Final Words and conclusion

We stated it several times in this review, the Radeon HD 5450 is obviously not intended for gaming. For everything else you can think about, it is working pretty well though. We like the fact that the 5450 can be completely passively cooled, we like that it can support three monitor simultaneously and we simple like what it does and offers for the money.

For just 50 USD you receive a really funky HTPC card with wide connectivity, Blu-ray decoding and acceleration. And then the 80 shader cores can really help you out with software like Mediaplayer Classis Home Theatre edition as you are not only accelerating DXVA 1080P content, you can enhance it as well. So in that respect is really is good value for money.

The Radeon HD 5450 therefore comes recommended to people who do your average desktop work, and if you want to --  on multiple monitors. On that topic, the card is not limited in any way, meaning it can drive multiple high-resolution 2560x1600 monitors perfectly in 2D as well.

Being a series 5000 product you reap all the benefits like DirectCompute within Windows 7 as well. But sure, let me round it up, while the Radeon HD 5450 is far from being the most powerful card in the planet, in it's genre it is certainly among the best out there. For little money you get a heap of features and versatility, there's a lot to say for that.

If you need something cheap and simple .. well, look no further. And if you need a really cheap HTPC card that is capable of managing your 1080P content, well there you go - recommended, great value.

• If you like this article please digg it.
• Leave/read comments on this product
• Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page.