ATI Radeon HD 5450: Eyefinity And HTPCs For Everyone?

A Radeon For The Rest Of Us?

AMD floored us with the performance (and price) of its Radeon HD 5970, awed us with the 5870's triple-display Eyefinity capabilities, wowed us with the 5850's value, excited us with the 5770's alacrity in a home theater system, impressed us with its mainstream 5750, and intrigued us with the relatively entry-level 5670.

We have written quite a few Radeon HD 5000-series launch reviews over the past few months, and every one of the company's new products has demonstrated serious gaming prowess to its respective price segment.

Every one of them, that is, until now. Enter ATI's Radeon HD 5450. This is not a piece of hardware that targets our gaming audience. But at $50, it's the Radeon HD 5000-series card for the rest of us. I use the term 'us' somewhat loosely here, as I consider myself a gamer. You get the idea, though.

If you've been paying attention to the recent Radeon launches, then you know there's a lot more to like than just gaming performance: the Eyefinity multi-monitor support and Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD Master Audio over a protected audio path features mentioned above actually carry over across all members of the 5000-series seen thus far. Anyone excited by those value-adds thus far will be happy to see that they are once again exposed on today's replacement of the Radeon HD 4350 and 4550 cards.

Let's take a closer look at the new Radeon HD 5450 and draw some conclusions about how well it serves that low-end discrete audience. We know it's not a gaming card, but we cant help ourselves; we'll even check out gaming performance for the sake of being thorough.

  • popaholic
    For the all the idiots out there, yes it can run Crysis, slightly.

    Whats the point of releasing a new graphics card thats worse than older cards? It runs Dx11 but there's no way it could even run a supported game.

    Reply
  • The links to the article pages are either missing or directed wrongly. For example, the "Power and Temperature Benchmarks", "Conclusion" pages are missing or directed wrongly.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    serokichimThe links to the article pages are either missing or directed wrongly. For example, the "Power and Temperature Benchmarks", "Conclusion" pages are missing or directed wrongly.
    Try refreshing the page. Should be working correctly now!
    Reply
  • robertking82881
    well those that are not gameing but want direct x11 can pick this up
    Reply
  • acasel
    a crossfire config with this video card + overclock will make this article much better in a gamers point of view...
    Reply
  • cleeve
    acasela crossfire config with this video card + overclock will make this article much better in a gamers point of view...
    Not really, look at the specs. In CrossFire these cards would cost $100 for a total 160 shader cores. They still wouldn't hold a candle to a single $100 5670 when gaming, which has 400 shader cores all by itself.

    CrossFiring the 5450 would be a total waste.
    Reply
  • masterjaw
    Passively-cooled 5450 in crossfire = fail

    How do you expect it to handle the increase in temps? Even if you got some good airflow inside the case, that won't be sufficient.
    Reply
  • footsoldier
    Kinda failed product, ATI..focus on price drop plssss! But still, ATI rocks
    Reply
  • skora
    How selfish you all are thinking THG only does gaming cards!!!! When ATI cuts the hardware (shaders/ROPs) to the bone, its not about gaming. Its for the HTPC and multi-monitor office crowd and thats it. It's a niche card and looks to do that admirably.
    Reply
  • shubham1401
    Lol...
    They needed a i7 and 1200W PSU to test this card... :)

    Useless...Either get a good card or stick with integrated.
    Reply