ATI Radeon HD 5450 Review

[Guest]

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.

 

[Guest]

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.

 

[Guest]

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.

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!

 

[Steve]

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...

 

[Guest]

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

 

[Guest]

Hey,

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


Stephen

 

[Relic]

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.

 

[Guest]

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

 

[Relic]

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.

 

[Guest]

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

 

[Guest]

I have this graphics card, and it's really bad if you want to play games. It's much better to buy the 5770!

 

[Guest]

is this card good for playing video games at medium quality

 

[Steve]

is this card good for playing video games at medium quality

Not current games or those created in the last few years, no.

 

[Guest]

Hi friends...i ordered a dell studio14 laptop last year...i3 processor...4gb ddr3 ram with ATI RADEON 1GB CARD...i have new found love for latest games like crysis and fifa11 but they are running slow...so i need a suggestion for upgrading this card so that im able to play games that are being launched now and future as well...looking fwd to your replies

 

[Relic]

Guest said:
Hi friends...i ordered a dell studio14 laptop last year...i3 processor...4gb ddr3 ram with ATI RADEON 1GB CARD...i have new found love for latest games like crysis and fifa11 but they are running slow...so i need a suggestion for upgrading this card so that im able to play games that are being launched now and future as well...looking fwd to your replies

Since you have a laptop their isn't much you can do in terms of upgrading your GPU. This is unfortunately one of the downsides of most laptops with a few exceptions or those up for a challenge. If you are really getting into PC gaming I suggest looking at some desktop PC's with a medium-range + dedicated video card. If portability is a must you can always check out gaming laptops, however cost wise they will be higher then their desktop counterparts.

 

[Guest]

I'm assuming then that this card will be suitable for old games like Medieval 2 Total War or Europa Universalis 3?

 

[LNCPapa]

Perhaps - but the amount of memory on the card does not give the whole picture. You can slap all the memory in the world on the slowest GPU and still not be able to play certain games. What's important to know now is which GPU does that laptop actually have in it.

 

[Guest]

I'm not the guy with the laptop. Thanks anyway though, graphics cards and such do confuse me a bit.

 

[LNCPapa]

Oops! My fault... I guess I should've checked that first.

 

[natman]

Even with my limited experience with gaming I can tell that this is not the card for heavy duty gaming performance.

That's OK, I want it for HTPC use and I DON'T CARE that it's slow trying to do something it's obviously not intended to do.

My questions are:

1) How loud is the fan?

2) Does it support 720 and 1080 HD output?

3) Can it support an HD TV and a conventional monitor at the same time in different resolutions?

 

[LNCPapa]

@natman
1) I bought a fanless version (HIS I believe) for one of my wife's office machines - totally silent
2) Yes to both (I have it hooked up to a 1080 screen at her office)
3) Yes (should be, haven't actually tried it but with 1GB of RAM and using the newest catalyst drivers there's no reason it shouldn't.)

 

[Guest]

hello, I bought a kit six months ago that included this video card. Until 4 days ago everything was peaches and cream. My display started acting up with black boxes and "static" like interference. shortly after this happens, the display goes complety bonkers (horizontal lines) and my computer shuts down. I have to hard power it down and restart. It seems to be getting worse as now it doesn't even start (Not even Bios) everytime. I was wondering if there have been any problems with this card overheating? I have the one with just the heat sync, no cooling fan. Also, I'm having trouble finding any warranty info if this is in fact the problem. Any insight would be helpful, Thanks.
Stan

 

[Guest]

are you kidding me steve come on ive played those games with this card have been since it came out really i think thats a pitch just to get someone to buy what you like your hating this card because you judged it on your terms sorry if we are not all 1600x1600 Rez Freaks like you are im going to defend this card because all the games you said it cant do it does for me i have no issue with it ,and really it wont run WOW Seriously thats a LIE how do i know because i play it just fine ,same with call to arms ,battlefield series , even command and conquer series no issue ,so why you go on hating this card do me a favor will ya why not stop crying and see if you can do better building one then ATI Or Nvidia ...and do so for 55 bucks until then i suggest you do it fair and balanced .. which this was not i can tell already besides i couldnt help but wonder why you would tell a 17 yr old this card cant do those things when it can come on common sence here WOW doesnt need 1 gig of video ram to run ,i run it on a mac with a 128 card that doesnt even have shaders and it works fine so where are you getting your info from HUH i tend to wonder seriously no wonder why i hate know it all`s and one last thing why would i by a IGP motherboard when they would never hold a candle to plug in cards because i would save 60$ yea and after the GPU pops on that MB then where was the savings HMMMMM??? nice try but your reasoning SUCKS ...

 

[Steve]

are you kidding me steve

I never kid when talking about terrible low-end graphics cards for gaming.

sorry if we are not all 1600x1600 Rez Freaks like you are

1600x1600 would be a boxy resolution I think you mean 1680x1050 and that hardly makes anyone a rez freak. I play at 2560x1600 so that will no doubt blow your socks off!

 

[LNCPapa]

World's longest run-on sentence of craziness. I put one of these cards in a machine and I can confirm that it's terribly slow. It works and is fine for 2d though. IIRC it only scored in the 2.x region on WEI as well.