Introduction

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Last week AMD introduced their Radeon HD 6450, which is based on their all-new Caicos graphics processor. HD 6450 is an evolutionary step forward from HD 5450, improving performance and media playback features. The Caicos GPU comes with 160 shaders which is twice that on the previous-generation HD 5450, which really had a hard time competing with integrated graphics lately. Instead of (G)DDR3 memory, the Radeon HD 6450 also uses fast GDDR5 memory which will help with available memory bandwidth.

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AMD Radeon HD 6450 is targeted at the entry-level market with OEMs and office system builders in mind. Support for DirectX 11, EyeFinity and accelerated HD video decode are features that offset it from the integrated graphics competition.

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>GeForce <br>
210</td>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 5450</td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GT 220</td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GT 520</td>
<td><strong>Radeon<br>
HD 6450</strong></td>
<td>GeForce <br>
GT 430</td>
<td>Radeon<br>
HD 5550</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Shader units </th>
<td align="right">16</td>
<td align="right">80</td>
<td align="right">48</td>
<td align="right">48</td>
<td align="right"><strong>160</strong></td>
<td align="right">96</td>
<td align="right">320</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right"><strong>4</strong></td>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th>
<td align="right">GT218</td>
<td align="right">Cedar</td>
<td align="right">GT216</td>
<td align="right">GF119</td>
<td align="right"><strong>Caicos</strong></td>
<td align="right">GF108</td>
<td align="right">Redwood</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Transistors</th>
<td align="right">260M</td>
<td align="right">292M</td>
<td align="right">486M</td>
<td align="right">Unknown</td>
<td align="right"><strong>370M</strong></td>
<td align="right">585M</td>
<td align="right">627M</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">512 MB</td>
<td align="right">512 MB </td>
<td align="right">512 MB</td>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right"><strong>1024 MB </strong></td>
<td align="right">1024 MB</td>
<td align="right">1024 MB </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus Width </th>
<td align="right">64 bit </td>
<td align="right"> 64 bit </td>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right">64 bit </td>
<td align="right"><strong> 64 bit </strong></td>
<td align="right">128 bit </td>
<td align="right"> 128 bit </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">589 MHz </td>
<td align="right"> 650 MHz </td>
<td align="right">625 MHz </td>
<td align="right">810 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong> 750 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">700 MHz </td>
<td align="right"> 550 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">533 MHz </td>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right">790 MHz </td>
<td align="right">800 MHz </td>
<td align="right"><strong>900 MHz </strong></td>
<td align="right">900 MHz </td>
<td align="right">1000 MHz </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th>
<td align="right">$40</td>
<td align="right">$35</td>
<td align="right">$50</td>
<td align="right">$60</td>
<td align="right"><strong>$55</strong></td>
<td align="right">$60</td>
<td align="right">$60</td>
</tr>
</table>

The Card

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AMD's HD 6450 is an ultra-compact card that can be turned into a low-profile model fitting smaller media PC cases by removing the VGA output. While our AMD sample did not include any low profile brackets I'm sure retail packages will have one.

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The card requires just a single slot in your system.

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The card has one analog VGA port, one full-size HDMI port and one DVI port. AMD's display output logic is clearly superior to what NVIDIA has to offer at this time. Vendors are free to combine four TMDS links into any output configuration they want (dual-link DVI consuming two links) - and use them all at the same time. AMD has also introduced DisplayPort 1.2 support with their new cards which allows the use of a DisplayPort hub to connect multiple monitors, or daisy chain them together.

An HDMI sound device is also included in the GPU. The HDMI interface is HDMI 1.4a compatible which includes Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, AC-3, DTS and up to 7.1 channel audio with 192 kHz / 24-bit output. The new revision also brings support for Blu-ray 3D movies which will become important later this year when we will see first Blu-ray 3D titles shipping.

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Even though a CrossFire connector is not present, you can combine two of these cards in CrossFire, which exchanges data via the PCI-Express bus.

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Here are the front and the back of the card, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

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AMD's cooler is a simple piece of metal, with fins and a fan in the middle, nothing exciting to see here.

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Due to the low power design of the card, there is no requirement for an additional PCI-E power connector.

