The G450 is build on a .18 micron process, making it smaller and less power hungry than its predecessor, the .25 micron G400. This die-shrink allows more chips to be created on one silicon wafer at once, which also lowers the price of each chip. A G400 Max cost about $200 US, while a G450 is expected to sell for around $145. This is in large part the reason Matrox is making the G450, to take advantage of cost savings brought by a .18 micron process.

The G450 uses a 64-bit memory bus connected to 32MB of DDR SDRAM memory. The memory is Hyundai part number HY5DU651622 DDR SDRAM, which is specified to run at 166MHz. By matching DDR SDRAM to a 64-bit memory bus, Matrox is able to use less wires than in the G400 design while maintaining similar memory bandwidth. The G400 Max carries 32MB of SDR SGRAM mounted on a 128-bit memory bus. You can think of the G400 as having a wide road with slow moving traffic, while the G450 has half as wide a road but with traffic that moves twice as fast.

Why did Matrox make this change? By cutting the number of wires needed, Matrox can simplify their PCB design and layout as well as reduce the number of layers the PCB needs to be. Building fewer layers yields lower costs, and as we said before, a major reason for the G450 is to cut costs versus the G400.