g450 versions

[ScientificLee]

Hello,

I'm in the market for a new video card.
I don't play games. I use my computer at home to program and view financial information via VPN to my quote service machine at work. I would like to keep multi-monitor support. Right now I have an onboard graphics chip and a really crappy AGP card I would like to throw away.

I'm looking to pick up a g450 dual support. I notice there is a huge price discrepency between the listed price on matrox.com and ebay. Why is this? Can somone give me some insight.

I would also like to keep this card for awhile which means that it should have native DVI support as I'm planning to get some LCDs in the near future.

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

Re: g450 versions

Originally posted by ScientificLee
Hello,

I'm in the market for a new video card.
I don't play games. I use my computer at home to program and view financial information via VPN to my quote service machine at work. I would like to keep multi-monitor support. Right now I have an onboard graphics chip and a really crappy AGP card I would like to throw away.

I'm looking to pick up a g450 dual support. I notice there is a huge price discrepency between the listed price on matrox.com and ebay. Why is this? Can somone give me some insight.

I would also like to keep this card for awhile which means that it should have native DVI support as I'm planning to get some LCDs in the near future.

Are you looking to run 2 digital LCDs today or in the near future? If not, and price is a major factor, then you should probably go for a G550. It'll be perfect for mainly 2D work and will provide you with excellent image quality.

The next step up is the Millennium P650, with offers identical image quality and capabilities for each display, with a pretty significant boost in performance compared to G550. Plus, it can run 2 digital LCDs.

[ScientificLee]

I plan to use LCDs, with DVI outputs, in the near future. By the end of the year. I would like the card to have DVI inputs. I will buy the cables to use analog for now as I use 2 CRTs.

Price is a factor. Ahh you know what.

The reason that I targeted the g450 is because I just followed the links that had financial field.

So you are telling me that the Millennium P650 has superior image quality to the g450 or the G550.

One thing that I still don't know is why the huge price difference between what is advertised on Ebay and matrox.com. I'm somewhat skeptical of ebay prices. Was there an old version that only had 16 megs per output?

Is there a way I can confirm this via manfucaturer part numbers etc?


I didn't realize that the g450 and the g450 MMS are considered seperate cards. I'm guessing there is more GPU on the MMS series.

[Kruzin]

The MMS cards are way more expensive, as they have multiple GPUs.

For what you want, P650 will probably be your best bet. It has dual DVI, more ram, better performance than G550.

[Tjalfe]

Canada Computers has OEM 16MB G450's for $28 CDN

http://www.canadacomputers.com/video.html

[Kruzin]

But a G450 is not going to meet his future requirements for dual DVI.
It's going to need to be a G550 dual DVI (standard G550 only has 1 DVI), or a P series card.

[FormerEx-SalesSoup]

I agree that, although more expensive, the Millennium P650 is the best way to future-proof your DVI needs, since it supports dual-DVI and provides identical output quality and capabilities per display.

As for eBay, almost everything is cheaper there. You should watch out for the memory config as there were 16MB G450s available at one time. eBayers can sometimes be retailers who have excess inventory or refurbs that they want to get rid of, or they are simply end users who upgraded to a newer board and want to make a couple of dollars by selling their old card.

[GNEP]

Weren't there also G450 Single Head cards around as well? Wouldn't want to get one of those by mistake...

Go for the G550 or the P650.

[ScientificLee]

Thanks to everyone

Thanks everyone. I will purchase the p650.
I see it retails for about 169. I might just buy it retail to save myself any potential problems and also get the tech support from Matrox. I'm just going to head on over to microsoft.com to make sure it's Win 2003 compatible.

[UtwigMU]

IIRC there was a soft upgrade possible through shopmatrox for G450 LX SH cards.

[Kurt]

@ScientificLee: you might want to check up on the P750 as well. It's slightly more expensive than the P650 but it drives 3 analog screens or 2 DVI + TV. Also it supports DVI up to 1600*1200 while the P650 is limited to 1280*1024.

[ScientificLee]

Kurt,

I just looked at the p750 on the web.

<a href="http://matrox.com/mga/products/mill_pseries/p750.cfm">matrox.com</a>

It seems the 2 LCD + TV is only one DVI. Am I reading this incorrectly?

[Kurt]

you're right. I wouldn't worry though as the analog out is very good anyway. most LCDs are also analog only btw. midrange models and up start to include the DVI connector...