TV-OUT on G400MAX/G450/G550

[crestfallen]

I'm planning to buy a G400MAX because they are pretty cheap and the tv-out is really good.

Is the quality the same on the tv-out on the G450 and G550?

I read that G450 could display higher resolutions on the 2nd display in clone mode...But this doesn't do anything for me if my second display is a TV, right?

What I just want to know is if there are any nice tv-out features on the G450 and G550 that there isn't on the G400MAX?

I also would like to read more about the PCI version of G550, does anyone here have a URL?

crestfallen
Sweden

[Indiana]

The G400 has in fact the better TVOut quality than the G450. I don't know for the G550, but I think I've read somewhere it's about the same as the G450, making the G400(Max) the best TVOut quality Matrox card.

If you're not planning on high-resolutions on a second monitor but are just looking for HQ TVOut, get a cheap used G400.

[crestfallen]

thanks for your answer!

where have you got this information from?

Isn't it strange that the tv-out has lower quality on G450 and G550?

If you know a site that has compared these cards, please post.

[[GDI]Raptor]

I think G400 MAX is the best TV-Out card....
It is the fastest card in 2D & 3D from Matrox.

The secondary reselution is not as good as on
the G550 & the G450 though.

[Indiana]

I don't think there is any comparision of the G400 vs. the G450 on any of those HW testing websites.
This information is coming from this board, where users that have both have compared the cards.

The G450 is better for DualHead with two monitors since it allows for higher res / refresh as you've mentioned.
However integrating the second output and MAVEN (the chip used for TV-Out by Matrox) into only one single core seems to have had a few adverse effects on TVOut quality: People reported higher CPU usage when using TVOut, you're limited to overlays on only one of the two displays and it was also reported that the display quality would be slightly lower - this was also confirmed by Matrox tech-support at one time.
The G550, however, is a different issue as AFAIK up to now there were no reports about it's TVOut in comparision to the G400 - you'll have to wait until more people have a G550 and can compare those cards, I guess...

EDIT: Most of those comparisions / reports G400 vs G450 were done quite some time ago, a short search only brought up two threads with references to the issue, but unfortunately not the relevant threads themselves.
http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php...ighlight=TVOut - the post by Kruzin'
http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php...ighlight=TVOut - the post by rylan.

[crestfallen]

nice!
thanks alot!
:P