Axle AMD ATI Radeon HD 5450 Video Review
A lot of you might not have heard of Axle. They are big in Asia and have recently started expanding their business in North America. They are a certified Nvidia and AMD/ATI partner, so you can expect video cards from them on both sides of the aisle. Axle sent AlienBabelTech their entry level video card from the red camp, the HD 5450 for us to review.
For those not familiar with AMD/ATI’s HD 5xxx series, here’s a recap. AMD/ATI launched the HD 5xxx series with the HD 5870 and the HD 5850 in September, last year. The video card that we are reviewing, the HD 5450, represents the least expensive model in this HD 5xxx series. It features the same DX11 features as the rest of the HD 5xxx cards and also supports ATI Eyefinity technology. The fact that this card supports Eyefinity essentially means that you can use a 3 LCD multi-monitor setup on a $40-$50 card which is downright awesome! Although you may not be able to game comfortably with this card on those three monitors; you can use this feature to increase your productivity.
Compared to the 627 million transistors that make up the codenamed “Redwood” chip used in the HD 5670 that we reviewed last month, the “Cedar” chip used in this video card comprises of a relatively modest 292 million transistors. The “Cedar” chips features a 64-bit wide memory interface and 80 stream processors. Here are some other specs:
For a more detailed analysis on the architecture, please check our launch review on the HD 5450 here.
I am going to present this review in a new format. We typically really on images to convey our data and the card features. In this review, I will be presenting our findings in a full-HD video hosted on youtube and embedded here. Instead of posting charts comparing the performance to other video cards, I played through the games and recorded the gameplay along with FRAPS showing the FPS counter. Please let us know in commments, if you like this new experimental format.
Nice videos – very real world.
I’ve always had a soft spot for passively cooled video cards, but unfortunately they don’t offer enough gaming performance for someone like me.
I would’ve liked to see a couple of things:
(1) GPU temperature during gaming sessions (just show complete GPU-Z).
(2) Overclocking — yes yes, I realize it’s a low spec card but I’d try to overclock it anyway.
(3) Post music track information if you use them for the background. I liked some and would like to find out more about them.
The videos are well done. Maybe chop them further? For instance one video per game you tested, and shorten the intro? Or maybe there’s bookmarks you could use — i don’t know jack about youtube.
Overall good job and it’s always nice to see actual gameplay.
@hansmuff Thank you for your comment.
1. If you watch in 1080p you can make out the temperature in top left from MSI Afterburner.
2. I normally do overclocking, but left it out due to this card being mainly low spec. But since you know the performance at stock speeds, so you can expect better performance after overclocking.
3. Music info is posted in the video description on Youtube.
This gpu is great when you overclock it had it running at 850mhz stable core clock.