G450 cards from Ebay

[ohio photog]

I purchased one these cards from Ebay. Is there a way to tell if they are legit? Price seems very cheap for a highly-rated card. Some of the reviews of this card I've seen has a wire coming off the heatsink, I didn't see one the picture below from the auction. Any suggestions, thank you.




http://cgi.ebay.com/MATROX-G450-AGP-...QQcmdZViewItem

[Kruzin]

Looks like the real thing. The ones you saw with wires where pre-production cards, and the wire was a revision incorperated onto the PCB when they went into production.

And as decent a 2D card as it is, it's 3D is not so great, and it is an old card in computer years, so it should be pretty cheap...

[ohio photog]

Thanks for clearing that up. All the reviews I've seen for this card praises its 2D graphics, I use mostly Photoshop so this should be fine.

[schmosef]

If you use CRT monitors then Matrox will give you the absolute best image quality because of their superior RAMDACs.

If you use LCD monitors I don't think that the trade off (lack of HD video acceleration, poor 3D support, etc.) is worth it as the image quality won't be any better.

[ohio photog]

CRT's for now. A pair of nice LCD panels (IPS, PVA, MVA) is costly right now, when that time comes, the Matrox P650 or P750 I will pick up.

[Nowhere]

Actually I'd say the price is a bit high, on polish auction site (www.allegro.pl) they can be have for the same amount...but in pln, not $ (1$~=3pln)

And BTW, when you'll have LCD panels connecyed via DVI, Matrox P-series cards really won't give you any advantage above Nvidia/ATI offerings...