ATI Radeon HD 5450 Review

Your review missed the primary reason why people buy this card.

HTPC owners who want to upgrade their audio.

The 5000 series is the first ATI series to support HDCP 7.1 channel sound over HDMI.

If you want a quiet, slim, and low-power card in your HTPC that will support Blu-ray's highest sound levels, then this is the perfect card for you and it's pretty cheap.

Need some expert advice!
I'm about to purchase a Dell Inspiron 580 (w/Intel Core i5-750 proc. 8MB cache, 2.66 GHz), and it comes with the ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB. Also: 8GB Memory, 1TB hard drive, 21.5" monitor, 16X DVD etc.

I'm not a gamer except for playing The Sims2 w/several expansion packs and looking at The Sims3 -- will these games play well with this card, and what resolution do you suggest? If you feel these games won't play well, what would you suggest?
Thanks for any input you can offer.

I just bought this card as a part of a small form-factor (mini-itx) computer for a friend.

I chose between going for Intel Core i5 650 (which has graphics integrated) and skip a graphics card, or go with Core i5 750 which is a quad-core and significantly (30%) better than 650 at many tests, and get the cheapest possible graphics card for decoding HD content, basically.

The reason why i did not go with option one or an IGP-motherboard is simple: I could not find one which satisfied what I needed. He doesn't play any games at all, only poker and the occasional old Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and 3 (not even 3D). The motherboard i chose was a Gigabyte H55N-USB3, which is a mini-itx form factor motherboard with USB3 support, it was cheap, and had some very nice features. On top of that i got him the HD5450 (because he would like up to 3 monitors).

In my case, the older generation (HD4650) would be insufficient due to the number of monitors needed, and every penny saved in allowed me to get the better CPU, Case, bigger harddrive and better memory which in his case was far superior than having a better GPU.

So I can really see why some people would choose to use this card. Me for one thought it was the best option in the price range, and he will get a computer which will last him many years since he does not play any games. In this case, CPU/Form factor/Power >>>> GPU

Or you could have built your friend a six-core "AMD Phenom II X6 1055T" system with an AMD 880G motherboard for the same price of less. That would blow away the Core i5 750 system in programs that can use the cores and you don't need a graphics card then unless 3 screens is really needed. In which case you can add any Radeon card and use it with the onboard GPU.

If you read the TS budget CPU articles they say go with the Phenom II X2 555 processor and enable the other two cores. But if you are going to spend $200 then the six-core Phenom II X6 is hard to go past.

It's weird, because with my 5450 I can play Oblivion with HDR, 1280x920 and most details at high with little or no lag. It looks beautiful, so i'm happy. That, and it takes extremely little power.

Honestly, if anyone wants to play at anything above 1280x900, why would they buy this card? They should have a seperate review tier fir these budget cards that review games in 720/1080 configs, not 1400.

Most of the games they reviewed were the high end ones. This card isn't that bad for gaming really.

No you are wrong it is really bad

I'm not a serous gamer but as my dell inspiron desk top 531 had a 128 card. I wanted to upgrade for my own work,pics ect. so I fitted the 'ati hd 5450 512' card. Due to my psu and the power consumption of the said card it was a compromise. It needs no hook up conections and a straight fit to a pci-e .Up to yet (1month) its been faultless and a very good improvement. My usage is about 3 to 4 hrs at a time, but just for my own peace of mind(and i have no heat worries) i am fitting a internal fan..I paid £52 for it and i'm more than pleased with the result. In my opinion its a dam good low end card at a good low end price.

Hey guys. New to the site, found it by browsing google. I'm picking up a computer today with this card in it. Long story short, my grandmother is paying for it, and she's a bit stubborn after we ordered from Newegg and got a busted computer. So long story short I'm ordering a comp with this card and I am curious as to how it will run WoW. I've been playing for 6 years now and it's the only game I play. As long as it can run it on high settings at 40+ FPS I'm fine.

After living in the stoneage for 6 years playing at 10 FPS anything would do I guess.

So just..knowledgeable straight up answer. Hopefully that's not asking too much, there seems to be alot of bickering going on in this thread.

I play WOW and this card sucks. The lady at Best Buy didn't know what she was talking about when she said my HP 210Y with the 5450 was a gaming computer. Now I have to upgrade this video card. I went to best buy because I don't have time to build my own computer and follow up on all the new changes. Guess I will go somewhere else next time.