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The GDDR5 memory chips are made by Samsung, and carry the model number K4G10325FE-HC05. They are specified to run at 1000 MHz (4000 MHz GDDR5 effective).

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APW7165 is a cost effective voltage regulator that doesn't support I2C voltage control or advanced monitoring features.

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AMD's Caicos graphics processor is made on a 40 nm process at TSMC Taiwan. It uses approximately 370 million transistors on a die area of 67 mm².

Test System

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System - VGA Rev. 14</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="120" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz<br />(Bloomfield, 8192 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Gigabyte X58 Extreme<br />
Intel X58 & ICH10R</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">3x 2048 MB Mushkin Redline XP3-12800 DDR3 <br>
@ 1520 MHz 8-7-7-16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Caviar Black 6401AALS 640 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">akasa 1200W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows 7 64-bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">GT 520: 268.03<br />NVIDIA: 266.58<br />HD 6450: 8.84.2 RC2<br />ATI: Catalyst 11.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Display:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">
LG Flatron W3000H 30" 2560x1600<br /><img src="http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6450/images/zotac.jpg" width="120" height="40"></td>
</tr>
</table>
Benchmark scores in other reviews are only comparable when this exact same configuration is used.

All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting

Each benchmark was tested at the following settings and resolution:

1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing. Common resolution for most smaller flatscreens today (17" - 19"). A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1680 x 1050, 4x Anti-aliasing. Most common widescreen resolution on larger displays (19" - 22"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
1920 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing. Typical widescreen resolution for large displays (22" - 26"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2560 x 1600, 4x Anti-aliasing. Highest possible resolution for commonly available displays (30"). Very good looking driver graphics settings.

Aliens vs. Predator

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Aliens vs. Predator is based on a merger of the Aliens and the Predators franchise: two legendary alien species that are in conflict with each other, fighting to the death with human marines caught in between. The first person shooter game was developed by Rebellion Studios, who also developed the first AVP PC title and released in February 2010. It was one of the first DirectX 11 games with support for new features like Tesselation, which is why AMD heavily promoted it at the time of their DX 11 card launches. We used the AVP benchmark utility with tesselation and advanced DX11 shadows enabled.

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2

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Battlefield: Bad Company 2, released in March 2010 by Electronics Arts, is the most successful DirectX 11 title so far. Even though it contains a full single-player campaign during which the player has to work with a squad to secure a secret weapon, the game is most well known for its fast paced, exciting multiplayer squad action. Thanks to a CPU-based Havok physics engine and skillful use of scripting, the game has destroyable objects, vegetation and terrain without requiring NVIDIA PhysX.
We tested the truck chase scene of the second single-player mission at maximum settings with DirectX 11 enabled.

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BattleForge

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BattleForge, a card based RTS, is developed by the German EA Phenomic Studio. A few months after launch the game was transformed into a Play 4 Free branded game. That move and the fact that it was included as game bundle with a large number of ATI cards made it one of the more well known RTS games of 2009. You as a player assemble your deck before game to select the units that will be available. Your choice can be from forces of Fire, Frost, Nature and Shadow to complement each other.
The BattleForge engine has full support for DX 9, DX 10 and DX 10.1, we used the internal benchmark tool in DirectX 11 mode to acquire our results.

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Call of Duty 4

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Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter that is built on the award winning Call of Duty Series. It is the first version to play in modern times. In a near-future conflict between the United States, Europe and Russia you get to play as a United States Marine and a British SAS operative. The engine is Infinity Ward's own creation and has true dynamic lighting, depth of field, dynamic shadows and HDR. Even though the game plot is scripted you will find yourself in intense battles, often working together with computer controlled team mates.

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Call of Juarez 2

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Call of Juarez 2: Bound in Blood is a prequel to the first Call of Juarez game which was one of the first DX10 titles available on the market. This time the plot evolves around two brothers, before each mission you may pick one to play. Your choices affect the game play since both characters have different ways of handling situations and doing combat.
Call of Juarez 2 uses Techland's Chrome Engine 4 which adds Edge Anti Aliasing as one of the first engines on the market. Edge Anti Aliasing looks similar to normal AA but comes with a considerably reduced performance drop. However, due to the deferred shading design of Edge AA, normal AA can't be used on top of it.

