We recently reviewed the ATI Radeon HD4550 and HD4350 chipsets. Our conclusion stated that these cards would be perfect additions for the HTPC user looking to upgrade to hardware accelerated BD playback and 8-channel LPCM audio output via HDMI. We just received our first retail HD4350 product from MSI. It is available now for $39.99 (a $10 rebate is also available this month).
We are still testing this card along with several other budget video cards and processors for our final IGP Chronicles article. However, we wanted to provide a quick update on the H.264 playback and power consumption results with a couple of popular processors from Intel and AMD, the dual-core E5200 and 4850e.
The MSI R4350-D512H is a half height card design that features a large heatsink for passive cooling duties. The card includes 512MB of GDDR2 memory with a core clock at 600MHz and memory clock at 500MHz. MSI includes a driver CD and instruction manual only. Unfortunately, an ATI DVI-HDMI adapter is not included in the kit. We feel this is a mistake on MSI's part, as the card should find its way into many HTPC solutions.
The adapter is available online for $10 (the price of that rebate from MSI) or a friend might already have one if they recently purchased a HD4670, HD4850, or HD4870 card as most manufacturers included them in their kits. The R4350 supports dual-link DVI so resolutions up to 2560x1600 are possible. The chipset specifications are available here.
Let's take a quick look at the BD playback performance of the MSI R4350.
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JarredWalton - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
I suppose using a DVI-to-HDMI adapter is simply not acceptable to the HTPC market? Given more people currently use DVI and HTPC is a relatively small market, I think it makes sense to support DVI first with an adapter for HDMI rather than to have an HDMI port and require the adapter for DVI.brentpresley - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
Considering Audio over HDMI is a KEY SELLING point in the HTPC market, and you can't pipe Audio over DVI through a converter . . .Yes, it is an issue.
In the future, you might want to know more about what you are talking about before you make snide remarks. ;)
derek85 - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
No it works. The DVI-HDMI adaptors utilizes few pins that DVI does not use to pass audio signals.3DoubleD - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
Dude, you have no idea what you are talking about. DIRECTLY from the MSI website:http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&a...">http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func...o=130&am...
They included a special box 2/3s down the screen to explain to special people like you why they don't include native HDMI ports.
3DoubleD - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
Just to clarify to save you a trip to the MSI website, I'm saying the DVI port definitely supports LPCM 7.1 as long as you use their special DVI to HDMI dongle.strikeback03 - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
The AMD DVI to HDMI adapter can pass audio over HDMI...DeesTroy - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
While there's no doubt that the 4350 can support Blu-Ray playback, does it have enough power to do some of the 2.0 profile work like picture in picture dual stream playback? I'm pretty sure that ATI/AMD stated that the 4350 probably wouldn't support these features and your Blu-Ray tests might need to be updated to include a check of the dual stream playback. Also, how well does the 4350 do in the Silicon Optix HD HQV tests? While the test is somewhat subjective, we've seen before that low-end hardware sometimes stumbles in image quality compared to higher-end hardware.If these reviews would go just a step or 2 further and answer some of these types of questions, AT could easily become the best review site for the HTPC crowd. We're so severely overlooked by most sites.
rennya - Thursday, October 30, 2008 - link
UVD2 in 4350 (or any 4xxx cards) support picture-in-picture. It is post-processing that will be suspect.SpHeRe31459 - Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - link
But does it deinterlace 1080i properly? Cards at the super low end haven't had the shader power to do proper deinterlacing and/or 3:2 pulldown of 1080i. I know the HTPC community is dying to know if the low power, passive, Radeon HD 4350 has the goods.Baov - Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - link
With no hybrid crossfire, i don't see why people with 780G and 790GX should upgrade to this. Why not just get one of those cards higher up that don't do hybrid crossfire anyways?