iXBT Labs - Computer Hardware in Detail

Platform

Video

Multimedia

Mobile

Other

November'2001 3Digest - Matrox G400



By Andrey Vorobiev

This chip is presented by Matrox Millennium G400 DualHead 32 MBytes, AGP videocard.

Features:

  • Matrox G400 chip, 126 MHz clock rate;
  • 32 MBytes SDRAM memory in eight SEC 5ns microchips, 168 MHz clock rate, 128-bit bus;
  • Peak speed of scene drawing in multitexturing mode is 126 megapixels/sec and 252 megatexels/sec.

Wasn't overclocked due to elder card present.

These cards have been released in the Summer'99 and have been positioned mainly for hi-res 2D graphics, which quality is traditionally high for Matrox. But if that time G400 3D features have been high, now they are not good and that has lead these cards to 2D sector. I shall mark that these articles were written 2 years ago, thus you can just get acknowledged with cards' features.

For the 20th of November'2001 the latest drivers version from Matrox is PowerDesk 6.72. Test results are in summary diagrams.

Taking into account little prevalence of these cards and their aiming at 2D market segment, this section will be archived in December and won't be updated since that time.

Earlier results obtained on PIII - 600 MHz:

Results obtained on PIII - 700 MHz:

Results obtained on PIII - 1000 MHz:

Below are screenshots taken on this card and reference ones taken on NVIDIA GeForce3.

Games / Cards
1
2
3
4
5
6
Matrox G400

NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards
7
8
9
10
11
12
Matrox G400

NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards
13
14
15
16
17
18
Matrox G400

-
NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards
19
20
21
22
23
24
Matrox G400 - -

NVIDIA GeForce3

Games / Cards
25
26
Matrox G400

NVIDIA GeForce3

Game list:

  1. Return to Castle Wolfenstein
  2. Unreal2 - for GeForce cards, Unreal - for all other
  3. Comanche4
  4. No One Lives Forever
  5. Serious Sam
  6. Colin McRAE Rally2
  7. Red Faction
  8. Rally Trophy
  9. Sacrifice
  10. Venom
  11. Need For Speed V (Porshe 2000)
  12. Real MYST
  13. Blade of Darkness
  14. Giants
  15. 3DMark2001: Game1
  16. 3DMark2001: Game2
  17. 3DMark2001: Game3
  18. 3DMark2001: Game4
  19. 3DMark2001: Dot3
  20. 3DMark2001: EMBM
  21. 3DMark2001: Vertex Shaders
  22. 3DMark2001: Pixel Shaders
  23. Black & White
  24. Undying
  25. Anachronox
  26. Max Payne

There are some quality problems. E.g. Unreal has striped fog, and that is not good for gameplay. And there are also some artefacts like missing textures and some strange stripes:

And UT has these artefacts:

Need For Speed: Porshe 2000 has strange fog. You can see it in the tunnel from a far distance:

And it disappears when you get closer:

This occurs on several tracks.

Giants often locks up and has artefacts (with 6.71, 6.72 drivers):

Moreover, Black & White produces black screen with 6.50 drivers, and 6.51 version causes frequent lock ups. 6.70 version causes even more quality problems: Z-buffer problems on i815 platform, great perfomance loss in Quake3, unstability of Serious Sam.

2D quality is traditionally perfect. 1600x1200 gives a crystal clear picture.

Article navigation:



blog comments powered by Disqus

  Most Popular Reviews More    RSS  

AMD Phenom II X4 955, Phenom II X4 960T, Phenom II X6 1075T, and Intel Pentium G2120, Core i3-3220, Core i5-3330 Processors

Comparing old, cheap solutions from AMD with new, budget offerings from Intel.
February 1, 2013 · Processor Roundups

Inno3D GeForce GTX 670 iChill, Inno3D GeForce GTX 660 Ti Graphics Cards

A couple of mid-range adapters with original cooling systems.
January 30, 2013 · Video cards: NVIDIA GPUs

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

An external X-Fi solution in tests.
September 9, 2008 · Sound Cards

AMD FX-8350 Processor

The first worthwhile Piledriver CPU.
September 11, 2012 · Processors: AMD

Consumed Power, Energy Consumption: Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge

Trying out the new method.
September 18, 2012 · Processors: Intel
  Latest Reviews More    RSS  

i3DSpeed, September 2013

Retested all graphics cards with the new drivers.
Oct 18, 2013 · 3Digests

i3DSpeed, August 2013

Added new benchmarks: BioShock Infinite and Metro: Last Light.
Sep 06, 2013 · 3Digests

i3DSpeed, July 2013

Added the test results of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 and AMD Radeon HD 7730.
Aug 05, 2013 · 3Digests

Gainward GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST 2GB Golden Sample Graphics Card

An excellent hybrid of GeForce GTX 650 Ti and GeForce GTX 660.
Jun 24, 2013 · Video cards: NVIDIA GPUs

i3DSpeed, May 2013

Added the test results of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770/780.
Jun 03, 2013 · 3Digests
  Latest News More    RSS  

Platform  ·  Video  ·  Multimedia  ·  Mobile  ·  Other  ||  About us & Privacy policy  ·  Twitter  ·  Facebook


Copyright © Byrds Research & Publishing, Ltd., 1997–2011. All rights reserved.