Review: Matrox Millennium G450 DualHead (Page 9/9)

Posted: December 8, 2000
Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen

Benchmarks

Performance:
[ 8.5/10 ]

Matrox has done a good job at bringing a business card to the market that also meets needs of a lot of home users as well who are looking to start using double monitors or make use of another existing one. People who do a lot of office work will also appreciate the smooth imaging care of the 360MHz UltraSharp RAMDAC. Though 3D acceleration is not its forte, the G450 has more going for it in other features such as DualHead -- a technology that’s quickly becoming a must-have.

Innovation:
[ 8.9/10 ]

Though Matrox didn’t innovate much in the 3D arena, they did innovate in the hardware department. The die shrink allowed them to integrate features that would otherwise cost more money to you and offer less quality. Everything on the G450 is tightly packed.

Installation and Setup:
[ 10/10 ]

It doesn’t get more exciting than this.

Bundle:
[ 8.6/10 ]

Matrox bundles "Simply 3D 3" and "Picture Publisher", both of which are from Micrografx. Both applications deal with design and graphics for the web. You can create 3D animation and stills with Simply 3D while creating other web graphics with Picture Publisher.

Also in the box is Matrox’s Software DVD Player. It’s DualHead ready and comes with a host of display options for single and DualHead display.

Price:
[ 9.2/10 ]

You can currently find the Millennium G450 DualHead for a price tag of around $130 to $170, depending on what package you opt for. If you’re keen on graphics work and design, the G450 is a sure sell.

Conclusion

The G400 was a great card, and it heralds many new innovative features to the PC graphics industry. Matrox carries those features over with the Millennium G450 and packs them all into one chip, ready for prime time. I definitely like the DualHead feature and it would be cool if my GeForce2 Ultra came with some type of similar technology... although I can go for NVIDIA’s TwinView, but it’s just not as flexible, mature and feature filled as Matrox’s DualHead.

If you’re looking for major headroom to spare, intense DualHead capabilities and excellent visuals in your work, videos and a boatload of games, the G450 is the sure way to go.

Overall: [ 9.0/10 ]

Once again thanks for reading! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me here or visit me in channel #tweak3d on Undernet (IRC).

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