AMD Radeon HD 5450 512 MB

ATI are bringing out its Radeon HD 5000 cards at quite a rate at the moment. Our featured card today is the 5450. Any good for gaming? Nah. HTPC? Yes!

Any good for gaming? Best not to!

ATI sent us a test example to give us the opportunity of taking a look around this Radeon HD 5450 512 MB, on sale for under £35. First of all, under no circumstances is this a card for gamers. We set our tests at low resolution (1280 x 1024 pixels) and our graph below speaks for itself:


You can consult the detailed results in our face-off but you’ll see that this model doesn’t have enough oomph for recent titles at any sort of decent settings levels. Old games like Counter Strike Source may run, but don’t count on it.

A useless card then? Not necessarily. The 5450 does give you a couple of interesting options. The first, standard one, is hardware acceleration for HD video. What happens is, when you play HD video, the graphics card relieves the processor by taking over the decoding. The other advantage is the HDMI out that can transit the audio signal. Better still, it can transit HD Dolby Digital and DTS signals to an audio amp in bitstream.

Energy consumption and noise: great, perfect for HTPCs!

Together, these two options make the card a good choice for computers set up for playing videos and that you link up to your television. The geeks amongst you will have understood that we’re talking about PCHC (Personal Computer Home Cinema) and HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer).

The card consumes really very little energy and, as its cooling system has no fan, is perfect for use with a low energy processor. If you’re looking for an ecological, quiet set-up, look no further.