The Test

Due to our improperly clocked reference Radeon HD 5450, all of our performance benchmarks for the 5450 have been taken with our Sapphire 5450 card. As the board is identical to the reference card other than for using the appropriate clock speeds, the results in turn should be identical to a properly clocked reference sample.

We’d also like to thank MSI for sending along one of their GeForce 210 cards, the N210 MD512H. It arrived too late to review it before this article, but we are using it for our GeForce 210 numbers since NVIDIA does not provide reference cards for that series. You’ll see a review of that card in the next day or so.

For the Radeon HD 5450 launch, AMD once again provided new drivers that enable support for it. They’re version 8.69RC3, the same series as the drivers for the 5670 launch.

CPU: Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.33GHz
Motherboard: Intel DX58SO (Intel X58)
Chipset Drivers: Intel 9.1.1.1015 (Intel)
Hard Disk: Intel X25-M SSD (80GB)
Memory: Patriot Viper DDR3-1333 3 x 2GB (7-7-7-20)
Video Cards: AMD Radeon HD 5970
AMD Radeon HD 5870
AMD Radeon HD 5850
AMD Radeon HD 5770
AMD Radeon HD 5750
AMD Radeon HD 5670 512MB
AMD Radeon HD 5450 512MB
AMD Radeon HD 4890
AMD Radeon HD 4870 1GB
AMD Radeon HD 4850
AMD Radeon HD 3870
AMD Radeon HD 4770
AMD Radeon HD 4670 512MB
AMD Radeon HD 4550 512MB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
NVIDIA GeForce GT 240
NVIDIA GeForce GT 220
NVIDIA GeForce 210
Video Drivers: NVIDIA ForceWare 190.62
NVIDIA ForceWare 195.62
AMD Catalyst Beta 8.66
AMD Catalyst Beta 8.66.6
AMD Catalyst 9.9
AMD Catalyst Beta 8.69
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit

The Almost Perfect HTPC Card Crysis: Warhead
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  • uibo - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    Why don't the Radeon "Cheese Slices" video screenshots have horizontal lines? The Nvidia ones have them...
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    It's an artifact of stepping through the video one frame at a time with MPC-HC with the MS MPEG-2 decoder. Doing so captures the angled lines correctly, but it doesn't quite capture some of the other artifacts exactly the same because it ends up a field (basically half a frame) ahead.

    In motion the Radeon cards are getting it right.
  • blaubart - Tuesday, February 9, 2010 - link

    Congrats Ryan, your Cheese Slices testing outside of a HTPC forum was really a big surprise for me! Keep on pushing AMD/Nvidia to realize that there's more than gamers in this world!

    > Horizontal 1p lines missing:
    I'm also wondering normally the 1p lines are no problem in screenshots (MPC-HC and more). Maybe you shot them during the "odd movement" (1h+3v see description in Cheese Slices thread). I have now edited Post #1: screenshots only during "even movement".

    This link shows it (sorry German):
    http://www.dvbviewer.info/forum/index.php?s=&s...">http://www.dvbviewer.info/forum/index.p...c=34863&...

    1080i-1 ---> odd movement
    1080i-2 ---> even movement

    What's more, GT220.png and G210.png show MA in 1p and "respone - noise" but VA in the ticker, How did you manage this? Ah I see, you left a mailaddress, I will send you a mail.
  • uibo - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    Oh and the Nvidia G210 has some artifacts for the vertical lines with some pixels shifted right.
  • silverblue - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    ...then this might call for an article to look at it in that very light. However, is there a higher performing part for both series that can be directly compared? I'm guessing not, as they all differ in some way, be it shader numbers, ROPs or texture units. The only way I can think to do it would be comparing two 512MB 4850s to a downclocked 5870, but even if that were possible, you'll still get a performance drop due to Crossfire. Hmm.
  • MrSpadge - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    5770 is as close as it gets. THere's the difference in the memory subsystem, though. Could be that the best bench to run would be ShaderMark.
  • GeorgeH - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    You mention the Sapphire's heatsink quite a bit, but I didn't see any pictures of it (at least the reverse side) in the article; was that an oversight or am I blind?
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    Oversight. I thought I had a stock photo of the rear. I'll get one in the morning.

    If you're really curious, it's the same heatsink that's on their 4350, which there are plenty of pictures of.
  • GeorgeH - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    I see it now, thanks - it's actually not nearly as "bad" as I thought it'd be.
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link

    Oversight. I thought I had a stock photo of the rear. I'll get one in the morning.

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