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In the Forums... |
Posted: December 8, 2000 Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen Benchmarks WinBench 99  The G450 leads the pack in terms of 3D acceleration performance. This is no surprise since Matrox is known for its superiority in the visuals department. Its closest competitor is the Radeon 32MB DDR which scores close to the G450. Strangely the GTS falls short of it smaller brother the MX.  In high-end, all the cards sky rocket up and stay close to each other. The difference here is not noticeable but nevertheless the G450 manages to stay ahead. The Radeon comes in second followed by the MX.  When we switch to 32-bit mode we really see the G450 stand out. All the other cards catch up to each other but can’t seem to compete against the G450. The GTS finally edges past the MX. It seems here that memory bandwidth leads the way. So why on earth is the Radeon behind the MX?  The pattern is clear; the G450 is the leading graphics card for business applications. I definitely wouldn’t mind having DualHead functionality when doing Photoshop work. Visual Quality  Click for larger image Above is a screenshot of Quake 3 in High Quality mode running on the G450. The most prominent thing to look out for is the quality of the sky. This still shot doesn’t do the card justice. You have to see the quality in the textures to know what I’m talking about. On the G450, you can see some small details that other cards wash out like soft shadows and small color variances. Matrox still has its touch. In this review, I will not post 3D game benchmarks since they will unfairly skew the overall performance of the G450. The card was not made for current 3D games -- but should fair well in older games. Analysis There are a few things you constantly have to keep in mind about the G450. First of all, it’s not a gaming card, and never was intended to be. Secondly, it’s targeted at users who want to maximize productivity or indulge in a little DVD action every once in a while. Lastly, the G450 offers features other business-oriented cards do not. We’ve seen with the benchmarks above that the G450 leads the pack in visual quality and 2D acceleration -- two extremely important factors for graphics artists and design freaks. You may also want to consider the G450 even if you are a gamer. It just depends on the games you play. If you’re more into real-time strategy games like Red Alert 2, or role-playing games and or adventure games, then you’ll be in good hands with the G450. Not everyone plays first person shooters all day long, running around killing everything in sight. People like Dan who sit around playing Subspace all day will definitely appreciate the G450 and its features. |
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