AMD has been on fire recently releasing card after card into their DirectX 11 HD 5000 series. Now they are catering to those who want to build a HTPC with the newest card – the ATI Radeon HD 5450. The HD 5450 has much the same features as the bigger and more powerful brothers, including DirectX 11 support and ATI’s Eyefinity multi-display technology. The card is very power friendly (~20W when in use) and is half height and passively cooled making it perfect for your HTPC.
The HD 5450 performs well for what you need it to, namely all types of media playback including Blu-ray/1080p – which is perfect with low CPU utilisation. However, if you’re planning to buy this card for gaming, thing again. It consistently performed well under the it’s nearest brother, the HD 5670, in many games so don’t even bother gaming on this card. This card starts at US$49 and should be perfect for HTPC that needs to be silent, low powered and small.
Note: This card underperforms all 25 cards on our graphics card rankings list, so it has not been added.
