Matrox G450 (1/8)

Matrox is back! Back? Uhm, okay, let’s start at the beginning…

At the heart of the G450 sits an updated G400 chip with a second RAMDAC and a DDR memory interface. The rest of the core has remained unchanged, aside from being shrunk to an 0.18 micron process. Now, if your heart started beating higher when you heard the word "DDR", let me slow your pulse right down again: Matrox has decided to go with a 64Bit DDR memory interface. The old G400 cards are equipped with a 128Bit SDRAM interface. So since DDR RAM is only 85-90% as efficient as SDR at the same clockspeed, this is more of a small step backwards than an improvement.

Overview

Why would Matrox do this? Well, primarily to simplify the design, thereby reducing costs. Instead of 128 memory pathways the card now only needs 64 – half as expensive… By including the second RAMDAC in the chip, Matrox also saves the cost of the second (external) RAMDAC. The RAMDAC for the primary video output is clocked at 360 MHz, while the secondary output only gets 200 MHz. Due to the improved 0.18 micron production process, the chip stays a lot cooler than its predecessor. The card is clocked at 130 MHz (core) and 162MHz (memory). (That would be 324MHz DDR, but at 64Bit!).

Passive cooling	Grounded heatsink	6ns 64Bit DDR-SDRAM

No new 3D features have been added since the days of the original G400, either. That still leaves us with environmental bump mapping, which Matrox has supported from day one. Thanks to ATi’s new RADEON, which also supports this type of bump mapping, it is finally starting to gain acceptance. Unfortunately, no newer per-pixel shader technologies or features were included. As we will see later on, this wouldn’t have been very prudent, anyway, judging from the mediocre 3D performance.

Drivers

Click to enlarge

The driver is a very solid piece of work. Every feature, from changing the refresh rate in 1Hz increments to adjusting the screen size and pitch, has been included. Other options, like saving the location of the desktop icons or window positions, are available from the symbol in the taskbar.

Software

The G450’s bundle includes a software DVD-player, and two Micrografx programs, Simply 3D and Picture Publisher. No games included.

Copyright: 13.09.2000 -   RIVA Station 2000 - Lars Weinand
No Copy without Permission!

Translation by Benjamin Kraft

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