# HIS Radeon HD 5450 1 GB



## W1zzard (Mar 15, 2010)

HIS recently released its entry-level Radeon HD 5450 silent, low-profile graphics card targeted at those looking for a simple step-up from integrated graphics, packing all the essentials of this generation's GPUs. The model we're looking at has double the onboard memory at 1GB, native HDMI with 7.1 audio, and examining what it brings to the table with its added costs.

*Show full review*


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## newtekie1 (Apr 8, 2010)

$70 for a card that can't play any modern games, or most older games...no thanks.

But it has DX11, that is a good...

Kind of makes me wonder why anyone would buy this card over one of the cheaper HD 5450's in the $40-50 range that are also low profile cards.  Granted, those would only have 512MB of RAM, but what does that matter on a card of this class?

I realize that these cards are more aimed at HTPC than gaming.  However, personally, if I was buying a card for a HTPC, I'd get a $20 8400GS.  It will do everything I need from a HTPC card, no point in spending any more money on something better.  Power consumption might be higher with the 8400GS, I don't really know how much power an 8400GS really uses, but it wouldn't be a whole lot more.

Or maybe even better, ATi can release an HD5350 with 40 Stream Processors, that is in the $20 range and consumes even less power.  That would be a killer HTPC card!


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## [Ion] (Apr 8, 2010)

This seems like a stupid card, I'd much rather pick up a 9600GT for gaming, or a HD4350/8400GS for an HTPC.  Great review, nonetheless


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## DailymotionGamer (Apr 8, 2010)

Wouldn't be so stupid if the card was 40 bucks, because its worth that.


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## W1zzard (Apr 8, 2010)

the card is more expensive because it has 1 GB .. our review proves that there is no point in having 1 GB, better go for the cheaper 512 MB variant


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## newtekie1 (Apr 8, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> the card is more expensive because it has 1 GB .. our review proves that there is no point in having 1 GB, better go for the cheaper 512 MB variant



Exactly, a great review W1z, and you've kind of been proving that for years now.

I wish graphics card manufacturers would stop cramming uselessly large amounts of memory on their cards just so they can justify jacking up the price and suckering in un-educated consumers.


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## Phxprovost (Apr 8, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> I wish graphics card manufacturers would stop cramming uselessly large amounts of memory on their cards just so they can justify jacking up the price and suckering in un-educated consumers.



lol so what your saying is....you want company's to stop taking advantage of those that don't know any better? 

OT: Great review as usual, useless card


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## Black Panther (Apr 8, 2010)

I guess it's a card targeted for those who want just something better than onboard graphics.

Also reminds me of my old FX5500 with 256MB RAM. As if its gpu could ever catch up and utilise that ram... 

It's still better than the 9400GT, but I'm ready to bet W1zzard facepalmed while running Crysis on it, so there was no need to try Metro 2033! 

13W at full load is just, speechless. And if it is capable of running blu ray smoothly then it's fine for an HTPC.


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## RejZoR (Apr 8, 2010)

It's all marketing. More is better. If you stick 2GB of memory on a rotten GPU and ppl will buy them like crazy. My personal experience from retail store where casual ppl buy computers, first thing they always ask is how much memory is there on a graphic card. Or they rush in asking if we have a computer with X GB of memory on a graphic card. Then, after i explain to them that the type of core is the most important thing, they finally get it. Mostly. At least good thing now is that all cards have 1GB  And they are all GeForce 9500GT. They only ask about memory s it doesn't really matter  Cruel reality.


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## W1zzard (Apr 8, 2010)

believe it or not, i am 100% sure that his will sell more of this card than of the 512 mb one. everybody in the graphics card industry confirms that


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## newtekie1 (Apr 8, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> believe it or not, i am 100% sure that his will sell more of this card than of the 512 mb one. everybody in the graphics card industry confirms that



Oh, I'm sure of it.  I've had people, even against my advice, buy cards simply because of having more memory, even going so far as getting an HD4350 w/ 1GB DDR2 for $60 over an HD4650 w/ 512 GDDR3 for the same price...:shadedshu


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## DaveK (Apr 8, 2010)

I would have preferred to get the 512MB DDR3 HD4670 than the 1GB DDR2 HD4650, but it was sold out and I needed a card


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## Steevo (Apr 8, 2010)

What a waste of silicon. HTPC and grandma boxes only.


