More 6K love
AMD is bringing Radeon 6000-series goodness to the real mainstream market with the retail release of the Radeon HD 6450.
Already available to system builders in OEM form for a couple of months now, AMD is hoping this 'second-generation' DX11 GPU tickles the fancy of people who require a discrete video card with more oomph than integrated graphics.
Positioned as a Jack-of-all-trades GPU, the £35-plus HD 6450, available with 512MB or 1GB memory, is pushed as being particularly suitable as a cheap solution for multi-monitor setups, while still providing a modicum of DX11 application and gaming performance.
But the same positioning and thinking also applies to the Radeon HD 5450, released over a year ago, though this new model has a little more firepower under the hood.
A unique proposition
AMD believes this card has no price-comparable peer, for NVIDIA's genuine budget offerings centre around DX10 compatibility and Intel's Sandy Bridge graphics, while reasonable, are no match for the Radeon's well-balanced feature-set. We'll see if these bombast claims bear out when the HD 6450 hits the review dungeon.
Due to be made available in both fan-assisted and fan-less models - the add-in board partner has the choice - the HD 6450 pulls a maximum of 27W when going at full chat.
Tech aficionados may be interested to learn that, architecturally, it sits between the Radeon HD 5450 and HD 5550 GPUs. There are 160 stream processors clocked in at 625-750MHz. AMD keeps consistency with other models by allocating a 20:1 ratio of stream processors to texture units. On the back end the card has four ROPs which link out to either DDR3 or GDDR5 memory via a 64-bit memory bus.
Cheap upgrade to a proper GPU
But this talk of ROPs and SPs is missing the point somewhat. Rather, the UVD3 video-processing block and multi-display technology is where the focus should be; this ain't a proper gaming card, no matter what AMD says.
If you own a basic DX9 graphics card or have lacklustre onboard graphics and want to modernise your PC, the Radeon HD 6450 appears to tick many of the boxes required for an el-cheapo upgrade.
We'll know more once it runs the gamut of tests, but for now, the sub-£50 Radeon HD 6450 hits many of the right notes for an HTPC or very basic gaming card.
