Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 FleX Edition Graphics Card Review

We’ve had Radeon HD 6450 graphics cards in our test lab before, so we kind of knew what we were getting ourselves into, and thus we are going to try and sum this up slightly differently instead of focussing just on the performance.

Sapphire have always tried to shake things up a bit by offering unique products, by use of a different cooler, or by adding in one of their famous technologies like FleX and that’s exactly what they’ve done here. They have realised the potential behind a card that is low power and turned it passive. By doing so, they have taken noise out of the equation and left a card that can cope under medium conditions as well as offer something more with FleX.

This card was never set out to be the fastest card on the market, and we knew that from the offset, but we were still keen to see how it could cope under certain amounts of pressure. Obviously when we tested the card, we chucked our normal set of tests at it to see how it faired in comparison, and while it didn’t perform outstandingly well, if you have an older 5450 or similar card, you will notice some subtle differences, as well as jumping up to DirectX 11 being the main one of course, but at high resolutions, it still remains fairly unplayable in pretty much every current game.

The joy that it does have is the FleX functionality, which allows an affordable triple screen monitor configuration, which is fantastic for those on a budget. Whilst Eyefinity is aimed at gaming primarily, this card shows its true potential behind 2D applications and general desktop work and even a bit of light photo editing if that’s your forte. When looking at how things compare to other cards, sure you could spend another £50 on a better card, but you’d then have to find another £40 or more for an active dongle, and things can start to get a bit overcomplicated, whereas this card makes it simple for you.

With an RRP of around £35, it’s certainly competative when looking at a stock reference 6450 which comes in at around £30. Even if we look at the original Sapphire passive 6450, we find a price point of around £30, showing that the extra few coins can give you some fantastic extra functionality.

This card will only see you playing games on the lowest settings possible, otherwise you will experience unplayable frame-rates, especially when using the FleX aspect of the card. Instead, this card really does seem to be aimed at the 2D application market, and just opens up a new technology for you as a consumer, as long as you’re not a big gamer that is.