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## DOM (Apr 8, 2010)

Mar 14, 2010, 07:00 PM 

Is there something with your post date


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## W1zzard (Apr 8, 2010)

DOM said:


> Mar 14, 2010, 07:00 PM
> 
> Is there something with your post date



the article has been work in progress for ages because i had to retest my cards on 10.3


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## DOM (Apr 8, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> the article has been work in progress for ages because i had to retest my cards on 10.3



aww for all the crybabys 

 for your work


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## Assimilator (Apr 8, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> the article has been work in progress for ages because i had to retest my cards on 10.3



LOL!

One question W1zz - any idea why ATI would "rebadge" the memory chips on this card? Is there a possibility that GlobalFoundries is producing memory chips now?


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## HillBeast (Apr 8, 2010)

Nice review, and good point about the memory. Honestly why does a bottom range card need as much as my 5870. The only reason it needs that is because it can handle resolutions in games higher than 1024x768, which is something this card can't do. I see the only reason to have this card is for older gaming (which can be done on 512MB or less) or for an HTPC which I would probably do when I finally get around to building one.

One thing though, why are you mentioning as a con 'No support for CUDA/PhysX'? It's like mentioning on a NVIDIA card 'No support for CCC' or 'No support for ATI Stream'. CUDA isn't something I miss since moving to ATI and I can see once they finally start making Bullet and the like work on OpenCL, CUDA will be old news...


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## HillBeast (Apr 9, 2010)

Black Panther said:


> I guess it's a card targeted for those who want just something better than onboard graphics.



Precisely. The thing is though, modern integrated graphics is pretty decent. I believe NVIDIA are now doing 9400GTs onboard and this isn't much better, it just does DX11 (which can't really be utilised because it's so poop). I'd only use it over integrated if the integrated was something really old, like really really old as in Intel 945.


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## Mussels (Apr 9, 2010)

13W at full load is impressive indeed, but its overall performance is just too low.


I'd agree on the comment - it seems weird to see a negative about hardware PhysX/Cuda, when hardware physx is so underused, and ATI has stream (even if its less widely used) - seriously, PhysX (15 game titles use it in hardware) and coreAVC aside, who even uses cuda?


my only other question, and its mere curiosity: is 3Dmark 03 still relevant for power consumption? wouldnt a more strenuous test (DX10? DX11) use more of the GPU, therefore more power - kinda like how furmark throws my wattage another 100W up compared to any game.


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## HillBeast (Apr 9, 2010)

Mussels said:


> my only other question, and its mere curiosity: is 3Dmark 03 still relevant for power consumption? wouldnt a more strenuous test (DX10? DX11) use more of the GPU, therefore more power - kinda like how furmark throws my wattage another 100W up compared to any game.



I agree FurMark is more stressful and that 3DMark03 probably won't be accurate anymore, but the thing is with FurMark is it's supposed to find the absolute maximum under worst circumstances. Yes it's good to know that but more often than not you will be way under it. I reckon more using 3DMark06 or Vantage to find it would be smart.


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## Mussels (Apr 9, 2010)

well i know why w1zz is still using it - so that he doesnt have to go rebench ALL the hardware to make the results comparable anymore.

he also cant really use a test that not all cards can use (example: DX11 only test cant be used, since not all cards could run it)


i only ask because 03 is so old, perhaps it is time to update - IF the results are massively different.


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## HillBeast (Apr 9, 2010)

Yeah if there is no difference then probably don't bother. It should still be accurate but I wouldn't know how much.


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## Mussels (Apr 9, 2010)

HillBeast said:


> Yeah if there is no difference then probably don't bother. It should still be accurate but I wouldn't know how much.



and thus we ask w1zz to test it!

cause we know he loves retesting everything due to 2% differences in the results.


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## HillBeast (Apr 9, 2010)

Mussels said:


> and thus we ask w1zz to test it!
> 
> cause we know he loves retesting everything due to 2% differences in the results.



Well it might a good idea for an article: do old games use less power than new games?


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## W1zzard (Apr 9, 2010)

3dmark03 nature is still an accurate power measurement of typical game performance, you are free to make a better suggestion that includes your own data.


