Customer Reviews

Asus ATI Radeon HD3450 512 MB DVI/VGA/HDMI Low Profile AGP Video Card AH3450/DI/512MD2(LP)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is an excellent card for a non-gamer.

The above reviewer has it backwards. The GPU is underpowered for gaming. The memory is more than the GPU can likely utilize but there MAY be some applications that can utilize more than 256MB, especially if you have a dual-monitor setup.

Other:
- Great drop-in for motherboards with underpowered on-board graphics.
- Not a modern gaming card though some games with low requirements, especially some older games may run fine.
- Dedicated memory instead of sharing onboard RAM. Very useful if you are extremely limited in onboard RAM (freeing up 128MB out of 1024MB does help)
- The UVD can decode AVC/H.264 and VC-1 1080p video (or lower). You likely need to install the free application "K-Lite" ([...]) and ensure DXVA is enabled. Very useful especially if your CPU was previously underpowered. Just watched Hellboy (1080p, MKV, AVC, DTS 6-channel). My X2-4800+ CPU used 65% of its cycles without DXVA enabled (no hardware graphics decoding) and 3% (THREE PERCENT) with it enabled. Vista or Windows 7 used 10% more on average for the Windows overhead but movies still didn't go above 20%.
- full Aero support
- There is essentially NO noticeable difference between most modern graphics cards. Differences in the Windows interface performance are usually due to differences in the Hard Drive speeds or amount of RAM. A fast SSD and at least 2GB of RAM (with this card and probably any dual-core CPU) will provide the best experience for multi-tasking and the basic Windows experience.

Conclusion:
An awesome little card that is adequate for most non-gamers and can provide a nice boost in various ways for older computers.

Quick, easy installation. I have a multiboot PC with XP, Vista Ultimate and Win7 Ultimate, and had no issues with install on any OS. Total installation time took less then 15 minutes. This card blew my old ATI Radeon 9600 right out of the water. Output is excellent. VGA was clear and crisp on my LCD monitor, as was the DVI, and the HDMI quality was flawless on my HDTV, and the digital audio through the HDMI was crystal clear. However, I did not know it had to be plugged into one of the Molex power cords. Since I had all of mine in use with the two optical drives and 6 hard disks, I just spliced in an extra connector I had from a dead PSU, and everything worked out pristine. Excellent card for the dollar.

Got it working on a Old Dell 4600 (Pentium IV HT), now my Home Theater PC. No need for a new power supply. I was a little worried about the audio over HDMI but it worked perfectly. Very satisfied.

This video card does what it promises--provides the ability to display HDMI video, and play Blu-Ray disks. But the fan may for no apparent reason begin to make quite a loud whine or howl. I have had powerful video cards before, but this is by far the loudest fan of all. You can hear it in the next room. At first I thought the fan in the PSU was failing. Because of the fan, this computer is far louder than my HTPC, which has 4 fans, 4 HD drives, and a 750-watt power supply. If only it was quiet, it would be perfect.

I installed this card on a older (2003) Pentium 4 Gateway running Windows XP. It requires a Molex power cord, and luckily I had an extra one in the case. Popped the CD in, the software installed smoothly, and then I hooked up my HDTV with the VGA and HDMI outputs. Everything works fine, including sound on HDMI. A nice way to get HDMI output for the money.

The main issue I have with this package is that the card does not come with the drivers. Without the drivers, this card is useless. I've wasted several days looking through the internet and downloading drivers that were supposed to be with this card but did not work. I did managed to find the correct one on some forum. After getting the drivers install and testing it out, the graphics was what I expected running at 1080p. The problem I have with it is that the audio is not coming out from the HDMI of the card. Tired of fiddling around and just used the analog plug-in on the motherboard to take care of that. The lesson learned, when buying refurbish cards, make sure you can look inside to see if everything is there; otherwise, you be spending a lot more time making it work.

This graphics card is a good performer (finally). I removed old drivers (using DriverCleaner.net) and then upgraded to the new drivers from AMD/ATI as of March 24, 2010. Re-ran the user-experience assement which reported a 5.4 graphics rating. The drivers from the ASUS web-site were dated and did not work correctly under the Windows 7 / SP1. The old driver would not complete the user experience assessment and require the system to be rebooted.

Please note that this card has a built-in HDMI Driver which can interfere with USB devices on your system. Be sure run the ATI HDMI Driver Package for Windows 7 - which corrected the problem. I disabled the sound driver on my motherboard and removed a creative sound blaster card. I then ran a HDMI cable from the graphics card to the monitor.

Installs easily. The position of the molex power connector makes it a tight fit if there is an adjacent card. I got a "system battery voltage is low error" that resolved with upgrading my power supply from a 200W to a 400W power supply (product site doesn't report minimum computer requirements). I kept losing signal to the HDTV, so I figured it was the drivers. After weeks of searching, downloading, installing, and uninstalling drivers, my 70 year old mother figured out it was the HDMI plug not making a good connection. It turns out that the way the holes are positioned on the bracket, I couldn't fully seat the HDMI connector. I simply installed the card without the bracket, and viola! No problems. The included drivers worked without issue. Excellent video AND audio to my HDTV via the HDMI interface, but I can't comment on gaming.

People who manage to get this card installed seem to like it. I tried to install this card with no success. I am not a novice. No amount of advice from tech support was helpful; they want you to remove EVERY DEVICE installed on the motherboard, including the memory, to see if the speaker then goes beep. REALLY? I did some looking online and discovered that ATI Radeon-based cards are not compatible with VIA KT400 chipsets, which are common on MSI motherboards and probably other boards from the AGP-slot era. This is obviously a known issue if it is all over the web, yet they keep selling these cards and claiming ignorance. Note that this card is sold from Electronica Direct through Amazon. Their return process seems intentionally confusing, with no link to a returns page. You have to read their return policy, locate the web address - [...] - which does not have www. printed so it doesn't appear as a link. Their return policy states that they refund only the current market price for the defective part, and no shipping. That's quite a scam. Sell something that doesn't work, lower the price, wait for the return, collect the 10 or 20 dollar difference, then send the part out again. In the end, they have made good money plus they still have the product. Are these guys from Wall Street?

I needed to replace an integrated video in a Dell Deminsion 4600 so I could hook up a HDMI monitor. Was reasonably painless installation with very good results.