Final Thoughts
While it is no gaming powerhouse the HD6450 FleX Edition from Sapphire is a great value and a great card for a home theater setup or someone who wants Eyefinity that will not be doing a lot of gaming. We have been reviewing Sapphire cards for quite sometime and they always try to add something to their cards to make them a better value than the normal reference cards out there. With this card Sapphire has done that. First they have made it passive which eliminates sound, that makes it ideal for home theater PC’s and people who want a quiet machine. Also being passive means that you don’t have to power a fan, which cuts down on the total power consumption.
The other thing that Sapphire has added to this card is the “FleX” capability. This of course enables Eyefinity on a single card giving you a very inexpensive triple screen monitor configuration. While Eyefinity is really made for gamers, with this card you can create large desktop environments which are perfect for photo and video editing and just make productivity overall better.
As a said this card is no gaming powerhouse and it shows in our tests, I mean you could play some of the latest games at very low settings and low resolutions. We did test older games like Counter-Strike: Source and it played great at higher resolutions, so if you want to play some older games this card is good for that. In a home theater setup this card will have no problem playing 720p and 1080p video and has all of the decoding options you would want.
This card is selling for $59.99 at my favorite online retailer, which puts it at a $10 premium over most HD6450 cards. For this $10 premium you do get a low-profile card with the low profile adapter and the “FleX” capability, which means you don’t have to spend the extra money on adapters and dongles for Eyefinity. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Sapphire Radeon HD6450 Flex Edition 1GB Video Card a 10 out of 10 score and our Good Value Award!
Pros:
– “FleX” capability
– Passively cooled
– Low profile card with low profile bracket included
– Price
Cons:
– None that I found
