What can I get out of a Radeon HD3450?

Drenlin

Drenlin

Active Member
I'm building a computer, and have recently acquired said card for free. I'm thinking about using it until I can get a new one.

Thing is, I do plan on gaming a bit on this. Could I pull off fairly new games like Borderlands or MW2?
(I could care less how crappy the game looks, as long as I can play it.)

It's like this, same specs and all, but a Dell OEM version with a fan:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131119
 
Last edited:
Haha...that's the exact card that my brother got to replace this one, and the one that I plan on getting. :P

So no modern stuff huh? What about Borderlands? Seems like it wouldn't be as big of a draw as most other games.

I guess I'm really just trying to find the limits of it. Keep in mind, I have no problem with playing on absolute minimum settings for a while, or playing some sort of MMO or RTS. I have a 360 so if I really want an fps I can just use that.
 
Last edited:
borderlands is very intensive :/ especially on a CPU and on a GPU, it might be more CPU based but still, that graphics card will not put up with borderlands sorry :/
 
Intensive? I just checked its system requirements...it lists the graphics card as an X800, and the CPU as a 2.4GHz Pentuim 4... :confused:

How bad can it be?
 
Last edited:
87dtna said:
No you wouldn't be able to game, it's an extremely weak card. All newer onboard graphics are stronger!
You'll be needing an upgrade to play MW2, something like this would be minimum-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127448
Click to expand...

I disagree, the 3450 can play mw2 on low at 800/600 fine, and many other games.

Heck my 8400gs can play crysis on all low 800/600 and get 22ishFPS, and overclocked it can play 28-30FPS.

Its not thatt. weak of a card, it can play games now, just not on nice res. or quality.



But, yes it would be wise to get a 4670 or better.
 
Last edited:
I am going to upgrade eventually...it just might take a couple of months. If prices come down I may even go for an HD5xxx. I'm just trying to figure out just how far I can get with this in the meantime.

So my upper limit is probably going to be MW2? Seems about right...it was just barely not able to run Crysis. (hence the upgrade)
 
Last edited:
Hey guys, update. I'm probably going with an AMD 785G motherboard, which means I'll be able to use this in hybrid crossfire with the onboard Hd4200. What kind of performance gains should I expect there? I can't seem to find any reviews that include this.

Also, if the mobo I get has dedicated video memory for the onboard, how will this setup interact with that?
 
It'll be a boost, but still nothing spectacular. According to the back of my mobo box (so take it with a grain of salt) it happens to have scores with the basic on board card, and with a 3450 in hybrid. They overclocked the crap out of them I'd say, but they went from 2000 marks in 3dMark06 to 2700 with hybrid. Not exactly impressive, but at that point, why not.
 
So I should expect about a 50% increase over stock, realistically? Works for me. Thanks man. :) The 3450 could play all the games I want to play by itself, so now I'll actually be able to use half-decent settings. I'll be running at 1280x1024 max(monitor), so there should be plenty of power for my needs.

What about the memory? Would it be worth it to shell a bit more out for the one with separate VRAM or does hybrid mode only use the RAM from the discrete card? Normally I wouldn't care, but the 3450 has 256MB and the 4200 IGP I'm looking at has 1GB. Of course I could have misunderstood what Sideport is, which means it doesn't matter...?
 
Last edited:
Got another question. Would running at x4 bottleneck a 3450?

I've found that you can apparently do triple crossfire with the onboard igp and two dedicated cards.(still researching it) Since 3450's can be had for ~$30, it wouldn't be hard to grab a third and have a fairly decent setup for the money. The problem is that I'm getting a 785G board, which means my 2nd PCIe x16 slot is limited to x4.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top