Posted: April 25, 2000
Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen
Note: This preview was written April 20th. Some data/facts may become inaccurate as new information becomes available.

Introduction

Half a year ago, we brought you a review on Matrox's greatest achievement, the G400. Boasting cutting edge technology such as: Environment Mapped Bump Mapping, DualHead technology, Vibrant Colour Quality 2, and UltraSharp RAMDAC technology, the G400 cut right through the competition. It brought razor sharp visuals and features never before seen in a consumer level graphics card.

Today, we're going to bring you the sequel to the G400 - the G450. If you haven't heard of the G400 series before, you will want to read the following. If you know everything there is to know about it, read on anyway -- as we'll point out the main differences between the G400 and the G450.

Specifications

Here are the specs for the G450:

- 0.18 micron, five layer metal process technology
- 256-bit DualBus architecture
- Transmission-Minimized Differential Signaling (TMDS) transmitter
- True 128-bit external bus to video memory
- Full AGP 2X/4X with Multi-threaded Bus Mastering
- 64-bit DDR DRAM memory Interface
- True Environment Mapped Bump Mapping
- Vibrant Color Quality2 (VCQ2) rendering
- Matrox DualHead Display Technology
- 32-bit Z-buffer including 8-bit stencil buffer
- Symmetric Rendering Architecture
- 360MHz RAMDAC with UltraSharp RAMDAC technology
- Display up to 2048x1536x32-bit
- Bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic filtering
- Single cycle multi-texturing
- Texture sizes up to 2048x2048
- Full scene anti-aliasing
- Full hardware subpicture support for DVD playback

The first main difference between the G400 and G450 is that Matrox has reduced transistor size in the G450 from the 0.25u (micron) G400 to a smaller 0.18u refinement. The G400 MAX ran at a core speed of 166MHz. Shrinking the process to 0.18u will enable the G450 to run at 200MHz or higher. This is about a 32% increase in core speed alone. But keep in mind that 200MHz is an estimated number. Matrox may actually run the G450 at a higher clock rate. Nevertheless, a 32% increase in core speed alone is quite an improvement.

Next Page