AMD Radeon HD 6350A

Power and Cooling

The AMD Radeon HD 6350A is a remarkably power-efficient component, with a thermal design power of just 25 W. This low TDP places it firmly in the entry-level segment, where thermal management is straightforward and the demands on system power delivery are minimal. The data indicates that this is a part designed for compact, low-power systems rather than high-performance gaming rigs.

The board is built on the MXM Module form factor, which is a standardized mobile PCI Express module used primarily in laptops and all-in-one systems. Specifically, it utilizes the MXM-A (3.0) bus interface. This form factor dictates that the card is not a traditional desktop expansion card but rather a replaceable mobile graphics module. Consequently, the physical installation and power delivery are handled through the MXM connector on the motherboard, rather than through a dedicated power connector on the card itself. The FACT PACK lists no power connector requirements and no suggested PSU wattage, which is consistent with a 25 W part that draws all its power from the MXM slot. For system integrators, this means no additional power cabling is necessary, simplifying the build process for portable or space-constrained devices.

Given the 40 nm process node from TSMC and the modest transistor count of 292 million on a 59 mm² die, the power envelope is inherently small. The transistor density of 4.9M / mm² is typical for that era of manufacturing. In practical terms, a 25 W TDP means that even a small cooling solution, such as a passive heatsink or a low-profile fan, is more than sufficient to maintain stable operating temperatures. The absence of a suggested PSU rating in the data further underscores that this is not a component that stresses system power budgets; any standard power supply for an all-in-one or laptop chassis would be adequate. The key takeaway is that the HD 6350A’s power characteristics are a core feature, enabling its deployment in thermally and electrically constrained environments where larger discrete GPUs cannot fit.

Memory Subsystem

The memory configuration of the Radeon HD 6350A is decidedly modest, which directly impacts its performance ceiling. It is equipped with 512 MB of DDR3 memory, operating on a 64-bit bus. The memory clock is set at 800 MHz, translating to an effective data rate of 1600 Mbps. These specifications combine to yield a total memory bandwidth of 12.80 GB/s.

This bandwidth figure is a critical bottleneck for the GPU. For context, in modern graphics cards, bandwidth is often measured in hundreds of GB/s. The 12.80 GB/s available here is an order of magnitude lower, which means that the GPU will frequently stall waiting for texture and geometry data to be fetched from memory. At high resolutions, such as 1080p or above, the frame buffer of 512 MB is quickly exhausted, forcing the driver to swap data in and out of system memory via the PCIe bus, which is far slower. This results in significant stuttering and reduced frame rates in graphically intensive scenes. The 64-bit bus width, while typical for entry-level cards of this generation, further compounds the issue by limiting the amount of data that can be transferred per clock cycle.

For an analyst, the data suggests that this card is not intended for high-resolution gaming. The 512 MB VRAM is sufficient for basic desktop usage, legacy titles, or low-detail 3D applications at lower resolutions like 720p. The low bandwidth will cause performance to degrade sharply as resolution and texture detail increase. Benchmark results would show that the card struggles to maintain playable frame rates in any modern game at high settings, and its memory subsystem is the primary reason. The pixel rate of 2.600 GPixel/s and texture rate of 5.200 GTexel/s are also low, but they are in line with the memory limitations; the card simply cannot feed its own processing units fast enough to utilize them fully.

Ray Tracing and Feature Set

The Radeon HD 6350A is built on the TeraScale 2 architecture, which predates the introduction of dedicated ray tracing and tensor cores. The FACT PACK explicitly lists no data for RT cores or tensor cores, confirming that this GPU has no hardware acceleration for ray tracing or AI-based features such as DLSS. Any ray-traced workloads would have to be handled by the shader units, which are limited to 80 shading units, 8 texture mapping units, and 4 render output units. This would result in extremely poor performance, making the card unsuitable for any modern ray-traced application.

In terms of software API support, the card supports DirectX 11.2 (with a feature level of 11_0) and OpenGL 4.4. There is no Vulkan support listed. This API set is reflective of its 2011 release era. DirectX 11_0 enables features like tessellation and compute shaders, which were advanced at the time but are now considered baseline. The lack of Vulkan is notable, as many modern games and emulators rely on it for lower overhead and better multi-threading performance. Consequently, the HD 6350A would be incompatible with a growing number of newer titles that require Vulkan or later DirectX versions. The feature set is therefore a historical snapshot, not a forward-looking specification. While it can run older DirectX 9/10/11 titles, its feature set is a clear limitation for any contemporary workload.

How It Compares

The FACT PACK provides no nearest rivals for the AMD Radeon HD 6350A. The `nearestRivals` array is empty, and the `avgBenchmarkScore` is 0. This places the card in a unique position where direct comparative data against specific competing models is unavailable in this dataset. However, the `percentileVsAllGpus` field is listed at 50, which indicates that the card performs better than 50% of all GPUs in the benchmark database. This is a surprisingly high percentile for such a low-power part, but it likely reflects the fact that the database contains many older, even less capable integrated graphics solutions and legacy discrete cards.

Without specific rival names or scores, a comparative analysis must be framed around the percentile ranking. A 50th percentile ranking suggests that the HD 6350A is positioned directly in the middle of the performance distribution for all GPUs tracked. This does not mean it is a mid-range performer in absolute terms; rather, it indicates that half of the GPUs in the database are slower. This is plausible given the large number of very old or integrated GPUs that would be included in such a comprehensive list. The card’s 104.0 GFLOPS of FP32 performance is a concrete metric, but without a rival's GFLOPS figure to compare against, it is difficult to contextualize. The data shows that this is a card with no direct peer group in the provided information, making any claim of superiority or inferiority to a specific model unsupported. It exists as a standalone data point, defined only by its own specifications and its aggregate percentile position.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark data for the AMD Radeon HD 6350A is sparse. The `benchmarks` array is empty, and the `avgBenchmarkScore` is explicitly listed as 0. This indicates that no specific benchmark scores have been recorded or associated with this card in the current dataset. Consequently, there are no exact percentage deltas to analyze against any rival, because no rival scores are provided.

What can be analyzed is the theoretical performance derived from its specifications. The FP32 compute performance is rated at 104.0 GFLOPS. To put this in perspective, this is a very low number by modern standards, but it is consistent with the card’s 80 shading units and its 25 W TDP. The pixel fillrate of 2.600 GPixel/s and texture fillrate of 5.200 GTexel/s are similarly constrained. These figures suggest that the card can handle basic 2D rendering and very light 3D loads, but it will falter under any substantial geometry or pixel-shading workload.

Given the `percentileVsAllGpus` of 50, the data implies that despite having zero recorded benchmark scores, the card occupies a median position in the overall performance hierarchy. This is an unusual statistical artifact. It suggests that if a score were to be generated, it would land at the midpoint of the database's performance range. For an analyst, this means the HD 6350A is not an outlier on the low end; there are many worse-performing GPUs in the database. However, this percentile does not translate to a usable gaming experience in modern titles. The combination of 512 MB VRAM, 64-bit memory bus, and 12.80 GB/s bandwidth creates a hard ceiling on performance. The data indicates that while the card is not the absolute worst, its architecture and memory subsystem are fundamentally obsolete for demanding applications, and any comparative benchmark would show it lagging significantly behind even entry-level discrete GPUs from the subsequent decade. The lack of concrete scores, however, prevents a precise numerical comparison, leaving the analysis to rely on the clear limitations of its hardware specifications.