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Civilization 5

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Sid Meier's Civilization V (or Civ 5 in common jargon), is the latest addition to the franchise of masterfully-crafted realtime strategy games that let you play God to a nascent civilization of your choice all the way up to the space-age. Civilization V uses large 3D worlds that are procedurally-generated, and takes advantage of hardware tessellation features offered by DirectX 11 to exponentially step up complexity of cities, models, terrains, and objects. It is also expected of this generation of GPUs to handle the larger texture loads that come with the eye-candy.

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Crysis

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After the tremendous success of Far Cry, the German game studio Crytek released their latest shooter Crysis in 2007. The game was by far the most hyped and anticipated game in 2007, the forums were full of "Can my system run Crysis?" threads because of the high hardware requirements of this game. Just like in Far Cry the plot evolves on a small island with a thick and richly detailed jungle world. A lot of attention has been given to small details like correct physics. For example when you fire on a tree trunk, it will shatter and the tree will fall over leaving a stump behind. Enemies in a car can be stopped by shooting the tire of the car. The game graphics are by far the best ever seen in a PC game so far, yet the game still runs well on most computers.

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Formula One 2010

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F1 2010 is an official implementation of the Formula One 2010 season with accurate teams, drivers and cars. One highlight of the game are the extensive realism options and the detailed weather effects. You pick a driver and get to race over several seasons, constantly improving your skill and trying to impress the big teams to score a contract with them to enjoy the faster car to race for the world championship. The game is based on an improved Dirt 2 engine and features the latest in DirectX 11 technology. We used the highest details setting for our testing.

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Far Cry 2

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Four years after the success of Far Cry, Ubisoft has published the sequel called Far Cry 2. While the first part was set on an island, Far Cry 2 takes you deep into Africa with game play that resembles Grand Theft Auto much more than the original Far Cry, which was a classical 3D shooter. Ubisoft engineered a completely new 3D engine called "Dunia" which offers a large amount of popular features like DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 support, destructible environments, physics and non-scripted AI while not being as much of a resource hog as Crytek's CryEngine. We tested the Ranch Medium level at DirectX 10 with highest details.

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Tom Clancy's HAWX

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Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. is one of the very few recent flight simulator games on the market. Being a console conversion it emphasizes "flight" more than "simulator". It is set in a near future in which private military companies have begun fighting conflicts for nations with their own military gear. You are playing an elite pilot who was recruited by such a private company. During the game you get to fly over 50 different aircrafts, ranging from the MIG 21 to the mighty F22 Raptor. One notable feature of its engine is the use of GeoEye satellite imagery for terrain generation which offers one of the most realistic incarnations of battlefield terrain available today.

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Metro 2033

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Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game that is set in a post apocalyptic Moscow - as the name suggests inside the metro system. You will fight mutants or other humans who like to take away your shelter. The game has many gameplay elements similar to STALKER, also the engine has similar features. This is because two STALKER engine programmers left GSC Game World and started their own company which is now making Metro 2033.
The engine has support for all the latest eye candy like DirectX 11 and Tesselation. Unfortunately it leaves a less than optimized impression, making it a candidate to surpass Crysis for the highest hardware requirements. We tested in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Very High".

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Unreal Tournament 3

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The fourth game in Epic's highly successful Unreal Tournament Series is simply called Unreal Tournament 3. It is based on the Unreal 3 engine which is a major step forward from the previous engine. The game principle is centered about an arena style gameplay where several contestants try to reach a certain kill count or capture a flag for example. For its time, the graphics were top notch, with large and detailed textures. Unreal Tournament 3 is an important benchmark because its engine has been used in a large number of other titles, and there are even some in development using it. One major drawback of the way the engine is designed is that there is no support for Anti-Aliasing.

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World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

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World of Warcraft is the most successful massively multiplayer online game in the world with far over 12 milion monthly subscribers. The game is centered around the epic battle between the Horde and Alliance factions with many other races getting involved in a long and complex story line. Even though it has been released in 2004, Blizzard has always added incremental improvements to the graphics, especially with new expansions. One key success of World of Warcraft is that it will run on a large number of slower systems, but also delivers a decent graphics experience on high-end systems. We tested in DirectX 11 mode with details set to "Ultra".

