Difference between G400 and G450

[WyWyWyWy]

So what is the difference between G400 and G450?

From the comparison chart on Matrox.com, I dont notice anything significant. So if I'ma to buy a second hand card, would the G400MAX or G450 be better? (oh and G550)

[MagerValp]

It's been a while, but iirc the G450 has the same core as the G400, but consumes less power and thus generates less heat, allowing for a fanless card. The G450 runs at a 125 MHz clock frequency, while the G400Max runs at 150 MHz. The Max is something like 20% faster.

[xortam]

I believe the G450 had a faster RAMDAC which allowed for a slightly higher maximum resolution. Check the Matrox site as they must have the specs still available.

[K6-III]

The G450 has the 360mhz RAMDAC integrated on chip, while the G400 uses a 300mhz external RAMDAC and the G400MAX a 360mhz external RAMDAC.

The G400 is fabbed at .25micron, while the G450 is fabbed at .18micron.

The G400 uses 128bit SGRAM, while the G450 uses 64bit DDR SDRAM...

[Kruzin]

G400 uses internal an RAMDAC.
They have not used an external RAMDAC since the MillenniumII.

I recently cleared out my video card stock.
Had a G400 (max'd), G450, and G550.
Got rid of the 450 and 550, kept the 400.
The only thing G450 has over G400 is a faster secondary RAMDAC, G550 can do a DVI without an add-on.
G400 is the fastest of the 3, and has the best TVOut.

[K6-III]

Whoops....external secondary RAMDAC....

[Kruzin]

Nope.
G400 used an external Maven for the TVOut, which was changed to internal for G450 and later, but both the RAMDACs where internal.

[K6-III]

OK, Kruzin, you know best....

[Biggs]

Erm,

How come my reply ended up here instead?

[xortam]

Weren't there also some problems with EMBM on the G450?

[Biggs]

Can anyone explain how 2D image quality would differ from the G400, G450, and G550 models? I mean, how could one be subjectively and objectively be much better than the other two? What parameters does one need to know? Does it lie on the RAMDAC chip itself or the hardware design of the filters? Were there any changes with filter designs and components used for the 3 afformentioned cards? Many thanks.

[Wombat]

Yes, The Gx50 have shitty implementations.

[Indiana]

In one word: of the old Matrox cards, the G400(Max) still is the best if you don't need really high resolutions on the secondary monitor or DVI-Out.

I still ahve my G400 and I think I'm going to keep it - it sits in a secondary (more like tertiary, since the A4000 is my real secondary sys) system that I built of spare parts, but it's 2D quality still makes it worth every cent. I''d say that the G450 also has worse 2D than the G400, but this is an opinion based on only ONE modle of both, the G400 and the G450, so it's more a subjective result.
My current R8500 has worse signal quality than both those and my old RadeonVIVO (which I'd rate roughly equal to the G450 and somewhat inferior to the G400), so I think I'll sell this when I get my R9700Pro.

[WyWyWyWy]

So in short, I should buy a G400MAX instead of G450 right?

By the way... I thought G550 has the best signal quality in the three, no?

[dZeus]

although TV-Encoder has been integrated into the G450 and up vs. the external Maven chip, the hardware scaling that the Maven did for TV-Out has not.... not even in the Parhelia

So the effect of this is that a lot of CPU time is wasted on scaling when playing games on TV-Out on all Matrox G450/G550/Parhelia cards.