ATI Radeon HD5450 Video Card Review

Just when I thought they had finished cutting halves, ATI has taken the 40nm Cypress architecture to a new low. Low power, that is. In a brand new design, unlike anything they have released with this architecture, ATI is going after the Home Theater PC market with their heat sinks blazing. OK, I exaggerate; the Radeon HD5450 video card actually runs pretty cool, which is the point, really. It's silent, too, with a large and lovely red heatsink sitting atop the tiny GPU, sans fan. Follow along with Benchmark Reviews as we investigate an early sample of ATI's new standard bearer for low-power HTPC applications.

With the architecture it inherits from the Cypress, the ATI HD5450 has all the modern features that the larger GPU brings to the table. However, sporting only 292 million transistors, including just 80 Stream Processors, the new card idles along at 6.4 watts and never pulls more than 20 watts; no matter how hard you drive it. They've even managed to do this without the energy-saving benefits of GDDR5 this time, as the card will be equipped with GDDR3 or GDDR2, depending on the model and preference of the AIB partner.

The flagship ATI video cards made a huge splash in September, but according to Mercury Research, cards costing over $200 only make up 7% of the market, and the 57xx series landed in the $100-$200 range, which makes up 27% of the market. That leaves a huge opening in the sub-$100 market, and ATI is filling in the gaps with all new, DirectX 11 capable cards in this segment. The specs of the HD5450 indicate a performance level that will struggle with gaming, even at moderate resolution, but will have no problem supporting all the latest application in the home theater environment.

About the company: ATI

Over the course of AMD's four decades in business, silicon and software have become the steel and plastic of the worldwide digital economy. Technology companies have become global pacesetters, making technical advances at a prodigious rate - always driving the industry to deliver more and more, faster and faster.

However, "technology for technology's sake" is not the way we do business at AMD. Our history is marked by a commitment to innovation that's truly useful for customers - putting the real needs of people ahead of technical one-upmanship. AMD founder Jerry Sanders has always maintained that "customers should come first, at every stage of a company's activities." We believe our company history bears that out.

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