OEMs can build systems with fancier bullet points now with the ATI Radeon HD 5450.
Are you envious of computer users with their fancy Radeon GPUs full of fancy DirectX 11 effects and Eyefinity multi-monitor technology, but don't have hundreds of dollars freely floating around? AMD today announced the card that will get you those two technologies for a mere $50.
The ATI Radeon HD 5450 offers 512MB onboard and runs silent thanks to passive cooling. Make no mistake – this card doesn't have the muscle for hardcore 3D gaming, but it is well suited for the home theater PC with support for HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
"The ATI Radeon HD 5450 offers consumers another next-generation graphics product from AMD, and further reinforces our price-performance value at a wide range of price points,” said Matt Skynner, vice president and general manager, AMD Graphics Division. “With the addition of the ATI Radeon HD 5450, home theater enthusiasts and casual gamers have access to cutting-edge features and solid performance at an incredible value.”
As noted in our review, gamers on a tight budget would do better to hold on just a little bit longer for AMD to launch something between the $50 Radeon HD 5450 and the $100 Radeon HD 5670. The company has already indicated that a 5500-series is forthcoming, and it is reasonable to expect such a product to offer higher performance than the Radeon HD 5450 at a lower price than t
he Radeon HD 5670. This is likely to be a far more desirable card for budget gamers interested in a triple-monitor Eyefinity setup.
The related DirectCompute 11 will almost certainly run on this card. Applications coded to use it will see a great speed gain. So, while DX 11 itself probably is useless at this low end, DC 11 will be a great advantage for the HD 5450 over comparable 4xxx cards.