Any opinions on the Matrox G450 dual video card?
 

I'm looking into purchasing a dual monitor video card(First dual monitors setup). I've heard some pretty good reviews on this card for it's cheap price. I don't want to spend over $150.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks.

Ryan,
I got the G400 because it is suppose to have better TV-out than the 450.
Dave

Hi

I bought one and for some strange reason it kept hanging my machine. Not wanting to wait a couple of weeks for their next consignment I gave it back and bought a G4 4200Ti.

Later tests done on the card revealed that the card was faulty.

The reason I initially wanted the card was because of writeups in many threads which praised the cards colour reproduction. There are many satisfied users, don't think you can go wrong with either the 400 or the 450.

Cheers
Andrew

The G550 is the latest offering from ~Matrox, it includes DVI connections.

I currently use a G450, and have noticed that part of the second monitor is ghosted on the first. This is a fault with the card, but since I got it for free i'm not complaining.

All the best,

Ed

2D card
 

The Matrox cards are great for 2D work. But if you need 3D performance look elsewhere...

Regards,

Julian

I've been using a G400 dual head card for a few years now and it's a great workhorse for video work. Yeah, it's not much good for playing 3D games but then it isn't designed for it. FOr video work it's stable and produces great colours. Mine is a 16MB card running 2 19" monitors at 1280x1024 with no problems at all. With the faster 32MB card you will get even better performance.

I find the G450 to be great. I have one on this computer and use it for video editing, photoshop, etc. Works very well.

Not a game display since it doesn't accelerate much of anything. But the G550, at $70 is OK too.

Note that these adapters only allow video overlay on the primary monitor. Not much of a limitation.

You do have to pay attention to voltage requirements and AGP levels 1X, 2X, 4X & 8X to make certain your motherboard will support them.

I have a G450 on 2 machines for about a year and a half, and they work very well. Drivers from Matrox are always very well done, and the cards have pushed dual monitors with no weird issues or ghosting or whatever.

Even though this model is old now, it still performs exceedingly well in a 2D environment.