RADEON VE vs G400 MAX

[craigm]

Hello all...I thought this would be the bast place to ask this so...

I just got a RADEON VE board...I've been a big time G400Max owner since it came out but now it's 2.5 years old I was looking for something else. I do use dual monitors so it's important for me to own...I was at Staples yesterday and was able to get the RADEON VE for only 60 bucks! Yes it was new! Anyway I'm a big gamer and was wondering if anyone knows of sites that pit the Matrox G400 Max against the RADEON VE...right now I can't decide if I should return it and just stay with my G400 Max...but for 60 bucks it might be worth it (so I don't buy a game this month)

I'm asking here because I want a gamers opinion...I KNOW neither cards are the best for gaming but I would like to know which on is better out of the two of them...

If anyone knows of reviews that are recent between the two please post here also...I only have 14 days to decide!

[Rags]

The VE is a bit better for gaming than a G400, but I wouldn't really consider it an upgrade, even for 60 bucks. Play with it yourself using the games you play, and you decide if it was worth 60 dollars, to me it wouldn't be.

Rags

[craigm]

Well the money is not a big deal...performance is...it's just a bonus that it was only 60 bucks...so money aside...your saying the VE is better...I guess I'll keep it...anyone else have any ideas?

[Indiana]

A good comparision of lots of gfxcards (from quite old to new ones can be found at digit-life's 3D-digests. The april digest contains both, the VE and the G400Max, the newer ones have only the G400 non-Max included.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/digest3d0104/index.html

The speed depends on your CPU and of course your preferred game and gfx-settings. But the RadeonVE should be at least equal to G400Max-speed in the worst case and giving a noticeable speed-up in the best case. In average it'll be a tad bit faster than a oc'ed G400Max.

For instance in Q-III (1024x768x32, everything max'ed) on an Athlon1200/Win98SE system the RadeonVE scored 32,3 fps, the G400Max 24,8 fps and the G400Max@162/213 got 26 fps. So not a big deal, but still worthwhile.
If you like UT, this is where the Radeons shine: 64,8 fps for the VE, 38,5 fps for the oc'ed MAX. Huge gain.
In FAKK2, however the MAX manages to slightly edge the RadeonVE out whe oc'ed: 28,9 fps for the oc'ed Max, 28fps for the VE and 27,9 for the Standard clocked MAX. So no real winner here (you can overclock the VE as well, it should go to ~200MHz core).

[Darin]

Well, that's certainly a good price, so from that perspective you did well. I believe, as you probably already know, that the VE is not the same core as the regular Radeon (fewer pipelines, I believe), so it's gaming capabilities are not going to be the same as the Radeons, but probably still a fair amount better than the G400's. The Radeons as of late have also been fairly overclockable, I can only assume that would pertain to the VEs as well. I have both a G400 & a Radeon, and to my eyes the 2D quality is pretty much the same, both look much better than nvidia cards. I would expect Matrox's implementation of dual monitor support to be much more robust, although I have no experience to base that on (my Radeon is not a VE). My Radeon blows the G400 away in gaming, but again, I wouldn't expect the VE to hold as great of an advantage there.

If you really want top of the line gaming speed, don't want to give up dual head, and don't want to wait for when (or if) Matrox gets back in that arena, you MIGHT be well served to see what ATI comes out with in the next couple of months. The next card (R200) is rumored to come with dual monitor support, even in the faster versions. Of course, it won't be anywhere near $60!

[craigm]

Well you might all want to know I ran both 3D Mark 2001 and 2000 and both showed only 100 point difference...to me even 60 bucks is to much for that little upgrade...I have the G400 MAX and I've been using it for over 2 years now and I know it front to back...so being lazy and not seeing that big of a deal speed wise...I'm returing the VE...it's not worth it to me...the G400 Max will have alot of life to me right now since my passion now is Everquest and that runs perfectly with the G400 with no problem...When the Matrox G550 is out I will look at that but in realality I will be looking at any new ATI VE or TwinView coming out...right now they are to close for me to even bother.

It is impressive for Matrox (and embarrasing for ATI) that a card over two years old keeps up with a brand new card...

My new card I want at least twice the ram (64) and 4x the speed...I just don't see the G550 doing that...the new VE or TwinView...that's a different story...

I have Dual 19inch NEC monitors and I can never go back to just one...but they really need to bring up the speed...what would be awesome would be an All-in-wonder Radeon with 64 megs of ram, not crippled in any way...with VE supprot...

I can dream...

[Indiana]

You don't really take ANY 3DmarkXXXX result for real, do you?!?

