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  • G400MAX - P6/750 viable upgrade?

    I was an early adopter of the G400-MAX, and it's served me very well.

    I just put together a new box (Asus P4B800-Deluxe, P4-2.4C, 1GB DDR-400 RAM, 100GB RAID 0 array), and it's up and running fine with my MAX (after the voltage solder fix).

    I don't game very much (other than the occassional SimCity marathon), but would like to be able to fire up newer games from time-to-time and get a reasonable framerate.

    I'm currently running dual monitors (19" and 17"), both at 1280x1024. The Matrox 2D IQ is important, as I do a lot of photo editing.

    As for benchmarks, the few I've seen compare the P6/750 with the P, and the G450. Where do they sit relative to the MAX?

    I've been close a couple of times to switching over to ATi (8500, 9500) but the 2D IQ worries me. The P would be nice, but way too much $$$$.

    Any thoughts on the P6/750 as an upgrade to the trustworthy old G400-MAX?

    Thanks,
    Dave....

  • #2
    I went from G400MAX to Radeon 8500 (And the LE version as well), and I could not really tell the difference between their IQ.
    The Radeon 8500 looked just as good on my 15" LCD as the G400MAX, but the gaming on the 8500 blew away the G400MAX.
    They both have dual monitor capability, and the 8500 I had came with dual RAMDACs. I only tried using 1024x768, so I don't know how well they compare when scaled. The new P650/P750 have dual monitor that's identical for each monitor, so that's something not offered by the other two.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by BuckRogers
      I went from G400MAX to Radeon 8500 (And the LE version as well), and I could not really tell the difference between their IQ.
      The Radeon 8500 looked just as good on my 15" LCD as the G400MAX
      Yeah, but that's an LCD, so that doesn't mean much. Actually, it means nothing, if you're talking about photo editing. You don't do photo editing on LCDs, at least not if you want any sense of color. Also, you're talking about very low resolutions.


      dwood:
      The MAX is generally a little faster than the G450, so using the G450 benchmarks will work out fine. The IQ of the G450 is close to the G400's - some say a little better, some say a little worse.

      If you're only doing 19" monitors, than maybe ATi could still work for you. Not an 8500 though, they took a real dip in IQ on that one. A 95/9700 might work nicely for you. But stick with ATi or Sapphire, or a few other OEM brands. The IQ on those is much better than some other brands.

      I say that because if you "still want to play newer games," the P series is probably not for you.


      And since you just built the box: maybe get rid of RAID 0. It won't help you too much, but you've tied to HDs together. I have a RAID 0 myself, and I wish I didn't - but I don't have the space anywhere to backup the drives before separating them.


      Oh, and I'm saying this as a G200/G400/G450/Parhelia owner.
      Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

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      • #4
        You don't do photo editing on LCDs
        Have you looked at LCDs lately, Wombat? There are even special LCDs for professional photo editing (from EIZO) that come with hardware calibration tools.
        no matrox, no matroxusers.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by thop
          Have you looked at LCDs lately, Wombat? There are even special LCDs for professional photo editing (from EIZO) that come with hardware calibration tools.
          There are some from Eizo that claim to have 16.7 million colors. Maybe they do. However, they're a couple thousand dollars a piece. Obviously, we're not dealing with those, or he'd have a much better computer to compliment such Rolls Royce prices.
          Gigabyte P35-DS3L with a Q6600, 2GB Kingston HyperX (after *3* bad pairs of Crucial Ballistix 1066), Galaxy 8800GT 512MB, SB X-Fi, some drives, and a Dell 2005fpw. Running WinXP.

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          • #6
            dwood, my adwice is: go for P650/P750.
            I'm Matrox G100/G200/G400/G450/G550/Parhelia user on 19" Nokia 446xPro CRT monitor, and the Matrox-ATi 2D quality is not the same. I'we tried R8500 and R9500Pro, and colors are slightly pale on ATi cards.

            While 3D speed is conserne,on P4 1.8A and 256MB DDR266 i845E board, G550 gave 3DMark 2001SE score of 1290 on 1024*768, while P750 (if it's true what can be read on internet) gives about 4500.

            G400 - 125 MHz
            G400 MAX - 160 (or is it 150?) MHz
            G450 - 125 MHz
            G550 - 133 MHz
            <font size="1" color="green">Holly: "Appreciate what vou've got, because basically, I'm fantastic!"</font>

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            • #7
              Its true - ish I get 4452 or so XP2400+ sis746 chipset.

              Now where did I put corel draw...
              Juu nin to iro


              English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys, knocks them over, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.

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              • #8
                Thanks for all the responses and great information.

                Sounds like the P650/750 might be the right solution, assuming I can find them at the right price.

                As has been discussed on this board already, supply seems to be an issue, even here in Matrox's homeland of Canada. So far, I've only found 2 shops in the Toronto area advertising these cards, and they're 'special order'. Too bad most shops get caught up in the 'benchmarks war', and therefore ignore Matrox.

                Wombat: thanks for your input. Looks like I had a little finger slip in my original post. RAID 0 should have read RAID 1; went that way because I have 60+ Gig of 'stuff' ranging from apps, my entire master's degree, and many, many gigs of photos scanned from negatives/slides @ 6+ megapixel. Lots of it is backed up here and there on CD's, but the thought of having to re-assemble everything in the event of a HDD failure was way to scary. Hopefully I'll never have to test the effectiveness of the RAID 1 configuration, but I sleep a little better now knowing it's there.

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                • #9
                  Totally OT, but there quite a few TFTs that display 16,7 Mio. colors ... inexpensive ones as well. Personally i don't know what the fuss is all about concerning TFT and image processing .. if anything they seem better to me for such a job then CRTs .. as long as you don't watch the screen from the side.
                  no matrox, no matroxusers.

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