Wednesday, November 24th 2010

PowerColor Readies First Passive-Cooled HD 6850 Graphics Card

by
btarunr
 Discuss (40 Comments)
PowerColor is readying the first AMD Radeon HD 6850 graphics card that features a passive cooler, a completely silent cooling solution. The company is currently evaluating a new design that makes use of a large GPU heatsink featuring an aluminum fin array that ensures the card occupies just two expansion slots, while adding surface area by propagating to the top of the card, in an L-shape. The heatsink uses no less than five heat pipes to convey heat to the fins. PowerColor's card will be branded under the company's "SCS3" line of silent graphics cards. Based on the 40 nm "Barts" silicon, the AMD Radeon HD 6850 features 960 stream processors, and 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. Availability and pricing is unknown as the design is yet to be finalized.

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40 Comments on PowerColor Readies First Passive-Cooled HD 6850 Graphics Card

#1
SNICK
diesel engine !
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#3
LifeOnMars
Silent and fugly, much like Vinnie Jones in "Gone in 60 seconds" :)
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#4
Black Hades
Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit... that's a whole lot of heat-spreader.
Looks like the radiator I use to heat up my room.
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#5
niko084
Now zip tie or double sided tape 1 or 2 nice fans on that and clock the piss out it!
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#6
the54thvoid
Super Intoxicated Moderator
Two of these crossfired with a nice case (Silverstone Fortress FT02), a quiet psu and a good cpu cooler and you get a silent and utterly brilliant gaming rig. Get a windowed case and it'll look like inside a car engine.

Good on Powercolor - silent PC's kick ass.
Posted on Reply
#7
cadaveca
My name is Dave
I want one. NAOW!

:laugh:
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#8
blibba
the54thvoidTwo of these crossfired with a nice case (Silverstone Fortress FT02), a quiet psu and a good cpu cooler and you get a silent and utterly brilliant gaming rig. Get a windowed case and it'll look like inside a car engine.

Good on Powercolor - silent PC's kick ass.
You'd need triple spacing just to fit them on the same board, and even then I fear the airflow over the primary card might be too restricted, especially with near-silent case fans.
Posted on Reply
#9
fochkoph
Glad to see we've reached the point where mainstream cards are cool enough to run passively. Great day for us folk who chase absolute silence.

What's with the red PCB? I know AMD/ATi is known for the color red, but get with the program PowerColor...black!
Posted on Reply
#10
_JP_
I WANT TWO! PRONTO!
For the zip tie idea, depending on how long the heatsinks are, you could attatch a 120/140mm fan to the side of the cards to blow the air from the cards to the side vent of the case, at least, that's my idea.
As for the color, Powercolor/Club3D cards always have been red with very few exceptions, if any, regardless of the reference card color.
Posted on Reply
#11
niko084
_JP_I WANT TWO! PRONTO!
For the zip tie idea, depending on how long the heatsinks are, you could attatch a 120/140mm fan to the side of the cards to blow the air from the cards to the side vent of the case, at least, that's my idea.
You could... And that would work at least very well for stock clocks or maybe a mild overclock, but drawing air away the way it would be attached is pretty indirect so it wouldn't work as well...

Be curious to see some results from it.
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#12
n-ster
now make it single slot :p
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#13
lism
Combined with a nice airflow in your case this is an ideal card.
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#14
mechtech
I think its kinda sexy. I wouldn't mind one either, but I think an SSD is higher on the "to upgrade list" than this ;)
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#15
D4S4
slap on a 500 rpm 120mm fan on it and it will be really cool.
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#16
Disparia
Passive and they remembered to leave an open area for the crossfire bridge? I'm hard for PowerColor!
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#17
meirb111
nice you could bake a 3d pizza on it
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#18
cauby
that heatsink sure looks heavy.
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#19
PopcornMachine
That might be the perfect new graphics card for my case.

I have a 200mm Cooler Master MegaFlow 200 fan on the side. :)

Two would be even better. :cool:
Posted on Reply
#20
_JP_
niko084You could... And that would work at least very well for stock clocks or maybe a mild overclock, but drawing air away the way it would be attached is pretty indirect so it wouldn't work as well...

Be curious to see some results from it.
As long as it could move some air, it would be good enough. But I've remembered that when Powercolor did a passive version of the HD 5750, it came with vRAM heatsinks and on VRMs too. I hope this one has them as well.
I also want to see a review.
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#21
pantherx12
Ooooooh looks awesome, if they extended the heatsink further on the back side I'm sure this would work on a 6870 nicely.

I want one too as I love passive cooling :D
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#22
wolf
Better Than Native
not a fan of this card.
Posted on Reply
#23
Trigger911
That thing would make an awesome grill peice on my truck haha .. looks sweet tho
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#24
Drone
I don't give a crap about its looks. As long as it does its work and does it good I'm fine.
Posted on Reply
#25
bear jesus
With 5 heat pipes and a massive amount of such large fins it looks like it will do a great job keeping it cool, i admit if i had one i would strap a couple of truly silent fans to it.. saying that with a couple silent fans I'm sure it would do a great job cooling a 6870 even when overclocked.
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