ATI Radeon HD 4350 and 4550: Great HTPC Solutions
by Derek Wilson on September 30, 2008 12:45 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
We generally complain endlessly about graphics cards that purport to bring 3D capability to the masses, as they more often than not just bring frustration and dissatisfaction to end users who expect to be able to play the latest games without feeling like they're viewing a bad mosaic or some impressionist paintings. And these cards are not cards for gaming, but each does have its uses when chosen for the strengths of the card.
This hardware is currently where it's at for HTPCs. Both the 4550 and 4350 support 8-channel LPCM over HDMI. For the HTPC user, this makes these cards a great combination audio and video solution that is cheap, flexible, quiet/silent, and fully capable of accelerating video playback and passing high quality audio out to your sound system. Honestly, getting a $40 sound card isn't something some people think twice about, but with the added benefit of video decode acceleration these new parts should be fairly attractive to the HTPC crowd.
While some integrated solutions can offer the above, choice and flexibility are great things to have in a system. Now HTPC builders have the option of a passively cooled 4550 that can meet their audio and video needs, or a low profile 4350 that is very quiet even if it isn't completely silent. Without the need for onboard audio or video (for a strictly HTPC system using HDMI), we could see a lot more interesting options come available to end users looking to hook something up to their television.
Honestly, we wish the 4350 was an integrated part on current motherboards (and we would really prefer to see it passively cooled, but we'll have to wait and see if any manufacturers alter the reference design on this one). While it isn't a card designed for gaming, it is capable of showing gamers what they are missing. The 4350 offers performance that, while lack luster, wouldn't be a horrendous chain on the neck of game developers. Offering settings that enable playable frame rates at 800x600 or 1024x768 at a bare minimum on the 4350 would really raise the bar in some cases and allow developers to focus on making their games look better and play better. End users who wanted to try one of the more hard core games could see if it was for them with out the added headache that the current group of horribly underpowered integrated solutions offer.
As for the 4550, it really isn't enough faster than the 4350 to put it into another class of product in terms of 3D. The larger PCB and passive cooling solution make it a better fit for some specific situations, but if we are making the choice for one of these cards on game performance, at this level its really not going to make a big difference. Both cards kind of suck for any real gaming. If you need a card that can really give you a taste of what PC gaming can be, you still want the option to use it as an HTPC card (with 8 channel LPCM), and you don't care about silence, the 4670 is where its at. It still won't get you all the way to gaming nirvana, but for low resolutions it can offer some satisfaction.
The NVIDIA 9500 GT is priced between the 4550 and the 4670, but it doesn't offer all the features we want to see on an HTPC card. Performance does fall between the 4550 and the 4670, but as these numbers (and the rest of the numbers in our 4670 article show), the 4670 is really in another class. If we are going to recommend that you spend more money on a part to get game performance, our recommendation isn't going to be to spend an extra $15 on an NVIDIA card that only offers a little bit of a boost over something that is already under powered. Our recommendation would be to spend the extra $30 and get the 4670 that offers the capability of playing games with all the options turned on and up at low resolution (well, except for Cyrsis, but not even high end parts can do that).
Anyway, the point is that with cards in this class, you can't expect gaming performance. And even still we have cards that absolutely blow away integrated graphics. This really does highlight just how how horrible the performance of integrated solutions really is in comparison to any modern add-in graphics part. But that doesn't mean these cards don't have some value. Not everyone needs 3D, and these cards are priced very well. And more importantly, these cards offer a real solution to a problem HTPC builders have been faced with for a long time. The Radeon 4350 and 4550 offer quiet or silent video acceleration for full resolution blu-ray playback with the option of enabling 8 channel LPCM audio playback over HDMI. If you want to build an HTPC, one of these cards would be a very good fit.
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ThermoMonkey - Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - link
I like many other readers was interested in this article because of its HTPC title. We all know the article wasn't written for the HTPC audience. Oh wait, at the very end he says "This hardware is currently where it's at for HTPCs. Both the 4550 and 4350 support 8-channel LPCM over HDMI." This only added to my confusion.First, what exactly provides this 8-channel LPCM support?
Isn't that provided by an SPDIF connection from the sound card?
From what I understand this ATI card gets that SPDIF connection through the PCI BUS, connecting the graphics card to the motherboards sound card.
