g400 OEM or Retail w/K63-450?

[paul]

Any differences in these versions?

I only need single head, 32mb

[Kruzin]

The only notable difference is that the singlehead cards cannot run the RainbowRunner-G video capture card. While you can get a dualhead module for it if you ever decide you want it, the SH does not have all of the needed connectors for RR-G.

DH is a sweet feature. Even if you feel you don't need it, you would fall in love with it if you tried it out

[impact]

Hi, if you have the money, definitely go for the Dualhead. The OEM dualhed is not that expensive and the dualhead feature rocks with any TV or second monitor. Kruzin is quite right about it.

I also went to my fav. store to upgrade a video card. I originally wanted the Blaster TNT2 Ultra, but they were sold out so I ordered the G400 32MB SH. ACK! When I came to pick it up, they found out they were also sold out and offered me the DH version. It's not that bad afterall. Well at least they gave me about 10% discount on it.

BTW: retail cards usually overclock better without the need for a lot of extra fans. But OEM cards are way cheaper.

[paul]

Impact says, "...BTW: retail cards usually overclock better without the need for a lot of extra fans. But OEM cards are way cheaper."
To me this means 2 differnt pieces of hardware. No thanks.

[Rags]

Paul,

FIRST: Impact is full of shit, OEM cards will overclock just as well, the only exceptions are when you have SDRAM memory type OEM cards, and there is a chance you will get faster memory in the retail boxed cards.

SECOND: You must have no clue how HW mfrs make their products. 99% of the time, OEM stuff is different from Retail. Retail comes with all of the goodies that a retail paying customer would expect, you get the software, all of the add on features, the cables, the documentation, etc. OEM (which, duhhhh...arrr....stands for Original Equipment Mfr.) is made for the OEM partners that Matrox deals with, they are usually made without all the extras you would expect, they have only the features that the OEM expects, thus no software bundle, no feature connectors, etc. You are supposed to be able to buy OEM products only when purchasing, building a new system. So, YES OEM is CHEAPER FOR A REASON.

Rags

[impact]

What do you mean rags Rags, that's just my personal experience. We have compared how far the different cards would go and the OEM G400 with SGRAM and additional fan can go up to 290 in MGA tweak without texture corruption, where the regular version does show corrupted texture first at 312 and that is without any additional fans. If your OEM card overclocks great, well, you just were lucky buing the one outta thousand.

[Rags]

Impact, I meant what I said. The only time you will see a great diff. in overclockability is when you compare a retail G400 with the 5ns SGRAM to an OEM with the 6ns. Or compare to an OEM SDRAM. The difference is definitely not worth mentioning. Don't know where you get your stats from....


Rags

[impact]

Three cards, two od them were OEM... well that first line you wrote kinda asked for it.

[Rags]

Yeah, prolly, but that's just the way I talk, I wasn't meaning smack.

Rags

[Rags]

Paul,

OEM's won't have a feature connector for the rainbow runner. The RAMDAC is the same 300Mhz on the card as the vanilla G400 you buy retail. The image quality is better than a G200, I know because I have both a G200 and a G400 OEM. The thing you want to make sure of is that you get an SGRAM version, and you will be fine.


Rags

[Kruzin]

OEMs can have the feature connector for the RR-G. IF it's a Dualhead.

Regardless of OEM/retail:
ALL Dualheads (retail and OEM) support RR-G.
ALL Singleheads (only available OEM) do NOT support RR-G.

RAMDAC is the same OEM/retail.

To determine the type of RAM on the card, look at the (Matrox) part number you are ordering. The second to last or last letter (after the 16 or 32) will be a "D" or a "G". sDram or sGram. As far as 5ns or 6ns SG, that's a crap shoot. The only garaunteed way to get 5ns is to get a Max (only available in 32meg, DH, retail form). Most likely, as long as it is SG, it will be 6ns.

Visual quality...I have a retail G200(millennium 8meg SG) and a retial G400(millennium 32meg SG DH), and I think the G400 looks slightly better than the G200 on my 21" monitor running at 1280x1024.

[paul]

I went to the web site and saw the g400 feature comparisons had a note 'retail only'


So, you guys say the diff is 5ns,6ns SGram or sdram.

The ramdac I'm assuming is the same.

Is 2D quality the same as G200 or better?