Hey there everyone, hope yous all had a good new year. Today we&; re taking a look back at the Radeon HD 3450 from AMD. It came invariants of 512MB and 256MB of DDR2 memory on a 64-bit wide bus, but today, we have the 256MB version form MSI. The 3450, with a core clock of 600MHz and a memory clock of 500MHz (1000MHz effective due to the nature of DDR2 memory), released in January of 2008 with a type of 25w and used the RV620 GPU (RV620 LE variant specifically). It used the Terascale architecture and featured 181 million transistors built on the 55nmfabrication process and came packing 22 compute units, 40 shading units, 4 raster operations pipelines, and 4 texture mapping units. Given that is fairly old by today&;s standards, the 3450 won&;t support the latest games but is does carry support for direct x 10.1 and OpenGL 3.3 and requires a monitor that supports DVI, VGA or S-Video connections unless you have an adapter. Originally, the 3450 released at a price of US$49 which is around US$57 today, adjusting for inflation, or around £45 or €52 today. You can pick it up much more cheaply today as I&;m sure you can imagine, for as little as £4 at CEX here in the UK, when it is in stock and on eBay in America, you can buy it for around US$7 with free postage.
The rest of the system I&; ll be using today features an i7 6700k @ 4.8GHz (this eliminates any bottlenecks in performance other than the 3450 itself), a MSI Z270 SLI Plus motherboard,16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM @ 2800MHz, and Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, so let&;s get the tests started. First up, I thought I&;d put the 3450 through Unigine Heaven 4.0, as I wanted to get an idea of its benchmarking performance rather than just run it through a few games. I decided to use the Basic preset within Unigine Heaven and I also changed it to run fullscreen as well. At the factory stock 600MHz core clock and 500MHz memory clock, the 3450 managed a score of only 71 points, far far below what the budget cards of today can manage. Overclocking wise, I managed to get another 155MHz out of the core and 145MHz out of the memory for an overclock of 755MHz on the core and 645MHz on the memory. At this speed, the HD 34500 managed almost 30% greater performance with a score of 88. I like to start off the tests normally with Grand Theft Auto 5, which had its much-anticipated PC release back in 2015 and is still a great game for benchmarking today due to its popularity. Unfortunately, though, the game was completely unplayable. It was genuinely one of the worst performers in the history of my channel. Due to the HD 3450 being a budget card, even when it was released, I decided to run the game at the lowest resolution possible, 800x600 with 50% frame scaling, meaning that the game was effectively rendering at only 400x300. Despite this, as I said, the game was totally unplayable.FPS in the city was between 10-17fps and the game showed some pretty severe input lag and input locking as well. The input locking, which is kind of like say when the throttle or steering sticks on a car, was so severe that I gave up on running any kind of benchmark due to it. I was really hoping for something at least resembling a playable game, and with CSGOI sort of got that to an extent. I also ran this at the lowest settings and resolution I could, 640x480, and I ran the test in a competitive, hard difficulty bot match on the Mirage map. Fps tended to be around the high 30s to the high 50s throughout the test and seemed to run smoothly at times, although it did suffer from some pretty noticeable stuttering occasionally, and combat was also pretty difficult at times as well. A fraps benchmark showed an average of 49fps, with 1% and 0.1% lows of 27 and 24 fps respectively. There were also some gaps between some of the frames of ~ 70-100ms. Overall, it was mostly playable, however, you may want to think twice about going online, as the stuttering and sometimes difficult combat will affect your experience against real people in the game. Another game that is still pretty popular today is Skyrim, specifically the original version of the game from 2011, not the remastered version released in 2016. And like the previous 2 games, I turned the settings and resolution right down to the low preset at 800x600 and also disabled depth of field through the game file. Given the games age, I was kind of surprised it didn&;t perform better than it did, although in saying that I&;m forgetting that the HD 3450 was never meant for gaming, even on its initial release 11 years ago now.
