Maximum PC

i dont know if i should trust ebay on this one but

Visiontek Radeon HD 5450 GFX PCI-E / PCI Express x16 Video Graphics Card
Powered by ATI Radeon HD5450
2GB High Speed DDR3 Memory
Compatible with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7
PCI Express 2.1 Support

Is it worth the buy compared to an $80 1Gb card???

I wouldn't. Even though it is 2 gigs, it's only GDDR3. Rather have GDDR5 and only 1 gig. Plus more memory is usually for larger resolutions.

but am i the only person that doesn't care about resolution lol i have currently set at 640x480

Then that would be a fantastic card for you.

Thanks for the help! i am looking forward to this

It really does matter what you're planning on doing with the card before anyone can tell you whether it's a good buy or not. If you're gonna leave it at 640x480 res and you don't want anything other than pictures on your screen, then it's a fine card. If you want it for anything besides HD playback, then @Airheadq was right the first time...stay away. There are a lot of things that go into GPU performance; array size, memory size, core speed, shader speed (nvidia only), memory speed, memory bus width, etc. This card is lacking in all of those areas if you have any intention of playing any recent games at a half-way decent resolution.

yeah i guess the way you put it, this isn't reealy what i want.... what would be a good graphics card under the $100 range?

For gaming, 6770 gets my vote for right around 90-100. If you can find a 6850 for $100 AR would be a killer deal.

But again, depends on what you plan to do with it.

Plenty of decent cards in the $100 range, but we need to know how it will be used in order to recommend a winner. What resolution is your display? Do you play games? If so, what titles are you likely frequent?

There are a lot of way to use a GPU these days. Folding@home, bitcoin mining, GPU video encoding, etc. If you tell us how you primarily use yours, it makes our side of the conversation SOOOOOO much easier, and our suggestions much more likely to be helpful.

If you do decide that spending Radeon 6850 type money is a possibility, you'd get more for your money from a Radeon 5830. The larger processing array makes a difference with newer games like skyrim once you start pushing the view distance, and moving the shading features toward ultra.

I will probably be using this card for HD video streaming/gaming/video production.... i should of said it earlier

well what kind of games... minecraft or skyrim level?

rotfl low end games like portal or yes, minecraft

Hmmm...well you probably could get away with a 5450. Here's the thing though, the 2GB isn't really a selling point. It's not about the DDR3 vs. DDR5 either.

The 2nd GB of DDR3 to some degree makes up for the fact that the memory is slower. Whether you're talking about a CPU-centric, or GPU-centric processing system, adding even slower memory will help overall performance provided that he software will make use of it. Games, especially once you start adding layers of post processing eye candy, will use every available kilobyte. So the more memory the better. My problem with this design if the fact that all this VRAM sits on a skinny 64-bit bus.

The newer high-end Radeons based on Cayman have already showed us that it's possible to clog the pipes with over 1GB GDDR5 sitting on a 256-bit bus (4 times as wide) processing loads like Skyrim on ultra detail. The 7000 series is right around the corner, and if rumors are true, AMD will be widening the road again to support up to 3GB GDDR5, or possibly some unspecified amount of XDR2.

Point is, if you were attracted to the original card because of the amount of available video memory, it's doubtful that you would have ever realized the potential performance benefit of the full 2GB. Between the tiny GPU array (80 stream processors (16 x 5-D shader cores)) not being able to fill the VRAM with data, and the tiny memory bus further hampering performance, it's a card more at home in a HTPC than it is in a system meant for any kind of gaming.

The 6770 that was mentioned previously is obviously a more well rounded card, and far more capable in any multimedia environment that the 5450 would be. However, if your predilection for gaming truly does tend toward the low end, and the price is right, you may be able to get away with the 5450. A lot of that will depend on WHAT RESOLUTION YOU ARE RUNNING!!! <--- still waiting for that important juicy little detail...

I play minecraft on my 7900gs while my triple SLI system plays folding... lol

640x480 for all i care. so a higher resolution would be nice but i dont really care.

Really?! Wow. Go cheap then. You probably don't even need a video card if you have a halfway decent integrated solution in place. Portal @ 640x480 wouldn't even tax my netbook...

is this for a front mounted lcd for your case?