This blog post is about overclocking an ATI Radeon HD 5450 graphics card in Windows 10.
Warning: This blog post is for information only. I am not telling you what do to, but sharing what I did. You use any information in this blog post at your own risk! Don’t blame me for any problems or costs that arise from reading this blog post.
Introduction
I know the HD 5450 isn’t a great graphics card, but I like using it and I own a couple of these cheap PCIe cards. I am currently using one in a HP Compaq dx7500 and the other in a dx2420.
The ATI Radeon HD 5450 original’s GPU clock is 650MHz and the memory clock is 533MHz. The card I’ve overclocked has 1GB DDR3 RAM and doesn’t have a fan, just relying on the heatsink.
Without a doubt for my needs, I’ve used the HD 5450 for too long, but having recently spent money on other upgrades, I decided to see how I could get a bit more performance out of my existing hardware.
Overclocking Software
I did originally look at using the overdrive feature in the Radeon software, but it didn’t work. Rather than spend time trying to solve that issue, I decided to use the free MSI Afterburner software.
Benchmarking before making any changes
Before I overclocked the HD 5450 I decided to monitor the graphics card before and during game play and run a benchmarking test. I connected a second monitor to my computer and viewed the Afterburner software on the second display, whilst I browsed and played a game via my primary display.
I was surprised that whilst web browsing the minimum temperature was 68°C. Then whilst playing a skirmish game in Red Alert 3, the temperature increased to a maximum of 86°C.
I let the card cool down and then ran MSI Kombustor, achieving a score of 202 points (3 FPS), when running the benchmark option.
Overclock settings and testing
In MSI Afterburner I tested various settings, slowly increasing the settings in stages to see if it crashed. In the end I decided on a core (GPU) clock of 700MHz and set the memory clock to 630MHz.
When running Kombustor again, the score increased to 242 points and 4 FPS.
Again, I played a Red Alert 3 skirmish, using the same map and didn’t experiencing any stability issues. I even increased one of the graphics options from medium to high. When I finished playing the game, I looked at the temperature monitor, and it hadn’t gone beyond 86°C.
In Afterburner I saved the profile and selected the ‘Startup’ option, as I want the card to be overclocked each time I boot up.
Note: I used this overclocked graphics card for a few days before publishing this blog post. Whilst some of the usage hasn’t been intensive, I have played games and it has been stable without any crashing.
Conclusion
The HD 5450 isn’t a good graphics card and overclocking has minimal impact on performance. So whilst you can overclock a HD 5450, should you bother? That’s your decision. If you have the money for a better graphics card, then perhaps consider an upgrade if you need the increased performance.
I’m going to carry on overclocking the ATI Radeon graphics card. If the overclocking makes a small difference in performance, and I fail to notice, I’m okay with that.
I’m looking at other ways of increasing my computer’s performance, even if the results are minor, hoping all the tweaks combined help maximise my existing hardware and provide a better user experience.