Is the G450 comparable to the G400 MAX in 3D speed ?

[vinayag]

I just read in a discussion board that the G450 is targetted moe at the 2d world and so the speed in 3d would be very comparable to the G400 MAX.

I thought the G450 had a faster clock speed. Is this true or was the poster blabbering ?

 

[BurntKooshie]

it also has a worse memory bus. 64bit DDR isn't the same as a 128 bit dualbus. The memory slowdown will make a difference...in favor of the G400max.

 

[Sephiroth_IX]

Uhm, 64-bit DDR Dualbus is the same as 128bit SDR dualbus.


The G450 should be a quicker card, but i will have to see some clock numbers for it before i commit to anything.

 

[Pariah]

Dual 128 and single DDR64 are not the same. The G400Max ran 2 seperate 128bit buses, which would make an unofficial 256bit bus. If the G450 has a single 64bit DDR bus, it will only equal a 128bit bus. If the 450 runs dual 64bit DDR buses then they would be equal, but I don't think that was the case.

 

[Charles]

What's the reason to use DDR memory for 2D? Higher resolution and refresh rates?

 

[Lore]

I would love to have another Matrox card with top of the line 2D performance.

Just got the Prophet II GeForce GTS 64mb card and it sucks in 2D. Anything about 1280x1024 @ 60hz and you get horrible ghosting.

 

[BurntKooshie]

<< Uhm, 64-bit DDR Dualbus is the same as 128bit SDR dualbus. >>

I think you're right there. I was, however, led to believe that the G450 was to have a single 64bit DDR bus. Maybe I read something wrong.

 

[Sunner]

The G400 did not run two separate 128 bit buses to the external memory, its external memory bus is 128 bits wide, so bandwidth will be the same on the G450.

 

[LXi]

Lore, I seriously doubt the GF2 has horrible 2D. I think it's just your KDS.

 

[Czar]

It all depends on the core/memmory speed. If its about the same as the G400 MAX then we will se simmilar results.

The G400 has 128bit SDR dualbus, 128bit x 2(dualbus)
The G450 has 64bit DDR dualbus, 64bit x 2(dualbus) x 2(DDR)

Meaning the same bandwith. They only used the 64bit DDR dualbus to cut down the cost.

 

[Goi]

Geez, you guys are talking about stuff you don't really understand. The &quot;dualbus&quot; feature that Matrox is pimping refers to its internal architecture(i.e. datapath bus width) of the G400 series, and NOT the external memory bus. The external memory bus of the G400 series, like all other current decent consumer cards, is 128-bit wide, NOT 256bit dualbus wide.

Also, I believe the &quot;64bit memory&quot; part of the G450 refers to the type of memory CHIP used, not the memory bus width. I believe currently most graphics cards are still using 32bit memory chips or less, regardless of whether its SDR or DDR.

 

[Czar]

Goi

Hehe I had realy not much of a clue what I was talking about but I know for a fact that the G450 has the same bandwith as the G400, read that in an interview with some Matrox PR guy. (darn, I feel like 3dfx has given the word PR a bad reputation). They were only using DDR to make the card cheaper

 

[BurntKooshie]

I stand corrected Thanks!

 

[Goi]

czar, if the G450 has the same theoretical bandwidth as the G400, then perhaps it does have a 64-bit memory bus, while using 64-bit memory chips. I wasn't aware of that because I have been out of the loop for about 2 months, haven't been reading up. Coupled with DDR-SDRAM, a 64-bit memory bus using DDR-SDRAM running at the same speed as a 128-bit memory bus using SDR-SDRAM would have the same theoretical bandwidth, all other things equal.

Of course, Matrox could also achieve the same effect by using a normal 128-bit bus for the G450 and simply cutting the bus speed by half(100MHz), but that's highly unlikely given current memory speeds.

In any case, the memory bus isn't a &quot;dualbus&quot;. Only the internal core datapath uses a &quot;dualbus&quot;.

 

[Sunner]

Goi, it does indeed use a 64 bits wide external mem bus, at least according to the pressrelese matroxusers.com quoted quite some time ago.

 

[Goi]

Sunner, alright then...I didn't know about that, though I suspected as much. Thanks for the information.