What i don't understand is that these cards get reviewed with alot of game benchmarks and nearly nothing about the cards video-playback is reviewed. Because that's what these cards are for; smooth playback of 1080P material, blu-ray etc. These are not game cards.

So the weight of the review should be about multimedia video playback and as a side note, some game benchmarks. That would be much better.

I appreciate the review and the comments from the standpoint non-gaming was addressed in here.

I'm just a heavy pc user that does a lot of browsing and streaming. It ended up with the holiday sales in full swing, I bought a low-end 'gamer pc' which I'm sure most of you would scoff at - and rightly so but my rationale was a low-end gamer pc should be overkill for my applications. I had no choice to 'spec out' my purchase however I was hoping even the low side of the spectrum would produce no hassles for a year or two due to lacking 'under the hood'.

* AMD Athlon II X2 250 processor
3.00GHz, 2MB L2 Cache

* 4GB DDR3 system memory
Gives you the power to handle the most power-hungry applications and tons of multimedia work

* 500GB SATA II hard drive
Store 333,000 photos, 142,000 songs or 268 hours of HD video and more

* 24x multi-format dual-layer DVD burner
Watch DVD movies on your computer; read and write CDs and DVDs in multiple formats

* ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics
With 512MB dedicated graphics memory


Of course ad writers always have that skill to make you feel like you bought an IROC skin when you really got a Yugo motor inside but in this case I think I'm reasonably spec'd for a non-gamer, web browsing streamer machine.

Thanks for doing the testing. I didn't expect miracles, just some satisfaction in this review.

You hit the nail bang on the head. I've spent ages trying to find out how this card (and similar) performads for media and all we get is this obsessive shoot-em-up guff.

All these reviews wasting time on gaming benchmarks on a card specifically amied at HTPC users and are pointless. They're irrelevant to the gamer, and useless to HTPC builders who the cards are aimed at. They want to know which card gives the best hi-res video, the best GPU decoding/CPU offload, the widest format/codec support, the best sound quality, the quietest noise level, lowest temperature, and most frugal power consumption, per buck.

Now that domestic lounge-based PCs with WIndows 7 Media Centers with PVR & Blu-Ray feeding large 1080p HD screens have become domestic and mainstream, it's about time these reviewers got out of their bedroooms and woke up to that need!

There is a reason why no one tests half the stuff you are talking about, they are FEATEURES. Read the reviews and they will tell you what kind of stuff these cards support. Moreover half this info is on the box. As for stuff like “which card gives the best hi-res video” well that debatable but every card created in the last few years supports 2560x1600 which is the maximum resolution used by any single screen. As for image quality all the AMD cards are going to be much the same as are the Nvidia cards, so you either go AMD or Nvidia here.

“GPU decoding/CPU offload” depends on what the programs support but really again a Radeon HD 5970 and a Radeon HD 5450 are going to provide the same GPU accelerated performance in programs like VLC media player. Again this is an AMD vs. Nvidia thing.

“the widest format/codec support” these are just specifications and if there is anything new or noteworthy we would include it.

The rest of the stuff you mention we either tested like power consumption and thermals or was unable to test it.

"Now that domestic lounge-based PCs with WIndows 7 Media Centers with PVR & Blu-Ray feeding large 1080p HD screens have become domestic and mainstream, it's about time these reviewers got out of their bedroooms and woke up to that need!"

There is nothing demanding about the full HD 1080P resolution for these graphics cards...

Great video card for an HTPC. Don't get me wrong, I am a gamer, but I game on console.

Hey,

I would actually like to know if this card would run Fate just fine? and emulators and such?


Stephen

It should considering its low requirements, and emulators as well which even onboard could likely handle. However if you plan on doing anything beyond very light and old gaming I suggest you look at some better quality low-end cards.

i got this video card when i was buying my pc
it this god enough for battlefield 3 or medal of honor?

While it may be able to run the game on low settings & resolution, the performance wouldn't feel right as this card is not meant for any serious PC gaming. If you are interested in running modern games such as Battlefield and Medal of Honor with good settings you will likely need a new video card and power supply. I recommend you post over in the Audio & Video forum if you want to upgrade.

hey guys welll im upgrading from a old 6200 turbocache soooo im hoping this card is much better and yeh im not playing games only like simcity and stuff like that just something to get me threw to i buy my new gaming computer