G450- Review

[Maniac]

The G450 is just a cost effective, interem solution for Matrox. It moves them to the smaller die, and leverages new memory achitecture. They were not trying to release a flagship card here.

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Celeron 366@567 2.2V, 128meg generic PC-100 RAM (running at CAS2) Abit BH6, G400 16meg DH@150/200, Western Digital Expert 18gig, Ricoh mp7040A(morphed to mp7060A) Pioneer 6X DVD slot load, Motorola Cable Modem w/DEC ethernet card, Soundblaster Live Value Ver. 2, Viewsonic GT 775

[JohhnyC]

Oh come on stop excusing Matrox people, I would at least think that the G450 would perform as good as the max or a little better!! That kind of performance is inexcusable today, I dont care if they market it towards the office maket a lot of home users will be picking up that card as well and it should at least offer G400Max levels of performance, I mean its even slower in 2D! To tell you the truth I'd rather pick up a Geforce2MX even though I dislike Nvidia. To clarify some things I'm the kind of user that the G450 would be targeting, I use photoshop extensively, spend most of my time on the desktop but play some games and when I do that I want decent levels of performance which these days means 1024x768 32bit at 50-60fps, the G450 will not provide me with that, while the Gf2MX would.

[paulcs]

To all the reviewers' credit, nobody nailed the poor thing with the Quaver demo.

I've been defending Matrox for this decision, but it was a little surprizing to see the Vanilla beating it so consistently. It kind of looks like Moore's Law in reverse. Maybe they should have called it the G350 or, better still, the Millenium III.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[LAMFDTK]

JohhnyC
mini MURCer
Posts: 1
From:Ontario
Registered: Sep 2000


????
What Department ???

[UncleJoe]

Matrox seem to made a real limbo this time with G450... a new card with lo(l)wer performance than pervious models is very bad press for M. (and it may even do harm in OEM markets.) Well, (to me) it doesn't matter because my next vidcard haven't seen dayligt yet... Maybe next gen of vidcards will give me a reason to upgrade my G400...

-J-

[paulcs]

HotHardware:

http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/g450.htm

GA Hardware:

http://www.ga-hardware.com/review.cfm?id=g450

The reviewer from GA Hardware is a Matrox user.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[kjliew]

Hi.

Can anyone check the dividers value used in G450?? 66MHz core speed seems to be too low to be today's standard. Matrox may have changed the internal divider for core.

I don't think Matrox will be releasing specs update for G450. They normally don't do this on enhancement products, Mystique170->220, G200->G250 and most likely G400->G450.

At this point, nothing I can do to improve MGATweak, I am currently stationed in Folsom, Sacremento CA. Hopefully by the time G800 is released, I'll be home to provide supports for it in MGATweak.

BTW, has anyone tried how overclockable G450 can be?

[Dr. Matrox]

I think I'm gonna sorry for that some time later... But I must say some things:
My G400 MAX is my first matrox card and I really liked it even when I had problems with it I still loved it and I still do! But right now I really ate matrox! I just can't understand them! When the g400 was out every-body said they going to enter very strong to the gamers market, and then one chip after they living us with what? A fuking g450? i never saw in my life company that do somthing like that, Make a "new"product that it's worst than the older??? That's ****!!! Right now I'm very angry on matrox! but I'll give them last chance to suprise me with a newer gamers card!!! if they won't do somthing big like the g400 was i'll became a matrox ater! I can't stand a company that don't give a shit on their costumer!!!
no body else think like me?

p.s atrox it's time for you to do somthing!

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System Specs:

Operation System: Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Final Release)

Case (chassis): Moded Antec Gemstone Case

CPU: Intel P3 800e@922 (Slot) (cb0)

Memory: 256Mb Sd-Ram PC133

Motherboard: Asus P3V4X (bios 1005)

Video card: Matrox Millenium G400 Max (Drivers 6.11)

Sound card: Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer

Hard drive: IBM Deskstar 75GXP (15gb)

DVD-ROM drive: Aopen DVD-1640-PRO (Slot version)

Mouse: Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer (With EverGlide GIGANTA)

Keyboard: Compact Generic

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 700IFT

Speakers: Encore XP200 (For the front)
Sony Sound System (For the back)

[Fathom4]

Well, performance is a bit disappointing but I think I'll end up with the G450 anyway. It does what I mainly want.

I do 2D CAD at home and I want it for the Dual Head output for DVD Playback on my TV. I rarely do any games, mostly the CAD, surfin' the 'net and business apps. For that it will be fine. Hopefully the street price will come down a bit.

[Lawlaw]

I was disappointed when I read the review from Anandtech. Guess I'll keep my G400 till the G800 comes out. Hope they are going to have that ready by the end of this year or else M is screwed.

[Himself]

Hmm, a company releasing a slower card than the last one, erm, the MX comes to mind.

For any potential murcers looking for a G450, check out pricewatch first. $127 for a dual head G400 vanilla, which you know can be overclocked to 90% of MAX levels. Same features, more speed, less money, available this minute.

[Elie]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Matrox G450 is aimed at the business users more than it is for the gamer, our company has aprox 40,000 employees using all kinds of machine, and believe it or not the majority of computers have Matrox cards in them, I can JUST imagine our next upgrade (which is coming soon) all machines will be equipped with G450's
I would certainly be satisfied especially with dual head, most of my co-workers would love to have two monitors on their desk

For our company, we don't care if the G450 can run quake3 or UT at 200fps or 60fps, we care about picture quality, colour output, stability and 2D speed more than anything, and that's what the G450 offers period.

Regards,
Elie

[Hege]

Anyone know how fast is the 2nd ramdac on the g450? I read somewhere 200Mhz, isn't that pretty slow? What kinds of resolutions & refresh rates can be achieved with 200MHz Ramdac?

And if anyone knows the core frequency, please tell us. Considering the card is told to be very cool, it could be a good overclocker.

Hege

[Jutai]

to answer your question HEGE yes the second RAMDAC is clocked at 200mhz and is integrated on the chip. A RAMDAC o 200mhz is capable of running 1600x1200 at 85hz just above the current dual head on the G400 which runsat 120mhz via the TVO chip and only supports up to 1280x1024 i think.

HAS anyone tried to OVERCLOCK this card i mean c'mon slap a fan on that puppy and pump up the volume how has yours been overclockin KRUZIN??? hehe Anyways seriously someon needs to push this card as it is "clocked slower than the release bord"
-chris k.

[SteveC]

Here's my first noticings... I don't benchmark my life away, I play games when I want to, I work when I need to. The G450 works perfectly for me!

I think we'll be seeing some very cheap G400s out there soon.
The G450 is not a million miles off the performance of a G400 (with current drivers)
The primary head output is sharper, clearer and more vibrant (the analog output of the g450 has been reworked)
The secondary head is again clearer, sharper and has more vibrant colours for another monitor.
The secondary head can go up to a higher resolution than the g400.
The DVD Max produces a clearer picture too.
No fans to go wrong.

But the this is, it's gonna be cheaper than the g400.

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"