Sapphire HD 6450 1 GB Passive

Introduction

AMD's Radeon HD 6450 has been on the market for almost two months now. It is the slowest, cheapest, entry-level HD 6000 card. When it was launched, AMD provided HD 6450 samples to the press which used GDDR5 memory clocked at 900 MHz.

However, when looking at the current market, we only see HD 6450 variants using DDR3 memory, instead of the faster, more expensive GDDR5. That's why we decided to take a look at a DDR3 version to provide a clearer picture of the entry level graphics card market.



Sapphire's HD 6450 uses a completely passive low-profile design, which makes this card an excellent choice for a low noise office PC or media PC system. The media PC usage model is supported by the HDMI output which includes audio of course for an easy to install solution. Despite being a low-end graphics card, the card comes with AMD's UVD 3 engine which supports acceleration of all relevant video encoding methods.

Radeon HD 6450 Market Segment Analysis

	Radeon HD 5450	Sapphire HD 6450	Radeon HD 6450	GeForce GT 520	Radeon HD 5550	GeForce GT 440	Radeon HD 5670	Radeon HD 6670
Shader Units	80	160	160	48	320	96	400	480
ROPs	4	4	4	4	8	4	8	8
Graphics Processor	Cedar	Caicos	Caicos	GF119	Redwood	GF108	Redwood	Turks
Transistors	292M	370M	370M	???M	627M	585M	627M	716M
Memory Size	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB
Memory Bus Width	64 bit	64 bit	64 bit	64 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit	128 bit
Core Clock	650 MHz	625 MHz	750 MHz	810 MHz	550 MHz	823 MHz	775 MHz	800 MHz
Memory Clock	800 MHz	667 MHz	900 MHz	800 MHz	1000 MHz	800 MHz	1000 MHz	1000 MHz
Price	$45	$50	$45	$60	$60	$70	$75	$100