Matrox Millennium P750 review

If you've been into graphics cards since the mid-1990s, you'll know that Matrox Millennium is a hallowed name. Back when hardware-accelerated 3D graphics were a twinkle in the eye of electronics engineers, and the prospect of an 8MB graphics buffer was a heady one, the MGA Millennium ruled the roost: there was no other realistic option for fast, high-quality 2D graphics.

However, 2D graphics speed has been a non-issue for some years, and the demand for analog image quality is also on the wane in the move to digital TFTs. All of this means that Matrox's reputation for analog engineering is now a moot point for most users. Most, that is, but not all - there's still a hardcore of high-resolution CRT users who appreciate the analog signal quality from Matrox cards.

This is what impressed us about the Parhelia (see issue 95, p124); its 512-bit GPU was intended for 3D CAD workstations. But the new Millennium series, comprising the P750 and cheaper P650, is aimed at 2D work. To this end, they sport a lesser 256-bit GPU and 64MB of DDR RAM.

This slows down 3D performance, although it may not be an issue for many people. With no DirectX 9 capabilities and an Unreal Tournament 2003 frame rate of 20.4fps compared with 129.3fps from the Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 Ultra (see issue 105, p72) in QXGA, the P750's certainly no gamer's card.

However, Matrox has compensated for all of these shortfalls by focusing on video-editing features and multiple display support. The DualHead system introduced a few years back has now become TripleHead, with the P750 supporting three displays. There's also the 10-bit per channel GigaColor feature, which can display over a billion colours. Windows doesn't support such a high colour depth by default, though, so there's a Photoshop plug-in to enable this.

The miraculous three-display trick is achieved with an unwieldy splitter cable, converting one of the backplate's two DVI outputs to dual analog D-SUB. There's also a second splitter that provides S-Video and composite video connectors. Finally, there's a DVI-to-D-SUB adaptor dongle to convert the second digital output to analog.

Those of you paying attention will have noted that the triple-display combinations are limited. You can't connect three digital displays to the P750; you can have either two analog and one digital, or three analog.

Also, if you're going for three displays to maximise your Desktop - as opposed to running two Desktops plus a video feed - you have to run in Stretched rather than Independent Display mode. So one Windows Desktop is expanded across all three displays, with the same resolution being forced on all three. A triple-display Clone mode is available too, where a single Desktop is replicated across all displays simultaneously.

In use, though, three displays aren't as practical as two: you'll need a big desk and a supple neck. For video editing, however, hooking up two analog monitors for Windows and a TV for video output is an appealing feature. A point to note for those working in noise-sensitive environments is that the £56 cheaper, non-TripleHead P650 has a fanless heatsink.

Matrox has retained its reputation as the manufacturer of choice for serious desktop graphics cards and, while the P750 hasn't bowled us over, it still represents an evolutionary step with its excellent image quality and video-editing potential.

Author: David Fearon