Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB Review Comment Thread

[SKYMTL]

ATI continues their march into all areas of the market and today has released the lowest-end card of the 5000-series: the HD 5450. This isn’t a high performance card by any stretch of the imagination but may just offer the perfect mix of low-end gaming performance, excellent HD decoding and efficiency that it will be the card of choice in the sub-$75 price segment.

You can read the full review here: Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB DDR3 Review

And yes, we actually used games, programs and settings which are within the target market for this card.

Enjoy!!!

[Zero82z]

Farmville? Really?

[SKYMTL]

Yup. I figured I may as well try Flash 10.1 acceleration on something 79 million+ people care about. ;)

One thing's for sure. I wasn't going to make an ass out of the review and test Crysis while bitching about how a $60 GPU couldn't play it...

[mikellini]

:( a sad day at HWC

but seriously, for a few dollars more, you get soooo much more than this. Which means that the only ones who will want to buy this are companies that are trying to make a buck; Dell and the like :(

[SKYMTL]

I agree. Like I said in the conclusion: it allows system builders to slap a DX11 badge on their low-end products.

[mikellini]

Just a question then, and please don't take offense... why did you review this? Did Sapphire just send it to you, or were you expecting something different in the performance?

[Skyllz]

I still think it's sad that ATI feels the need to have a different card for every 25$ increment between 75 and 300$.

I know it's all about getting your product out there on the market but damn... So many cards to choose from that you dont know what performs better then what anymore.

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by mikellini

Just a question then, and please don't take offense... why did you review this? Did Sapphire just send it to you, or were you expecting something different in the performance?

That's actually a perfectly good question and one I asked myself again and again. I had the decision whether to review this or not and I ended up coming to the conclusion that just because something is low-end, it doesn't mean I can turn a blind eye to it. Whether we all like it or not, there is a market for this type of card and people will want to see reviews of it.

And to be honest, I only learned about the frankly ridiculous price coupled with sub-par performance pretty late in the game.

[mikellini]

Fair enough, it was a good read anyway. Thanks!

[chrisk]

I think the low-end and mid-range card reviews are as interesting as the high-end stuff. When I suggest upgrades, it is primarily in the low and mid ranges, so more of these reviews is appreciated. I do think for most folks, the 220 is a better fit, but this card might do well in a properly-ventilated HTPC.

I did jump straight to the Farmville bench to for a look haha.