GA-MG400
- Matrox G400
Manufacturer
- GIGABYTE
Thursday, February 17, 2000 - Hilbert Hagedoorn
Hardware used
Pentium II 350 @ 392 Mhz 115 Mhz FSB
Gigabyte BX-2000+
128 MB PC 100 SDRAM
Software used
Windows 98 SE
DirectX 7.x
Gigabyte reverence drivers
General
The GA-MG400 is a 16 MB videocard powered by Matrox's G400 chipset, it is equipped with
16Mb 6 ns (SDRAM)
and is bundled with a manual, driver CD and gamepack.
A prelude
We have all seen/heard of the mighty G400 from Matrox. Unlike
nVIDIA, S3 (and 3dfx in the past) this company distributes, produces and
sells these cards pure from within Matrox. Therefore I was somewhat
stunned to see info on a Matrox based videocard on Gigabyte's website a
little while ago. I immediately started to throw a few questions to
our Gigabyte contacts, they confirmed it. The information was indeed
correct.
May I present to you
Gigabyte's GA-MG400 :
When we look at the
previous chipset from Matrox (G200 chipset) we all remember the strong
2D features of that card, however it had excruciating slow acceleration.
Then, for a long time it was quiet around Matrox, 2 generation
chipsets had passed and finally, they came back with a fast and new
chipset under the codename G400. Even back in March when I was at the
CeBIT in Hannover/Germany, no-one from Matrox was willing to share
information regarding this new chipset. The new chipset, the G400, was set to blow the
socks off of current videocard generations with its cool new features
and high performance.
And now, Gigabyte may distribute
it's own 'hybrid' of the G400, the GA-MG400. But wait, there are a few
catches though. Of course Matrox would not allow Gigabyte to be a
relatively strong competitor against Mtrox, it would of course
compromise their own sales. Matrox demanded
that the GA-MG400 can only work with Gigabyte Motherboards. This card will not work on any other motherboard. So if
you have a SOYO, ASUS, ABit or whatever motherboard, this card will
not work for you my friend.
(you should have bought a mainboard from Gigabyte anyway since they do
a truly excellent job in manufacturing HQ mainboards).
Anyway, how did they do that ?
You might ask. Relatively simple actually, The BIOS from the videocard
is removed from the card and is now placed within certain motherboards
from Gigabyte. Therefore if you are planning on buying a Gigabyte
mainboard and if you need a new videocard, then this could be a very attractive
bundle for you to buy.
At this time current
compatible motherboards which are shipped/bundled with the GA-MG400:
- GA-BX2000(+)
- GA-6BXE
- GA-6BXC
- GA-6ZXC
- GA-6CX
- GA-6VX+
- GA-6VXE-
There will be more
mainboards in the future who will support the card. But for now, this
is an excellent choice in mainboards to choose from. We received an
GA-BX2000+ motherboard to try out the GA-MG400. We will review this
most nifty new mainboard very soon also.
Gigabyte will release
the videocard in two versions:
- GA-MG400
- GA-MG400 DH (TV)
The GA-MG400 DH will
have extra's like DUAL HEAD Display (using two monitors on one
card),the always interesting TV-out and probably 32MB RAM.
Coming up: the
videocard review
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