Introduction

The RADEON HD 5450 from AXLE is a passively cooled video card with a very precise purpose: to be used in a single or multi-monitor setup for 2D applications or watching High Definition movies. The 3D performance is low, can be compared to the 4550 and it is not recommended for the latest games, but the card is passively cooled and should make for a nice HTPC component.



At first I want to thank AXLE for providing me the RADEON HD 5450 video card for testing and reviewing.



About AXLE

"AXLE International Holding Limited being NV Card Manufacturer, insist to provide the best to its customers, not only for the products but also the service. The only belief is quality maintains the survival of the company. Established in 1988, over 20 years grew and developed under keen competition, AXLE found it's own way - service & quality. Today, we have our factory with over 600 workforce in Mainland China with capacity of 190k per month.

Headquarter in Hong Kong, sales offices in Germany, Dubai and China, AXLE products are distributed all over the world, such as in Asia, Middle East, Russia, Eastern and Western Europe. Sales turnover exceeds US$45 million in the past financial year. Since 2000, AXLE became one of the biggest NV Card manufacturers in Asia Pacific region. This provides the most accurate information and cost advantage to AXLE.”

Features:

Expand your visual real estate across up to three displays and get lost in the action with ATI Eyefinity Technology.

Use ATI Stream technology, to accelerate demanding applications and do more than ever with your PC.

Enhance your entertainment experience with Windows® 7 and DirectX® 11, play the most popular games online and watch HD video with incredible realism

Consumes less than 20 watts under full load, eliminating the need for an external power connection and making installation a snap.

Specifications:

650MHz core speed with 80 Stream processors.
64bit DDR3, maximum memory of 512MB.
PCI-E 2.1
Dual-Link DVI ports, supports maximum 2560x1600 resolution.
Build for Windows Vista, fully supports DX11 and SM5.0
ATI CrossFireX™ Multi-GPU Technology

RADEON HD 5450 Block Diagram



The RADEON HD 5450 takes part from the low cost and implicitly low performance series of the 5*** RADEON HD video card generation. AMD chose the “Cedar” code name for these GPUs.



When looking at the specifications of this video card compared to the other cards, we can see that it is not suitable for gaming environment. We can surely use it a lot in 2D applications like browsing (it can be used to speed up Flash beginning with the 10.1 version), text editing or watching Full HD movies, even with a multi monitor setup, thanks to its video outputs. We can surely try all the DirectX 11 games and applications that can be ran with the more powerful cards from the series, but most of them will look like a slideshow.

The power consumption of this video card is impressive only 6 Watts in 2D and 19 Watts in 3D.

The video card does have a low profile PCB; a low profile bracket can be easily installed but it is not included in the package by the manufacturer.