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## OnBoard (Apr 9, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> 3dmark03 nature is still an accurate power measurement of typical game performance, you are free to make a better suggestion that includes your own data.



I remember the tortoise coming of the water killing frame rate on countless cards over the years. Also remember thinking when we'd see the nature test like graphics in games and think it took Oblivion to get to that point (and that killed every graphics card out then).

Before that it was the dragon merry-go-round with 8 lights, after that the 05 elevator, then 06 dragon jump over the blimp ship and finally in Vantage Sapphire ship taking off water.


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## HillBeast (Apr 9, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> 3dmark03 nature is still an accurate power measurement of typical game performance,



Oh you use the Nature part. That is a killer. Yeah I suppose keep using that.


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## tkpenalty (Apr 9, 2010)

nice review, i suggest in future for GPUs with intergrated audio that you test the audio as well. Anyway ATi RAM?


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## W1zzard (Apr 9, 2010)

tkpenalty said:


> nice review, i suggest in future for GPUs with intergrated audio that you test the audio as well. Anyway ATi RAM?



how to test the audio ?


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## Mussels (Apr 9, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> how to test the audio ?



i dont think there is a true, scientific way to test the audio without any fancy equipment.

Just some details of what it can and cant do should be sufficient.


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## newtekie1 (Apr 9, 2010)

Mussels said:


> 13W at full load is impressive indeed, but its overall performance is just too low.
> 
> 
> I'd agree on the comment - it seems weird to see a negative about hardware PhysX/Cuda, when hardware physx is so underused, and ATI has stream (even if its less widely used) - seriously, PhysX (15 game titles use it in hardware) and coreAVC aside, who even uses cuda?
> ...





HillBeast said:


> I agree FurMark is more stressful and that 3DMark03 probably won't be accurate anymore, but the thing is with FurMark is it's supposed to find the absolute maximum under worst circumstances. Yes it's good to know that but more often than not you will be way under it. I reckon more using 3DMark06 or Vantage to find it would be smart.





Mussels said:


> well i know why w1zz is still using it - so that he doesnt have to go rebench ALL the hardware to make the results comparable anymore.
> 
> he also cant really use a test that not all cards can use (example: DX11 only test cant be used, since not all cards could run it)
> 
> ...



Sometimes I wonder if people actually read the reviews, or just look at the pretty pictures...



W1zzard said:


> •Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
> •Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. Highest single reading during the test.
> •Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high non-game power consumption that can typically be reached only with stress testing applications. Card left running stress test until power draw converged to a stable value.



It has been in the reviews since the power consumption was first added.  He explains all of ithe reading, the graphs mean nothing if you don't know what they are measuring.  This is one of the big reasons everyone is way off on GTX480 power consumption, it will never really consume 320w during real world use, but everyone saw that on the "Maximum" graph and ran with it without actually knowing what "Maximum" meant.


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## [I.R.A]_FBi (Apr 9, 2010)

dugg


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## Mussels (Apr 9, 2010)

newtekie1 said:


> Sometimes I wonder if people actually read the reviews, or just look at the pretty pictures...



they ARE pretty.

and yeah, i missed the fact that maximum was done with furmark - i thought it was all 3Dmark 03 still.

Still, we asked wizzy if 03 was drawing as much as a more modern program - and he said yes (with the exception of burn-your-balls-off furmark)


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## HillBeast (Apr 9, 2010)

Mussels said:


> i dont think there is a true, scientific way to test the audio without any fancy equipment.
> 
> Just some details of what it can and cant do should be sufficient.



Well one thing I noticed personally while using ATI sound, is that it didn't give as higher performance (ie games had lower FPS). I know other people won't have had this issue or noticed it, but I noticed it because it was on a crap computer when I tried it. Maybe it does effect it but in a small amount. Maybe that could be worth mentioning if you find it does effect it in any way.


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## BadCommand (Apr 14, 2010)

I use the 512 version of this (HIS) card in 4 HTPC's throughout the house- they work excellent.  Bluray picture quality played locally & streamed via PDVD10 in MCE and audio DTHD, DTSHD, DD, DTS and lossless WMA all sound terrific and work flawlessly.

A great card for $40 and have never looked back at the 5770 that were replaced by these. I also see no reason for a gig in a dedicated HTPC.


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