Advantages: Brilliant 2D, great for business use, also comes in PCI
Disadvantages: Bit long in the tooth, poor 3D performance compared to latest cards

...When I first bought a PC, the Matrox Millenium G200 was the cream of the crop, in terms of graphics cards. With excellent 2D and very good 3D performance it was one component that I specifically requested in my machine. When I finally received my new machine (back in November 1998) I was amazed by the picture quality that this card outputted to a fairly poor monitor. The text was crisp and readable all the way up to 1024 x 768, which was the most my monitor could take, and colour was very clear. In terms of game playing the Matrox cards have always been a little problematic when it comes to OpenGL support, so those that played Quake suffered a little, but as far as I can recall I didn't have any problems with any games that I played (mainly RPG and Strategy). Drivers were updated fairly regularly and in general were very stable... Read review

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Advantages: Image quality, dualhead, DVD playback, TV out
Disadvantages: 3D performance is only adequate

...The Matrox Millenium G450 DH. I've used one now for almost 2 years, and can honestly only use superlatives to describe it except in one area: 3D performance. Let's get this out of the way to start with. If all you ever use your PC for is playng fast-action games, then there are now much faster graphics cards on the market if you pay the price. Thus said, 3D performance is not exactly a big disappointment on games like Quake III. The cards which can significantly beat the G450 in this area cost almost as much as a cheap new PC ! The G450 has been around for a while, but there are still retailers with some in stock - and the price is now VERY competitive. It replaced the G400 'MAX', which was the suped-up version of the G400 (faster clock speed). Used on a system which supports 4x AGP, it performs. Image quality: I have not come across... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap? But not if they don't work
Disadvantages: Terrible build quality, to the point of not working

...components and retain our warranty, we could bring the PC back to the shop and they would do the upgrade - with components from their own stock, which are far more expensive and frequently not as good as can be obtained elsewhere. Want the latest Matrox Millennium graphics card? Only if PC World has it, and be prepared to spend considerably more than you'd pay at Dabs or Software Warehouse. But then we got the Advent home and took it out of its packaging. The tower box rattled, and when my husband opened it he discovered that the fan hadn't been attached properly and it was loose in the box. He fixed it, connected the tower and tried to boot it up; nothing. So he opened the tower case again, and discovered that the motherboard was fixed in such a way that the various cards didn't fit into the slots properly. An hour later, having rebuilt... Read review

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Advantages: Very fast.
Disadvantages: Takes a while for delivery.

...wiring. We experienced no IRQ conflicts when installing a different NIC. The system is also DMI-compliant, and its disk features SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis Reporting Technology), which notifies the user of impending hard disk failure. If the machine is under warranty, the disk can be replaced the next day. Dell's 32-bit MIF browser, Dell Inspector, is included to help you track system assets. The Optiplex's Intel motherboard integrates an S3 Trio 64V+ graphics subsystem; it was disabled for our tests in favor of a Matrox Millennium card that netted an above-average score on our Graphics WinMark 97 tests. The system was an average performer on most other tests. The Dimension posted an above-average Disk WinMark score and came in as an average performer on the other tests. The machine's huge 6.2GB hard disk, coupled with the Iomega Zip... Read review

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Advantages: All the facilities of an expensive Editing/Capture Card
Disadvantages: Rendering is slow for high quality, multi-layered video.

...I originally chose the Matrox Marvel as a cheap solution for producing and editing 'reasonable' quality video productions for the web and also to allow me to take stills of video from clients corporate videos. As it comes with a selection of software - One suite from Ulead and one from Avid for Video editing as well as a raft of other software for editing audio and watching TV. The marvel does everything I needed and more . . . I have even done some broadcast post-production and editing for Spanish TV with less than £150 worth of Kit! Rendering takes a quite a while but possibilities are endless. The G400 Marvel was to be my next video editing card but the G200 prooved so inspiring I will be buying the RT2000 - Matrox's 'Big Daddy' Editing Solution.... Read review