Again, if you play UT or Quake you WILL see a nice improvement over even the oc'ed to the max G400 MAX even with the VE.
Note however that the RadeonVE never was meant for any real gamer it's for bussiness people (just as Matrox claims they're developping their cards for). And, BTW, the G400MAX is by a quite large margin Matrox fastest gaming card on the market. The G450 is MUCH slower, the G550 seems to be not really available to anyone except beta-testers, not even HW-test-sites (or have you seen one single test of the G550 up to now???) and from it's specs I guess it'll give fps much like the VE.

So: if you want a gaming card WITH some kind of Dual-Head, get a GeforceMX (crappy display, crappy DualHead), a G550 (VERY well Dual Head, most likely crappy fps) or a RadeonII when it's there (good DualHead, great fps, questionable drivers).

[Rags]

Indiana,

He was looking for something as an upgrade to his Max for the sake of upgrading. As he found out, the VE really isn't noticeably faster than a Max. It doesn't even give you a resolution higher of performance. It doesn't give as much driver features or the stability. It's dual head is rougher as well. All in all when it's said and done, the VE just doesn't make sense for an upgrade if you already own a Max *most of the time, even gaming considered*.

Rags

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Rags
Indiana,

As he found out, the VE really isn't noticeably faster than a Max. It doesn't even give you a resolution higher of performance.

Yes, but only as long as you don't play UT, where the VE really is in another league. And the speed-increase in Q-III is also noticeable, the game is roughly playable in 1024x768, while with the G400Max you better settle at 800x600.

It doesn't give as much driver features or the stability. It's dual head is rougher as well.
Rags

For this reason I didn't even mention the VE in my "conclusion" above. If you're a gamer and want DualHead, there's just no really good solution available up to now. This might change with the RadeonII - or if Matrox equipped the G550 with decent RAM (a G550Max with 128Bit DDR clocked at 200/400 should be sufficient for my performance needs).

[Rags]

I have no problems playing Q3@ 1024 with my Max or VE either one, it's the max for both for me. But the VE is a smidgen faster, just not what I consider an upgrade; you know?

Rags

[craigm]

Well the problem I have is that I'm a big game player and I do alot of dev stuff for web sites...dual head rocks for work apps...but for my games I'm SOL right now...don't get me wrong...the G400Max is a very good card but I'm nuts when it comes to the game I play...if I can't run all the bells and whistles then I don't play it until I can run all the goodies...thats just me.

Right now I'm playing everquest and so it's not that much of a biggie...but trying playing Black and White and it gets ugly in frame rates.

Right now I'm going to look big time into the Radeon ][, it should be the ticket if it supports the dual head and keeps the speed up. The G550 doesn't look like it's leaps and bounds for game play and thats what I'm talking about here...if it was just work related then I would keep the G400Max forever.

Anyone see any good previews on the Radeon ][ yet?

[Admiral]

I can't see how you can have DH, great image quality, speed in games and all for a moderate price.

The best sollution for you right now would've been to put a PCI Voodoo 5 5500 (for games) beside your MAX, but you don't have driver support anymore for the Voodoo.

Another path would be a Kyro II (or other card, I chose the Kyro for the relatively low price) for games next to a G450 PCI for work, but that would cost about 250-270 $, ouch !
Though a PCI G450 (115$ on Matrox's site) would be a good choice for further upgrades, leaving your AGP slot free for whatever future game card you want to put in your machine.

If you want to keep DH and also have speed in games (with only one card), either wait to see how the G550 performs or try your luck with a DH GF2 MX.

[Indiana]

There actually were some leaked RadeonII benchmarks on some site out shortly (if you're really interested, I'm sure I can dig up the link).
Although unofficial, those sounded quite real and put the RadeonII a bit under the GeForce3 for older stuff, but a bit above it for everything that uses the DX8 T&L (AquaMark, 3DMark2001, ...) - which is very believable since in terms of fillrate ATI could never compete with NVidia, but its T&L engine is believed to be a bit more powerful than the Geforce3 one.
Of course ATI tells you those are not authentic...

P.S.: And of course Nvidia will counter the thing with a Geforce3Ultra again (like it was when the first Radeon appeared).

[craigm]

Well I'm not looking for a cheep card...so price is not the topic...I would pay 400 bucks for and all-in-wonder Radeon 2 with dual head all day long...as long as it wasn't striped of t&L and all the otehr fancy stuff like the VE.

And if you get a chance...please post that link...it would be interesting reading atleast =)

[Darin]

The benchmarks he speaks of are at www.rageunderground.com. There's been a lot of disagreement as to whether or not they are legit.... my guess is there is some validity to them, but who knows. There really isn't anything official available on ATi's next gen product, but if you're interested, www.rage3d.com has an R200 Rumours forum, which is basically their version of The Crystal Ball.