AMD Radeon HD 6450 review
Faster than integrated graphics and fairly cheap, but still a card for casual gamers only.
By reducing the resolution of the games to 1,280×720 – so matching the resolution of a 720p HD TV – turning off AA and, in Crysis, switching to Medium detail, we managed to get Call of Duty 4 running at 45.4fps and Crysis at 36.6fps, both of which are playable frame rates. If you were to build a media centre PC around this card, the HD 6450 would let you have some gaming fun on your HD TV. The reference card only has VGA, DVI and DisplayPort outputs, no HDMI, but final cards from manufacturers should include this.
Passively cooled cards are also available, such as this one from PowerColor
The Radeon HD 6450 is a significant upgrade from last year’s HD 5450, and will play modern games as long as you’re not too fussy about detail levels. If you want to build a budget or media centre PC and still play some games it makes sense, but if you’re more than a casual gamer you should save up for the Radeon HD 6790 or HD 6850.
Basic Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Price | £34 |
| Rating | **** |
| Details | www.amd.com |
| Interface | PCI Express x16 |
| Crossfire/SLI | CrossFire |
| Slots taken up | 1 |
| Brand | AMD |
| Graphics Processor | AMD Radeon HD 6450 |
| Memory | 512MB GDDR5 |
| Memory interface | 64-bit |
| GPU clock speed | 750MHz |
| Memory speed | 900MHz |
| Card length | 168mm |
Features | |
| Architecture | 160 stream processors |
| Anti aliasing | 4x |
| Anisotropic filtering | 16x |
Connectors | |
| DVI outputs | 1 |
| VGA outputs | 1 |
| S-video output | no |
| S-Video input | no |
| Composite outputs | no |
| Composite inputs | no |
| Component outputs | no |
| HDMI outputs | 0 |
| Power leads required | none |
Extras | |
| Accessories | none |
| Software included | none |
Benchmark Results | |
| Call of Duty 4 1680 4xAA | 20.5fps |
| Call of Duty 4 1440 4xAA | 25.7fps |
| Crysis 1680 High 4xAA | 9.7fps |
| Crysis 1440 High 4xAA | 12.5fps |
Buying Information | |
| Warranty | one-year RTB |
| Price | £34 |
| Details | www.amd.com |