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Advantages: A fairly good allround budget card
Disadvantages: Its not ever going to give you excelent 3D performance

...I bought this graphics card a while ago now; I chose this graphics card as a replacement for my even older voodoo1. I bought it on the Internet, from dabs and it took about three days to arrive. It wasn’t the boxed version because this is always more expensive, at the time my budget was about £80. I was very easy to install and get running with a Cd enclosed and I could really notice the difference straight away. Unreal tournament looked about ten times better and was very smooth. The Matox page is still providing me with drivers for it. Unfortunately the Matrox really excels at 2D graphics and while I can still play the latest games, they will never look as good as they could. One thing I have noticed about the card is that it is very unstable when using the latest drivers with the newest games. Many a time I have had the blue... Read review

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Advantages: EVERYTHING
Disadvantages: THE PRICE ALTHOUGH IT IS WELL WORTH IT

...To me the millennium done really symbolised eevrything thast the millennium means. The sheer sixe and amazement of the place. It was so brilliant i WNET AGAIN AND WOULD GO AGAIN IF i HAD THE MONEY. tHE MILLENNIUM SHOW WAS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, THE BEST SHOW i HAVE EVER SEEN. tHE MILLENNIUM STAR DIAMOND WAS WORTH THE TEN MINUTE WAIT TO SEE. EVEN THE SCHOOL ZONE HAS THE WONDERFUL MAGICAL ORCHARD BEHIND IT. REALLY I COULD GO ON AND ON AND ON ABOUT THIS MAGNIFICENT PLACE. DON'T DISS IT TILL YOU TRIED IT.... Read review

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Advantages: Price, features
Disadvantages: Fussy on hardware, audio sync issue

...If you need/want or are at all interested in editing video on a pc then the RT2000 is the way to go (unless you are seriously loaded and can spend 10K+ on a better system). What is it: An AGP and PCI two card sytem that replaces your existing graphic card, complete with software to edit videos. Inputs and outputs are composite,s-video and firewire. How much is it: varies but can be had for £699 ex vat Rivals: Pinnacle DV500 (£499 ex vat) and various firewire only cards (some for under £50) plus the Canopus range of which I am ignorant (so please compare). Bear in mind the cheap firewire cards get the video in and out of your box but the software bundled with them is dire - a copy of Premiere will set you back around £400 so suddenly the Matrox makes a whole load of sense) Key features: Works with many DV camcorders on the market to allow... Read review

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Advantages: unctionality, usability, price
Disadvantages: Configuration can be a long process

...A few months back I extolled the virtues of the RT2000 - a groundbreaking NLE card from Matrox. 2001 bowls around and they've done it again - not so much a new product but more a broadening of their range with a few extra bells and whistles. The main difference between this and the RT2000 is that its a PCI card rather than AGP, leaving you free, should you chose, to invest in a kick-ass graphics card to provide dual monitor support. A word of caution - pick a Matrox card, preferably a G450, to partner this, as the setup for this card can be daunting. Before you do anything, scour the User Forums on the Matrox site for info, talk to people, search the web - a working NLE system with this under the hood is an experience - a computer with a superfluous RT2500 is just taking up space and burning a hole in your pocket. Main changes Support... Read review

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Advantages:
Disadvantages:

...I bought my Matrox Millenium G400 Dual Head over a year ago. At the time it was the latest card out and measured up pretty well overall. I bought it and have never looked back since. With resolutions that are simply rediculous and 3D ability which is quite acceptable I would recommend this product. It is an accross the board good performer and runs DVDs with the supplied software very smoothly. I play Quake III with it with no problems and the Dual head facility is something which seems to be a rarity. You can connect 2 monitors to your system or simply plug your telly into your computer and watch your favourite DVD on your TV. For those avid gamers out there, I would look towards a different product. Even though the card deals with 3D pretty well it cannot compete with the likes of the new voodoos or the GeForces of this world... Read review

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