buy if you do not need Dualhead.

[Himself]

*cough*, I agree.