Matrox Millennium G550
This Matrox card has Dual Head capability for home or business users who want the ability to work on two displays at the same time.
WHAT'S HOT: The Matrox Millennium G550 features Dual Head capability; it allows you to connect the board to two displays (so you can run different applications on two computer monitors) or mirror the display (showing the same image on a computer monitor and a television). To accomplish this, it has a traditional analog-out port, plus a DVI-out port for connecting a digital monitor. Matrox bundles a cable with a 15-pin VGA connector on one end and two connectors (S-Video and composite) at the other end, as well as a DVI-to-VGA adapter that lets you connect two analog displays at once.
WHAT'S NOT: Matrox didn't position the Millennium G550 for the gaming crowd. To play Test Drive 6 we had to disable fog effects, and frame rates in most of our test games were acceptable only at 640 by 480 resolution. For example, we slogged through Unreal Tournament in 1024 by 768 resolution at 32 frames per second--about half what other boards can do. However, the G550 did post marginally better scores than its predecessor, the Millennium G450.
WHAT ELSE: Matrox bundles its Virtual Presenter tool for Microsoft PowerPoint, as well as Digimask software; with the latter you can take two pictures of your head, which the software uses to create a 3D version of it. You can then record the speaking portion of a presentation and use Virtual Presenter to have your on-screen 3D head deliver the speech.
UPSHOT: The Dual Head capability can be useful for home or business users who want the flexibility of working on two displays at the same time, but we don't recommend this board for serious gamers.
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