Price: $160+ for 32MB DDR, 125+ for 16MB DDR, 100+ for 16MB SDR

To us, Matrox has always been a top 2D performer, and they continue with their new G450 video card. While its speed in 2D is only slightly faster than the competition, at least according to the benchmarks, Matrox's 2D brightness and sharpness is remarkable for the consumer realm. Then there is Matrox's dual-head feature, which thus far has had better software implementation than the comparable NVIDIA features and does not require an external RAMDAC for the secondary output. The G450's 3D game power is, however, not nearly as good. In fact, of all the cards we tested, the G450 is by far the slowest. The G450 is not a hard core gamer's card. With that in mind, let's take a closer look.

Matrox G450 32MB

• 32MB DDR SDRAM on 64-bit bus
• 2.7GBps theoretical peak memory bandwidth
• 360MHz primary RAMDAC supports up to 2048x1536x32bpp@85MHz
• secondary RAMDAC support up to 1600x1200x32bpp
• AGP 2x/4X support with fast writes and AGP texturing

The G450 is essentially a simplified, lower-cost G400 Max running with a narrower memory bus, faster memory, and an improved secondary RAMDAC. Though its 3D speed is slightly lower than the G400 Max, the G450's new 2D features make it a bit better than the G400 Max.

As for software, the G450 comes with no game bundle to speak of, but does come with DVD playback software, Simply3D and Picture Publisher 8. With no hardware motion compensation support, the G450's DVD quality is poor, but it still gets by. Simply 3D is a 3D text and graphics creation tool. Picture Publisher 8 is a 2D photo manipulation tool in the same general class as PhotoDeluxe. The G450's true software strength comes in the drivers, which have excellent screen controls for both size and refresh settings.