Matrox Millennium G400 & G400MAX

Shogo Performance Conclusions

The G400 once again shows its incredible CPU dependency (and thus incredible CPU scalability) in Shogo.  A surprising lead is the G400MAX at the top of the 1600 x 1200 render scene with the Pentium III 500, even topping the "faster" Voodoo3 3000 and the TNT2. 

The rest of the results are pretty straight forward, the Super7 performance is an interesting topic to comment on.  The G400 doesn't perform nearly as well as the 3dfx cards do in a Super7 situation due to 3DNow! optimizations (or lack thereof, comparatively speaking), however the G400 brings much more to the Super7 platform than any other video card manufacturer, giving Super7 users a nice alternative as well.  However the smart thing to do before making any final decisions is to make sure that the OpenGL ICD is in its most stable form before slapping down a good $200 for a G400, especially if you're a Super7 user. 

Final Words

The G400 is finally here, and it is definitely not a Voodoo3 or TNT2 killer.  The hard core gamer that simply wants performance will probably want to stay away from the G400, however if you don't mind not having the absolute best in 3D performance then the G400 quickly becomes a viable option.

Owners of slower computers will want to stay away from the G400, instead you'll probably want to explore 3dfx's solutions, or maybe NVIDIA's TNT2 depending on how "slow" your computer happens to be (in terms of CPU speed).   Mid range systems should be fine with the G400, however don't expect eyebrow raising performance out of the card, even the MAX version.  Higher end systems will prove to close the gap between the G400 and the more performance oriented alternatives, the G400 has some room to grow, so the faster your CPU, the better your G400 will perform, that's a given.

Matrox definitely has a winner on their hands, the G400 is much more than everything the G200 should have been, and it's no surprise that such a combination of features, performance, and outstanding image quality will be making its way into the hands of quite a few anxious users that have renewed faith in Matrox.   Myself included ;)  Let's just hope that Matrox can iron out the last few bugs with their ICD, and work on improving performance.  Although the G400 will probably never reach TNT2 Ultra levels of performance, the closer Matrox gets, the better.   The cards are ready and out in the open, you make the decision.