# AMD Radeon HD 6450 512 MB



## W1zzard (Apr 16, 2011)

AMD's new Radeon HD 6450 sets out to compete in the lowest end performance segment. It offers twice the shading power as the aging HD 5450 which results in a solid performance increase in gaming. With a price of $55 it doesn't break the bank, but does it have enough performance for the latest games?

*Show full review*


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## damric (Apr 18, 2011)

> you can combine two of these cards in *SLI*



Will I need an SLI hack for these AMD cards to work in SLI? 

On a serious note, perhaps you could include IGP's in the performance comparison chart so someone could see if it would be worth stepping up from a 780G chipset, for example.


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## cheesy999 (Apr 18, 2011)

as always the question is 'but can it run crysis' unfortunantatly the answer is no

i like the idea of 2 in sli though


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## W1zzard (Apr 18, 2011)

the problem with the IGPs is that it will be on a fundamentally different test system. kinda unfair testing a i7 at over 3 ghz vs. a weak fusion platform


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## cheesy999 (Apr 18, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> the problem with the IGPs is that it will be on a fundamentally different test system. kinda unfair testing a i7 at over 3 ghz vs. a weak fusion platform



oh sorry i thought this was a full graphics card, if this is intergrated i might look into a laptop with this in it, you should do an SLI review


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## dj-electric (Apr 18, 2011)

THIS is how HTPC GPUS should be made!
Another great review w1zz

ps just one problem and its the noise :\


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## Fourstaff (Apr 18, 2011)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> THIS is how HTPC GPUS should be made!
> Another great review w1zz
> 
> ps just one problem and its the noise :\



Yes, but the problem is that AMD has the 4200 onboard, Intel has whatever they have in SB. No need for these extra crap in HTPC.


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## W1zzard (Apr 18, 2011)

cheesy999 said:


> oh sorry i thought this was a full graphics card, if this is intergrated i might look into a laptop with this in it, you should do an SLI review



HD 6450 is a discrete graphics card. but how do i test it against multiple IGPs ?


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## newtekie1 (Apr 18, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> Yes, but the problem is that AMD has the 4200 onboard, Intel has whatever they have in SB. No need for these extra crap in HTPC.



On the Intel side, if you want to overclock, you have to have a descrete GPU.  This will help keep these cards alive.

And I refuse to use onboard that robs system RAM anyway, so I'd buy one of these for my HTPC.


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## Jonap_1st (Apr 19, 2011)

again, these low-end cards seem to run-out for lives. price difference between 512MB and 1GB models is still high (around 30-40% more expensive) but still not give us good performances ratio on 3D gaming. it is right that someone says if you want to build an HTPC you can stick on IGP, its cheap and silent.

if there's 512MB models and it priced around $40 maybe i will reconsider my words..


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## Fourstaff (Apr 19, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> On the Intel side, if you want to overclock, you have to have a descrete GPU.  This will help keep these cards alive.
> 
> And I refuse to use onboard that robs system RAM anyway, so I'd buy one of these for my HTPC.



IDK why you would oc your HTPC, and I thought Graphics RAM is mirrored to System RAM?


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## newtekie1 (Apr 19, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> IDK why you would oc your HTPC, and I thought Graphics RAM is mirrored to System RAM?



Because I overclock everything.  Even if I wasn't planning on overclocking because it was going in an HTPC, I still wouldn't buy the shitty H61/67 chipset and kill any chance of it.  If you are going SB, P67 is the only option, IMO.

I believe the graphics RAM being mirrored ended with DX9.


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## Isenstaedt (Apr 19, 2011)

Better than the GT 520.


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## Semi-Lobster (Apr 19, 2011)

It may not look terribly impressive but a 49% improvement over the 5450 is pretty good.


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## zsolt_93 (Apr 19, 2011)

The GT520 had a one day glory at TPU. Then came the 6450 and made it more ridiculous.


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## Fourstaff (Apr 19, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> I believe the graphics RAM being mirrored ended with DX9.



How does that work? When you play DX9 games using a DX11 card, do you still need mirroring, or as long as you have a DX11 card mirroring will not occur?


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## Formula350 (Apr 19, 2011)

W1zzard said:


> HD 6450 is a discrete graphics card. but how do i test it against multiple IGPs ?



Fine two CPUs that perform nearly the same in games when using the exact same graphics card. One from Intel, one from AMD. Neither using on-CPU graphics, unless a Sandy Bridge model you've found is on par with what I've laid out, and a Fusion (for now) obviously won't be on par with any of the Intel desktop models lol 

Or you could compare using a GPGPU test, like Sandra? *shrug* Don't know how CPU intensive those are though, only time I had a program that could read cycle usage was when I ran the GPGPU test with an E350+HD 6310+HD 5770 (16 cores total) at the same time lol 

Only problem is it'd be time consuming to find CPUs that match the criteria above. _And_ expensive, if you don't have a variety already at your disposal


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## newtekie1 (Apr 19, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> How does that work? When you play DX9 games using a DX11 card, do you still need mirroring, or as long as you have a DX11 card mirroring will not occur?



DX9 game = memory mirrored
DX11 game = memory not mirrored

or at least that is how I understand it.


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## Fourstaff (Apr 19, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> DX9 game = memory mirrored
> DX11 game = memory not mirrored
> 
> or at least that is how I understand it.



That confuses me. Because if that is the case, booting up in DX11 mode will let me play the game with lower amount of RAM than if I boot the game up in DX9.


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## hajj_3 (Apr 19, 2011)

I wish you showed the power consumption of the Nvidia GT 520 compared to the AMD HD6450, deciding which card to buy.

Btw the Nvidia GT 520 has feature set d support which adds hardware decoding for VP8/WebM, i don't think the AMD HD6450 can do this, maybe you could ask AMD?


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## newtekie1 (Apr 19, 2011)

Fourstaff said:


> That confuses me. Because if that is the case, booting up in DX11 mode will let me play the game with lower amount of RAM than if I boot the game up in DX9.



Yep, that is how it should work.  It is one of the many improvements of DX11, or maybe DX10, I don't remember.


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## Radys (Apr 20, 2011)

hajj_3 said:


> I wish you showed the power consumption of the Nvidia GT 520 compared to the AMD HD6450, deciding which card to buy.
> 
> Btw the Nvidia GT 520 has feature set d support which adds hardware decoding for VP8/WebM, i don't think the AMD HD6450 can do this, maybe you could ask AMD?




See what I mean? There are reviews useful for the users and reviews useful only for this or that hardware company who appears better than the competition in the review.

hajj_3, I can't post links in here, they are deleted read this (and google UVD 3.0, HD3D)  :

The HD 6450: DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.1, Eyefinity, DirectCompute 11 si OpenCL 1.1, UVD 3 and HD3D.

DirectCompute 11 is similar to Nvidia CUDA.

Eyefinity - multiple monitor support

HD3D - 3D display support - works on any display with HDMI 1.4a, no need for active glasses like for Nvidia, passive glasses are OK. No need for 120Hz display, 60Hz is fine. 

UVD3 - provides hardware acceleration for media content like MPEG2, H.264, XVID, DIVX,  MPEG4, MKV, AVC, VC1 regular or high definition video formats. You can use Media Player Classic (free), WinDVD (free) or PowerDVD. Features picture-in-picture dual stream decoding. Offers the best quality for video playback with pixel sharpening. 

GT 520 - 29W load, 10W idle
HD 6450 - 27W load, 9W idle. 

Neither is good for gaming, only for video and the regular stuff. 

No, it can't play Metro 2033, not even on "Very High"  thanks for the info, techpowerup.


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