Fps throughout, was no higher than 22 frames per second and dropped as low as 12fps in the most intense scenes. The fraps benchmark showed an average framerate of only 18 frames per second, with 1% and0.1% lows of 12 and 10fps respectively, with gaps between frames of 100ms and over occurring through the whole test. Moving into overclocking and I was quite surprised how far I was able to push it. As I mentioned during the Unigine Heaven test earlier, the HD 3450 managed 755MHz on the core with 645MHz on the memory. And that is without an increase in voltage as the 3450 doesn&;t have voltage control. Both CSGO and Warframe were OK with this as well and ran perfectly stable but GTA V and Skyrim couldn&;t cope with, they, however, managed 730 and 735MHz on the core respectively with the same 645MHz memory overclock. With GTA V, any improvement over what it managed at stock would be a good thing. The game is unfortunately still pretty unplayable but I was at least able to run a benchmark.FPS was still in the low 10s to ~20fps and overall, the game ran a lot smoother throughout the city, it did however still stutter quite noticeably. The input lag was also much less, that though was still pretty significant at times and almost gave up on the benchmark due to how it affected the playability of the missions. Moving out to the desert area, around where Trevor lives, there was also some noticeable input locking here as well, although it wasn&;t so bad that I couldn&;t get around. That aside, the fps here was below 20fps, making the game quite unplayable due to how jarring an experience it is. The fraps benchmark showed an average of 19fps with 1% and 0.1% lows of 11 and 8fps respectively. There were also multiple gaps between some frames of around 100ms up to 280ms at its worst according to the frame time graph. With CSGO, there was a pretty significant improvement to performance. Whereas at stock, there was noticeable micro-stutter throughout, the overclock has the game running reasonably smooth. Combat is also much easier as well which makes the game so much more playable than it was without the overclock. Fps tended to sit around the low 40s to the low 80s but indoors, it would creep up to~100 frames per second which is awesome for such a low powered card, if you put the low resolution to one side. The fraps benchmark showed an average of 61fps, with 1% and 0.1% low framerates of 31 and27fps respectively. There were however several dips below 30fps according to the frame time graph, but these, fortunately, weren&;t noticeable. With Skyrim, the overclock did nothing to fix the texture flickering issue I saw at stock clocks, although, I wasn&;t expecting any change there anyway. It did however have a pretty significant impact on performance at times. The walk towards Riverwood near the start of the game, has fps figures in the mid 30sto low 40s, although, this drops to around the low to high 20s once you head into the Riverwood Trader.It&;s still fairly easy to move around here though. Once you get into Bleakfalls Temple, the performance can get pretty bad. Fps sits in the low 20s at points and there&;s also some pretty noticeable stutter here too. The issue with the cobweb textures not rendering remains as well. The fraps benchmark showed average, 1% and 0.1% lows of 35, 17 and 13 frames per second respectively, with the frame time graph showing some pretty significant gaps between some of the frames of around 100-260ms. With Warframe, given that it is one of my favorites right now, I was rooting for it to have a massive improvement. And at first, things seemed pretty hopeful. That didn&;t last though, as the performance throughout the mission was pretty horrible at times. Fps managed to get to around the 30fps mark but the game was unfortunately still really stuttery and dipped below 15fps at the worst of times with a very significant and noticeable slowdown in the game being observed much like at stock clocks. The fraps benchmark showed average, 1% and 0.1% low framerates of 24, 15 and 14fps respectively, with gaps between frames of around 60-80ms happening throughout the whole test. Overall, I was a bit disappointed about how the HD 3450 performed.
CONCLUSION FOR AMD HD 3450 Graphics card in 2020
It wasn&;t intended for gaming, even when it was released 11 years ago, but at least expected close to playable performance at the resolution I tested the games at, which GTA V, Skyrim and Warframe just couldn&;t offer. Saying that though, with an overclock, CSGO was actually quite enjoyable, if you&; re happy to use 640x480.There&;s just something about really low power graphics cards and processors I like, so I still had a good time testing the HD 3450 regardless of how it performed.
PERFORMANCE OF AMD HD 3450 Graphics card in 2020
The rest of the system I&; ll be using today features an i7 6700k @ 4.8GHz (this eliminates any bottlenecks in performance other than the 3450 itself), a MSI Z270 SLI Plus motherboard,16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM @ 2800MHz, and Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, so let&;s get the tests started. First up, I thought I&;d put the 3450 through Unigine Heaven 4.0, as I wanted to get an idea of its benchmarking performance rather than just run it through a few games. I decided to use the Basic preset within Unigine Heaven and I also changed it to run fullscreen as well. At the factory stock 600MHz core clock and 500MHz memory clock, the 3450 managed a score of only 71 points, far far below what the budget cards of today can manage. Overclocking wise, I managed to get another 155MHz out of the core and 145MHz out of the memory for an overclock of 755MHz on the core and 645MHz on the memory. At this speed, the HD 34500 managed almost 30% greater performance with a score of 88. I like to start off the tests normally with Grand Theft Auto 5, which had its much-anticipated PC release back in 2015 and is still a great game for benchmarking today due to its popularity. Unfortunately, though, the game was completely unplayable. It was genuinely one of the worst performers in the history of my channel. Due to the HD 3450 being a budget card, even when it was released, I decided to run the game at the lowest resolution possible, 800x600 with 50% frame scaling, meaning that the game was effectively rendering at only 400x300. Despite this, as I said, the game was totally unplayable.FPS in the city was between 10-17fps and the game showed some pretty severe input lag and input locking as well. The input locking, which is kind of like say when the throttle or steering sticks on a car, was so severe that I gave up on running any kind of benchmark due to it. I was really hoping for something at least resembling a playable game, and with CSGOI sort of got that to an extent. I also ran this at the lowest settings and resolution I could, 640x480, and I ran the test in a competitive, hard difficulty bot match on the Mirage map. Fps tended to be around the high 30s to the high 50s throughout the test and seemed to run smoothly at times, although it did suffer from some pretty noticeable stuttering occasionally, and combat was also pretty difficult at times as well. A fraps benchmark showed an average of 49fps, with 1% and 0.1% lows of 27 and 24 fps respectively. There were also some gaps between some of the frames of ~ 70-100ms. Overall, it was mostly playable, however, you may want to think twice about going online, as the stuttering and sometimes difficult combat will affect your experience against real people in the game. Another game that is still pretty popular today is Skyrim, specifically the original version of the game from 2011, not the remastered version released in 2016. And like the previous 2 games, I turned the settings and resolution right down to the low preset at 800x600 and also disabled depth of field through the game file. Given the games age, I was kind of surprised it didn&;t perform better than it did, although in saying that I&;m forgetting that the HD 3450 was never meant for gaming, even on its initial release 11 years ago now.
