Best HD 5450 Overclocking Settings Guide
If you’re trying to get more performance out of the Radeon HD 5450, this guide walks through the exact overclocking steps and benchmarks that show how far this little card can be pushed. The HD 5450 was never built for gaming, but with the right tuning it can still deliver measurable improvements and squeeze out every bit of performance it has left:
In this video we’re going to quickly overclock and benchmark a Radeon HD 5450 graphics card.
The HD 5450 is a low cost, low powered card first released in early 2010. Essentially it’s best used as an affordable low powered way to display multiple screens for signage and other general business use. This card was never really very good even when it was first released 13 years ago. However, the card is still sold even today at full retail price. There are far superior, more modern options now available. However, if you already have one like I do, let’s see what kind of performance we can get out of it.
So here’s what we’re dealing with. The Radeon HD 5450 is based on the Cedar Pro graphics processor, has 80 shading units, and supports DirectX 11.2. This card runs at 650 MHz core clock and between 400 and 800 MHz memory clock. The card comes in both low profile and full height versions supporting either passive cooling or a single cooling fan. The HD 5450 comes with between 512 MB and 2 GB of DDR2, DDR3, or GDDR3 memory. The example card we have here is the VisionTek Radeon HD 5450 2 GB version.
So let’s get ready to overclock and benchmark this little card and see what kind of performance we can get. The first thing we’re going to want to do is update the drivers. Let’s swing by AMD real quick and grab the newest ones available.
Now that our drivers are nice and updated, the next step is to install an overclocking program called MSI Afterburner. MSI Afterburner is a totally free tool that gives you a high level of control and monitoring over your graphics card. It’s made by MSI the company, but in no way do you have to use it with an MSI brand of card or anything like that.
Now that MSI Afterburner is installed, let’s go through the key settings we’ll be using. For this card we’ll be focusing on our core clock and memory clock values from the middle section here.
One thing we’ll most likely need to do for many of these older AMD cards is extend the overclocking limit. To do this, first go to Properties, then check the box labeled “Extend Official Overclocking Limits”. You’ll then need to reboot your computer to open up a larger range of possible overclocks.
Now that that’s done, let’s look at the other features. You can reset your settings back to default by clicking the reverse arrow at the bottom. Once you’re satisfied with your changes, you can click the check button to apply them. You can save your current settings to a profile by clicking the Save button and then clicking on one of the profiles along the right hand side. Finally, you can have the current settings automatically apply at Windows startup by clicking the Windows icon in the upper right corner.
Now I’m going to put a list of known successful HD 5450 overclocks on the screen as well as in the video description. Every card is different, but this should give you a good starting point for potential overclock values that may work for you.
Now that we’ve locked in potential overclock settings, we’re going to want to test them. We’re going to run through five programs with benchmarks to test our overclock for stability and performance.
What I’ll do is run through all five benchmarks using stock settings to obtain base level performance numbers. I’ll then select a moderate initial increase in both core clock and memory clock settings. I’ll then run through the Unigine benchmark tool over and over while increasing the overclock values slightly each time.
Once the settings have been pushed too far and I start seeing crashing, graphical glitches, or any type of odd behavior, I’ll dial back the settings to what they were just previously when everything was still working smoothly. At that point I now have a solid idea of where the sweet spot is for overclocking my particular card. I can either stick with those settings or try tweaking things just a little further.
After a number of tests, this particular card was able to reach a solid overclock of 820 MHz core clock and 650 MHz memory clock.
So let’s run through each of the five benchmarks to see how the HD 5450 performed. First up is 3DMark 06, the popular benchmarking standard. Running at 800×600 in low settings, the original test came in with a score of 38.30. After overclocking, overall score improved to 48.59. That’s an increase of 26.9 percent, so it’s looking promising so far.
Next up we’ve got CS GO benchmark map. Running at 800×600 with all the settings turned to the lowest values, the initial test achieved an overall average FPS of 42.4. After overclocking, average FPS increased to 55.7. That’s an increase of 31.4 percent. Some excellent results to be had here.
Third on the list is Just Cause 2 demo benchmark. Running at 800×600 and settings turned down to the lowest values, our initial average FPS was 39.4. After overclock, average FPS increased to 49.7. That’s an increase of 26.1 percent. An impressive improvement here as well.
Benchmark number four is Unigine Superposition benchmark tool. Running at the 720p Low preset, the initial results achieved a score of 523. After overclocking, the score improved to 668. This represents an increase of 27.7 percent. Some excellent improvement here.
Now for benchmark 5 I wanted to find something that would run that was as new as possible. Impressively, that was Borderlands 3. Running at the lowest possible settings of 720p, 50 percent resolution scaling, and everything turned down as low as it would go, the initial average FPS achieved was 7.8. After overclocking, overall average FPS increased to 9.8. That’s an increase of 25.6 percent. A great increase for sure, but still pretty far short of a playable experience for this game.
So there you have it. The Radeon HD 5450 in all its glory. It’s certainly a weak card and well past its prime. However, it’s quite the impressive overclocker as well.
If you have any experiences with this card, post a comment in the video and let us know!
MSI Afterburner download page:
