Review : Matrox G450 and G550

Matrox is a long standing name in anything video related. whether it's for video capturing and special effects cards , or computer videocards. They always had a taste for the unusual. The G450 and G550 are no exception. When other card vendors are happy to make a card that can drive a monitor , Matrox has to have a card that can drive 2 monitors. Not only that , but also do it in different modes and resolutions.

The G550 is the latest incarnation of the G series Graphics Processing Unit ( GPU ).Matrox is one of the few remaining card vendors that design and use their own chips.

The G550 card is available in multiple versions , distinguished from one another by the kind of connectors on the bracket. My model had both a D15 and a DVI connector. The card comes shipped with a convertor plug form DVI to D15.

DVI is a new standard to connect high performance displays to video cards. Notably the high end LCD displays use this interface to overcome the limitations of the classic 15 pin cable. DVI use a high-speed serial interface that uses transition minimized differential signaling (TMDS) to send data to the monitor.

TMDS transfers data by transitioning between "on" and "off" states. An advanced encoding algorithm is applied to minimize the transitions. Minimizing transitions avoids excessive electromagnetic interference (EMI) levels on the cable.

There are 2 types if DVI connectors : DVI-D that is digital only and DVI-I that is both digital and analog. The latter ( DVI-I ) is the one on this card. The difference sits in the cross haired slot with the four holes around it. You can see it on the right hand side of the image below. That is the analog channel.

DVI is intended to be used as a general purpose video interface. Not just a video output. One day this might become the connection source to hook up all video signals.

The cards also come shipping with a special cable that converts D15 to a S Video and a composite video output.

Comparison

The resolution specs are identical for both cards. The card can produce up to to 16 million colors in following resolutions:

The G550 is slightly faster then the G450 and produces a sharper image. The real Windows 2000 driver is great for video editing. I hooked up my standard monitor to the DVI port using the adapter , and a TV set to the 15 pin Dsub using the supplied adapter. By creating a dual desktop I can now preview my video on the TV while editing it on the computer in real time. This is great to see what the TV will show and make tricky things like color correction.

Installation