GAMING TEST on AMD HD 3450 Graphics card in 2020
The game only managed around 20-30fps on the walk to Riverwood and as you&; ve probably noticed by now, there was also a weird issue with the textures flickering like crazy throughout the game and trust me, the 3450 isn&;t artifacts. The game also quite noticeably micro-stutters at times and occasionally drops below 20fpsas well. Another issue I noticed was that there was some input lag with the mouse which didn&; effet the test too much but was definitely still noticeable. Inside Bleak Falls Temple, I also had issues with the textures for cobwebs not loading at all, leading you to wonder why on Earth you can&;t get through the door to fight the giant spider for example. The fraps benchmark showed an average of 30fps with 14 and 10fps for its 1% and 0.1% lows respectively. With gaps between some of the frames as bad as 280ms being observed in the frame time graph. Lastly, before I overclock the card, it&;s Warframe, which is a personal favorite of mine and had its initial release back in 2013. Like Skyrim, I ran Warframe at 800x600 with the lowest settings preset I could. And I ran the test in a Survival mission on Jupiter. Unfortunately, the game was beyond unplayable. There was a very noticeable amount of input lag which had a big effect on the gameplay, and in intense scenes with lots of enemies, there was a noticeable slow down in the game with a massive reduction in weapon fire rate happening too.Fps throughout, was no higher than 22 frames per second and dropped as low as 12fps in the most intense scenes. The fraps benchmark showed an average framerate of only 18 frames per second, with 1% and0.1% lows of 12 and 10fps respectively, with gaps between frames of 100ms and over occurring through the whole test. Moving into overclocking and I was quite surprised how far I was able to push it. As I mentioned during the Unigine Heaven test earlier, the HD 3450 managed 755MHz on the core with 645MHz on the memory. And that is without an increase in voltage as the 3450 doesn&;t have voltage control. Both CSGO and Warframe were OK with this as well and ran perfectly stable but GTA V and Skyrim couldn&;t cope with, they, however, managed 730 and 735MHz on the core respectively with the same 645MHz memory overclock. With GTA V, any improvement over what it managed at stock would be a good thing. The game is unfortunately still pretty unplayable but I was at least able to run a benchmark.FPS was still in the low 10s to ~20fps and overall, the game ran a lot smoother throughout the city, it did however still stutter quite noticeably. The input lag was also much less, that though was still pretty significant at times and almost gave up on the benchmark due to how it affected the playability of the missions. Moving out to the desert area, around where Trevor lives, there was also some noticeable input locking here as well, although it wasn&;t so bad that I couldn&;t get around. That aside, the fps here was below 20fps, making the game quite unplayable due to how jarring an experience it is. The fraps benchmark showed an average of 19fps with 1% and 0.1% lows of 11 and 8fps respectively. There were also multiple gaps between some frames of around 100ms up to 280ms at its worst according to the frame time graph. With CSGO, there was a pretty significant improvement to performance. Whereas at stock, there was noticeable micro-stutter throughout, the overclock has the game running reasonably smooth. Combat is also much easier as well which makes the game so much more playable than it was without the overclock. Fps tended to sit around the low 40s to the low 80s but indoors, it would creep up to~100 frames per second which is awesome for such a low powered card, if you put the low resolution to one side. The fraps benchmark showed an average of 61fps, with 1% and 0.1% low framerates of 31 and27fps respectively. There were however several dips below 30fps according to the frame time graph, but these, fortunately, weren&;t noticeable. With Skyrim, the overclock did nothing to fix the texture flickering issue I saw at stock clocks, although, I wasn&;t expecting any change there anyway. It did however have a pretty significant impact on performance at times. The walk towards Riverwood near the start of the game, has fps figures in the mid 30sto low 40s, although, this drops to around the low to high 20s once you head into the Riverwood Trader.It&;s still fairly easy to move around here though. Once you get into Bleakfalls Temple, the performance can get pretty bad. Fps sits in the low 20s at points and there&;s also some pretty noticeable stutter here too. The issue with the cobweb textures not rendering remains as well. The fraps benchmark showed average, 1% and 0.1% lows of 35, 17 and 13 frames per second respectively, with the frame time graph showing some pretty significant gaps between some of the frames of around 100-260ms. With Warframe, given that it is one of my favorites right now, I was rooting for it to have a massive improvement. And at first, things seemed pretty hopeful. That didn&;t last though, as the performance throughout the mission was pretty horrible at times. Fps managed to get to around the 30fps mark but the game was unfortunately still really stuttery and dipped below 15fps at the worst of times with a very significant and noticeable slowdown in the game being observed much like at stock clocks. The fraps benchmark showed average, 1% and 0.1% low framerates of 24, 15 and 14fps respectively, with gaps between frames of around 60-80ms happening throughout the whole test. Overall, I was a bit disappointed about how the HD 3450 performed.
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