Now if anyone knows anything about the nVidia 9500GT card, they would know that it has an SPDIF input to pass audio through the HDMI. Isn't that 8-channel LPCM??? And isn't that 8-channel LPCM totally dependent on the sound card capabilities???
I know there isn't a graphics card out there that generates and provides audio, they can only pass it through. I would prefer the digital pass through to not be on PCI BUS because maybe I don't like low quality motherboard sound and want to send SPDIF signal from my high quality stand alone sound card to my graphics cards HDMI output.
Again Correct me If I'm wrong.
Nil Einne - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - link
You're wrong, as has already been mentioned BTW. Most/all? ATI cards of the 3xxx line and 4xxx line have a audin chip (usually Realtek I believe) for outputting digital audio over HDMI (only). Nvidia card don't have an audio chip although in some cases it's possible to connect audio from the mobo (or sound card) via an internal SP/DIF connector (basically a two pin cable) and you are then able to output audio over HDMI. However I'm not aware how widespread this is among Nvidia cards nor what the limitations are (it will obviously depend on your mobo/sound card but there will likely be additional limitations). AFAIK, it is not possible to get HDMI audio otherwise. While in theory it you could send it over the PCI-express bus, this isn't done that I'm aware of.This is mentioned in a number of places besides here BTW
Nil Einne - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - link
BTW, 'low quality motherboard sound' makes no sense. We're talking about a purely digital path here.Nil Einne - Thursday, February 5, 2009 - link
BTW, 'low quality motherboard sound' makes no sense. We're talking about a purely digital path here.puddnhead - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link
The headline "perfect HTPC cards" caught my eye and I thought, great, I'm really starting to feel the limitations of the integrated x1250 graphics of my 690g chipset for HD video playback, let me see what picking up one of these cards will do for me."Then I read the review and ... huh? You don't even LOOK at HTPC tasks like HD video playback! Just cookie cutter tests of the same old fps on standard games. LOL, who is building a low power, quiet HTPC to play games & only play games. You know what HTPC means right?
I don't understand the point of this review, it makes a claim in the title and then there is zilch in the actual text to support it. Huh?
JonnyDough - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link
"Using a $1450 processor, $240 mobo, $300 RAM and $400 PSU to test a $40 GPU is assanine. That does no service to the HTPC end user."Agreed. For gaming, rather than compare it to just modern GPUs, how about comparing it to my old X1650XT. It's HDCP enabled, although it lacks HDMI and sound. I had originally bought it for use in an HTPC although it never got there. How would one of these cards perform with my skt 939 2.0ghz Athlon X2 and 2GB's of ram. THAT is what I would make an HTPC out of. Forget buying a new processor JUST for an HTPC. Why bother when I can get a PS3?
Donkeyshins - Thursday, October 2, 2008 - link
When are we going to start seeing these cards - especially the HD4550 Passive - at retailers? So far the Egg doesn't have anything and a casual web search is not giving much either.Thanks!
Syclone - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link
These still don't seem to support lossless codecs that require protected path audio unfortunately (Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD MA). So the highest quality audio from blu-ray will be passed at lower quality.7Enigma - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link
I think the author may be in hiding after this article....but here's a hint if the previous 41 comments didn't sink in:Make sure your article title is backed up even remotely by the tests in the article itself.
Claiming something as great for one purpose, but testing it for irrelevant purposes does not a good article make.
I really would like to hear the reasoning behind how this card was tested.
TA152H - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link
I'm a little surprised there were no tests with the AMD IGP and these cards. Individually, they don't perform so well, but did Anandtech forget that AMD allowed their IGPs to work with discrete cards now, so you can get benefit of both. Assuming even a 30% boost, the 4550 would change pretty considerably in terms of what it can and can't do.Also, some people with older systems might be inclined to pop one of these in to run Vista on their older system. If these come in AGP, I'll surely buy a few, they are absolutely excellent cards for an incredibly low price. Sites like this can whine about what it isn't, but what is it will sell extremely well. The price is right, it will run Vista adequately, offloads work from the processor for playback, and is silent (the 4550 anyway). It's going to sell really well, especially for people with AMD IGPs that want them to work together. Again, it's a pity Anandtech didn't have the sense to try this out and see if it was worthwhile.