Conclusion
Now that we've seen what the new Radeon HD 5450 can do, what can we say? It's certainly the least awe-inspiring Radeon HD 5000 series card we've seen to date, but this utilitarian model was never designed to inspire. It was designed to work; to offer better than integrated graphics performance; to supply Eyefinity options to the masses; to give the HTPC enthusiasts bitstreaming protected HD audio; and to do all of this on a tight $50 budget.
That's a tall order when you consider it, a massive functionality upgrade for an entry level graphics card, and in this light the Radeon HD 5450 is quite impressive. Who will be impressed? Those who are intrigued by that increased functionality. Folks who aren't much interested in gaming but would really like an extended triple-monitor desktop are at the top of the list. Home theatre PC owners who are attracted by the Radeon HD 5000 series ability to bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio will also be delighted.
But lets be frank here. As impressive as these new abilities are to a few users, the average person will not reap these benefits and would never see a functional increase in productivity over an older Radeon HD 4550. Most people have no desire to run more than one monitor, never mind three. And the number of folks employing their graphics card to send audio to a high-end HDMI amplifier are few and far between. For the average user, there is no reason to run out and upgrade their Radeon HD 4550 to a new 5450 model. On the other hand, if it offered 25% higher gaming performance than the 4550, we'd be more impressed. But we're gamers, we can't help it.
Nevertheless, the Radeon HD 5450 is a notable landmark in that it raises the bar from what we expect from an entry level graphics card while using less power than any card in recent memory. It also sets the stage for a day where multiple-monitor support and bitstreaming HD audio becomes the norm. There are certainly some users who will appreciate those abilities right now, and to those folks I can heartily recommend the Radeon HD 5450.
Where does the gamer fit into all this? From the performance benchmarks you can easily see that the similarly priced Radeon HD 4650 is a vastly superior gaming solution. Regardless, the new Radeon HD 5450 can offer passable performance in challenging titles at medium to low settings at 1280x1024. At this point, the low-budget gamer has to make the devil's choice: do they opt for the faster card, or a slower card that delivers triple-monitor gaming? Is the panoramic experience worth lowering detail staggering amounts to achieve playable frame rates? Certainly games that are easy on the graphics card (for example, World of Warcraft) could be handled by a Radeon HD 5450 in triple-monitor Eyefinity mode. You wouldn't want to play any graphically challenging titles with this setup, though.
But if you're a low-budget gamer faced with this choice, might I suggest holding on just a little bit longer for AMD to release something between the $50 Radeon HD 5450 and the $100 Radeon HD 5670. The company has already indicated that the 5500 series is forthcoming, and it is reasonable to expect such a product to offer higher performane than the Radeon HD 5450 at a lower price than the Radeon HD 5670. This is likely to be a far more desirable situation for low-budget gamers interested in a triple-monitor Eyefinity setup.
What a terrible opening paragraph! You slated the 5000 series because it wasn't as big an advancement as the 400 series!
1280x1024 is 5x4
1024x768 is 4x3
1280x960 is 4x3
Sexy heat sink albeit at the cost of losing an expansion slot.
As much as you don't like it, I think this is a fantastic card. Perfect for HTPC users right down to the fact it's half height (I believe I mentioned half height cards when these were first announced). Very attractive price point especially given savings on a sound card. Full marks to AMD for this one.
Hmm..how long before this card is effectively replaced by the next IGP? Got mixed feelings about it, to be honest..it's neither good nor bad, it just exists. Tough call buying this one.
The lower end of the 5000 series is a bit disappointing. I'm not convinced the 5450 is worth it for an HTPC given it's high price (>£50) in the UK - especially since a 785G motherboards is around the same price. I was holding out for the 5570, but it must sit between the 5450 and 5670 in price (~£60?) with performance somwhere between the two. The 4650 at
Ouch, Ouch, poor lil' blighter didn't like those benches much. I'll forgive it if the UK price is loooooooow. I do love the passive cooling!
However, aspect ratio of the screen isn't the pixel ratio, it's physical width and height. For example, if I run 1280x1024 on my monitor then it is 16:9 (and horribly stretched).
Not what the article implied though...
So what we've got here is a DirectX 11 card which doesn't have enough power to play DirectX games... If this was a Nvidia card you would have ripped into it no end, I really think Toms is getting ATI Bias; maybe theres some form of agreement here we don't know about.