Mr. Taylor,

I think sarcasm is out of place in your comments about the AMD 3450 video card. It is a low end card: why expect it to run top end games well? In particular why waste your bile on it? If the 3870 was crap then your attitude would be reasonable.

In any case, the Inq is generally the best tech news rag out there, try to keep up the good work.

This product has been available for ages now. We have around 4 in our office somewhere. Problem is that the software that controls it is not very good and locks windows until it gets a response from the launcher, not good!

What is the sense then on testing a low end gfx card with games that are completely irrelevant? Why lap Nurburgring in a mini van and claim it's a terrible performance car and nobody should buy it?

If your not serious about gaming, you'll probably get a card like the 3450, because you won't have/want to spend any more money, you also won't buy many games, therefore you won't worry about lost value, nor care much about eye candy.

You also won't be the kind to brag in forums about the size and prowess of your rig.

Turn down some graphics detail to more moderate settings, don't use AA or AF - more than 100% playable framerates , even in Crysis, which I've seen playable on a X1300 gpu with the detail off.




But this is the first review I've ever seen that's actually brings you in-game futtage from a game played on a certain GPU so you can actually see how much or how little FPS means in games.

For all games except X3: Reunion the games ran what I would say acceptable for my taste.

Not all gamers have the luxury of playing the newest games on shiny new 30 inch monitors and for that don't need to play games at ultra high settings.

I can only hope for that will see more of this kind of reviews with in-game futtage in the future as this gives you a much better knowledge of how a certain card performs!

A low cost ($50) DX10 card with ok gaming performance. Haha.