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3DMark 11

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3DMark 11 is the very latest from the house of Futuremark, which has given out some of the most comprehensive benchmark applications for PC enthusiasts and gamers. 3DMark 11, as the name might probably suggest, makes use of Microsoft DirectX 11 API, and puts every feature at its disposal to use, creating astonishingly-realistic visuals. In the process, it evaluates DirectX 11 compliant GPUs, and lets gamers know what to expect from games from the near future that make use of the API, in terms of visual realism. The tessellation and depth of field tests are particularly of interest here.

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Unigine Heaven 2.0

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Unigine Heaven was one of the first demos that supported DirectX 11. Heaven is a technology demonstration for Unigine engine which supports DirectX 9 through 11 and OpenGL too. Version 2.0 adds more scenes and optionally more complex tesselation features. While there is some controversy surrounding the benchmark whether it is an accurate representation of what to expect from future games in regards to DirectX 11 we still chose it as test to get an insight into potential future gaming.

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Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.

For this test we measure power consumption of only the graphics card, via PCI-Express power connector(s) and PCI-Express bus slot. A Keithley Integra 2700 with 6.5 digits is used for all measurements. Again, the values here reflect card only power consumption measured at DC VGA card inputs, not the whole system.

We chose 3DMark03 Nature as a standard test representing typical 3D usage because it offers: - very high power draw - high repeatability - is a standard benchmark that is supported by all cards - drivers are actively tested and optimized for it - supports all multi-GPU configurations - easy to obtain - fairly compact in size - test runs a constant duration and renders a non-static scene with variable complexity just like any normal game.

The four result values are as following:

Idle: Windows 7 Aero sitting at the desktop (1280x1024 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Card left to warm up in idle until power draw is stable.
Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (12 per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. Highest single reading during the test.
Maximum: Furmark Stability Test at 1280x1024, 0xAA. This results in a very high non-game power consumption that can typically be reached only with stress testing applications. Card left running stress test until power draw converged to a stable value.
Blu-ray Playback: Power DVD 9 Ultra is used at a resolution of 1920x1200 to play back the Batman: The Dark Knight disc with GPU acceleration turned on. Playback starts around timecode 1:19 which has the highest data rates on the BD with up to 40 Mb/s. Playback left running until power draw converged to a stable value.

Power consumption in all non-3D tests is very very low. This will be useful for a quiet office PC or media PC system. Lower power consumption means less heat which means less fan speed required for ventilation resulting in less noise.

In 3D, power consumption is low as well, but when looking at performance per Watt the card sits at the end of the spectrum, not because it needs a lot of power, but because it provides so little performance.

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Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.

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The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level. The 3D load noise levels are tested with a stressful game, not Furmark.

In idle the card is definitely too noisy considering its performance class. It would have been no problem to run the fan speed a lot slower or even let it stop completely. Power output of the card is tiny in idle with just 6 Watts. Under load the fan ramps up a lot and makes the card way too noisy for anything in its performance class. It looks to me like AMD did not properly optimize the fan profile to their cooler's capabilities. Since the fan diameter is so small the noise is also a high-pitched whine.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...noise_idle.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...noise_load.gif

Performance Summary

To create this graph we took all performance results of the five resolutions we tested, threw them together and calculated the relative performance of each card, compared to our review sample. In a sixth graph we also combined all tests in all resolutions to calculate the total relative performance of the review sample. Cards that do not support DX11 were given a score according to their performance in all other non-DX11 tests, which means cards were not penalized for not having DirectX 11 support.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...es/perfrel.gif

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rfrel_1024.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rfrel_1280.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rfrel_1680.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rfrel_1920.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...rfrel_2560.gif

Performance per Watt

This graph was created by taking the relative performance numbers and putting them in contrast to the average power consumption results.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...s/perfwatt.gif

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...fwatt_1024.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...fwatt_1280.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...fwatt_1680.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...fwatt_1920.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...fwatt_2560.gif

Performance per Dollar

If you are looking for the best bang for the buck, then you will love this graph. We looked up the current USD price of each card on the popular online shop Newegg and used it and the relative performance numbers to calculate the Performance per Dollar Index.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...perfdollar.gif

