PowerColor ATI Radeon AX3450 512 MB DDR2 DVI PCI-Express Video Card 512MD2-H - Retail

I bought this card to set up additional displays to my computer. Although it worked and eventually met my expectations, buyer BEWARE! 1) This card is "thick" and may overlap with nearby slots. It did with my computer (Gateway GT5694) and caused me a bit of trouble. I would definitely not recommend this card with this particular computer. 2) Although there are 3 video ports, I could only get 2 to work in various combinations. 3) Getting this card to work in combination with integrated graphics (HD 3200) took a bit of effort. Latest version of Catalyst Control Center did NOT help. Installing the driver/software that comes with the card (Catalyst 8.3, I think) and disabling Crossfire did make the integrated graphics video ports.

Despite the cons of getting the card to work, overall I am satisfied with it, considering I was unwilling to spend an additional few dollars for another brand.

I got this card because it was one of the two that could be used in a Hybrid Crossfire configuration with my Radeon HD 4200 built-in graphics on my Asus M4A785TD-M EVO motherboard.

I thought surely it would boost my graphics performance, as I had read that any discrete video card (even an entry level card) would be a great improvement over motherboard graphics. Well, that is not correct.

First of all, when used alone (motherboard graphics turned off), the icons on the windows desktop were less sharp than with the onboard graphics.

And the telling measurement was the Windows Experience Score. Using my onboard graphics chip, I scored 5.0 in Windows Aero and 5.6 in gaming.

This video card scored worse - 3.6 for Windows Aero and 5.5 for gaming.

And when crossfire was enabled, it only raised the gaming score to 5.6. The Aero score stayed at 3.6. I was able to get it a little bit higher with some overclocking, but only...Read more