Matrox G400 MAX

Name: Matrox G400 MAX - Page 3
Brand: Matrox

by HH Editor — Saturday, December 15, 2001, 11:00 PM EDT

*The Benchmarks D3D* *Our Test System* Full Tower ATX Case w/ 300W PS, Pentium3 -450 Overclocked to 558 MHz. Abit BE6 DMA66 capable motherboard, 128MB of PC133 HSDRAM, WD 18G 7200RPM DMA66 Hard Drive, Matrox G400MAX @ 166MHz. Core/221MHz. Memory Clock, Toshiba SDM1202 3rd. Gen. 4.8X DVD/32X CDROM, Win 98, DirectX 6.1, Matrox Drivers Version 5.21

We paired the G400MAX up with an overclocked TNT2 @ 160MHz. for a little "Forsaken Ship Demo" benchmarking. In a word.... SMOKED! The G400MAX clearly shows it prowess here in the 32bit Forsaken demo.
Let's look at something a little more demanding in the D3D arena. *3DMark99 @ 800X600X16bit*

Once again a good showing and the image quality tests were all passed with flying colors... (pun intended)

*Final thoughts and Score Board!* It occured to me, as I was writing this review, that the G400MAX has to be the most underated and overlooked graphics card in the market right now. I was very pleased with its overall performance and the absolute perfection in which it rendered images on my desktop and in games. Environmental Mapped Bump Mapping is not just some marketing hype either. It is a real feature that makes a significant improvement in immersion and image quality. I am sure that others will follow in Matrox's footsteps with this feature and more games will be written with Bump Mapping support. Finally, the raw speed of this card coupled with the added feature of Dual Headed Displays, rounds out the total package nicely. The only small fly in the oinment is Matrox's OpenGL ICD which is an ever improving product. It won't be long before they have that code flying at the same speed as the silicon that processes it. For today's current generation of 3D Accelerators, you can't buy better image quality and it's speed is competitive with the best of class. We give the Matrox G400MAX a Hot Hardware Temp-O-Meter rating of... 95! Damn hot! -Davo