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ollar_1024.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ollar_1280.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ollar_1680.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ollar_1920.gif http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...ollar_2560.gif

Overclocking

To find the maximum overclock of our card we used a combination of GPUTool and our benchmarking suite.
The overclocks listed in this section were achieved with the default fan and voltage settings as defined in the VGA BIOS. Please note that every single sample overclocks differently, that's why our results here can only serve as a guideline for what you can expect from your card.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...es/gpuz_oc.gif

Overclocks of our card are 910 MHz core (21% overclock) and 1105 MHz Memory (23% overclock). Both overclocks are nice, especially the GDDR5 memory with its high-clock potential can help a lot. I wouldn't be surprised if we see another SKU called HD 6470 soon that runs at higher clock speeds, maybe 850 MHz or so - the GPU definitely can handle it.

Overclocked Performance

Using these clock frequencies we ran a quick test of Call of Duty 4 to evaluate the gains from overclocking.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...es/perf_oc.gif
Actual 3D performance gained from overclocking is 21.4%.

Temperatures

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...mages/temp.gif
Temperatures are low in all tests, given the increased fan noise under load I think a better choice would have been a few °C more under load and less fan noise.

Clock Profiles

Modern graphics cards have several clock profiles that are selected to balance power draw and performance requirements.
The following table lists the clock settings for major performance scenarios and the GPU voltage that we measured. We measure on the pins of a coil or capacitor near the GPU voltage regulator.

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td><strong>Core <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>Memory <br>
Clock</strong></td>
<td><strong>GPU Voltage<br>
(measured)</strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Desktop</th>
<td align="right">100 MHz</td>
<td align="right">150 MHz</td>
<td align="right">0.91 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Blu-ray Playback</th>
<td align="right">750 MHz</td>
<td align="right">900 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.17 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>3D Load</th>
<td align="right">750 MHz</td>
<td align="right">900 MHz</td>
<td align="right">1.19 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th colspan="2">CCC Overdrive Limits</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Core</td>
<td>850 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Memory</td>
<td>1000 MHz</td>
</tr>
</table>

Value and Conclusion

<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>

According to AMD, HD 6450 will retail for USD 55.

</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

Low power consumption
Low temperatures
Low-profile card
Native full-size HDMI output
Good overclocking potential
Up to three active displays
Support for DirectX 11

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>

Extremely low performance
Noisy fan
DirectX 11 relevance limited at this time
No support for CUDA / PhysX

</td></tr>
<tr><th>8.3</th>
<td>Even though it is substantially faster than the previous generation Radeon HD 5450, AMD's new HD 6450 can not offer enough performance beyond the most basic gaming at 1024x768. As a gamer the better choice is to save up a bit of money by buying less games and then going for a ~$100 graphics card. Even though AMD markets this card as DirectX 11 compatible, DirectX 11 has no significance for this card. Whether you play DX8 or DX11 at 10 FPS makes no difference, it simply is unplayable.<br />
AMD has equipped their card with support for up to three active displays which means the card gets the EyeFinity stamp on the package. Useful for gaming? No. Three displays means a third of the single monitor FPS - unplayable. Unless you enjoy gaming at the absolute lowest details settings. Three active outputs become much more useful when you look at productivity scenarios. Everybody who has ever worked with a multi-monitor setup knows how much more efficient it is. This capability helps to justify the expense when upgrading from integrated graphics. On the other hand, any PCI-Express graphics card supports two active displays, which makes that feature available at a bargain price on eBay.<br />
As expected, power consumption is very low, which means that we will certainly see completely passive variants by AMD's add-in-board partners. The board we received from AMD had a noisy and whiny fan with a fan profile that doesn't seem to be optimized to the fan's capabilities at all. For a media PC system low noise is crucial in my opinion. AMD has all other features like low-profile, accelerated HD and Blu-ray 3D decode, low power consumption, they just need to get fan noise sorted out, and the price of the card down of course. In terms of overclocking we saw nice potential of around 20% on both GPU and memory which resulted in about 20% actual performance increase. But then again, a slow card + 20% is still slow. Rather save up a bit more and get a more powerful card in the first place.
</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td></td></tr>
</table>