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

#26
tkpenalty
looks like that card will be replacing my 8800GT which has a similar cooling solution to that :)

would love to bolt a half height slow 120mm fan onto it :D

EDIT: NOOO MY PRECIOUS STARS D:
Posted on Reply
#27
gumpty
wolfnot a fan of this card.
This card doesn't care ... it doesn't need fans! :roll:



Seriously though ... :eek: ... this looks awesome for those of us that crave silence. Get two of these crossfired and just plonk a low-rpm 120mm or 140mm fan across the top of them (pushing or pulling - probably wouldn't matter) = dead silent gaming. Brilliant.

I imagine the people at silentpcreview just got a hard on.
Posted on Reply
#28
Hayder_Master
i don't know how they thing to made gaming graphic card with no fan Dispersion the hot air in heat sink
or maybe they should say please to make this product work u should pay 100$ for good case with good air cooling and be sure there is a side fan for the graphic card, and better if there back fans too to take hot air from the card please:D
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#29
micropage7
actually look nice, PowerColor push the card to the silent area, from the heat pipe it really looks serious :twitch:
Posted on Reply
#30
pantherx12
bear jesusWith 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.
I wouldn't strap fans to them, they look heavy as BS already :laugh:

Side-panel fan I would go for, although with a shroud between it and the side panel ( firstly reduces turbulence from the mesh/grill of the side panel which is nice obviously, and second the fans will be pretty much touching the side of the heat-sink in a 20cm wide case. )

BAM epic cooling, I had a set up like that with a thermalright t-rad2 in passive mode ( fan brackets are removed) and I could run my 4850 with a massive over-clock completely passive and still have better temperatures than the stock cooling solution :laugh:
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#31
bear jesus
pantherx12I wouldn't strap fans to them, they look heavy as BS already :laugh:

Side-panel fan I would go for, although with a shroud between it and the side panel ( firstly reduces turbulence from the mesh/grill of the side panel which is nice obviously, and second the fans will be pretty much touching the side of the heat-sink in a 20cm wide case. )

BAM epic cooling, I had a set up like that with a thermalright t-rad2 in passive mode ( fan brackets are removed) and I could run my 4850 with a massive over-clock completely passive and still have better temperatures than the stock cooling solution :laugh:
Good point with the weight, i have not used a case for a long time so when i was strapping multiple fans to my 4870 they were resting on the motherboard just being held against the heatsink and not supported by the 4 tiny little screws that hold the heatsink on :laugh:


The T-rad is one hell of a cooler, i must admit i want something crazy big to put on a 6970, maybe a thermalright shaman :D
Posted on Reply
#32
pantherx12
I'm running without a case atm would just have a fan somewhere blowing at them anyway XD
Posted on Reply
#33
bear jesus
pantherx12I'm running without a case atm would just have a fan somewhere blowing at them anyway XD
:laugh: to be honest i have a bunch of fans all around mine trying to keep every single part cool, a heat sink like this one would go great with my setup... just a shame I'm not looking to downgrade to a 6850 :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#34
WarEagleAU
Bird of Prey
awesome. AMD really came a long way with heat and power envelope. Not sure Id go with passive, I love cooling, fan noise isn't much of a concern unless its like them Sanyo Denki's or server fans.
Posted on Reply
#35
Cheeseball
Not a Potato
I'm betting, like the other PowerColor cards, they screwed up by placing a cheaper voltage controller and cheaper PCB (that's the reason why it's not the cool-looking black). :P
Posted on Reply
#36
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
CheeseballI'm betting, like the other PowerColor cards, they screwed up by placing a cheaper voltage controller and cheaper PCB (that's the reason why it's not the cool-looking black). :P
It's the other way round. PowerColor uses higher-grade components (such as digital PWM, Volterra-made voltage controller) on its SCS3 and Go! Green cards.
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#37
Cheeseball
Not a Potato
Well, I'm not sure about the SCS3 and Go! series. (AFAIK, I do remember hearing that the HD 5750 Go! does have a better voltage controller.) But if you've ever seen or used the PCS and PCS+ series, you'll know they used a cheaper voltage controller and thinner PCB. The only thing good about PCS/PCS+ is the custom HSF they use, but even that could take a backseat. (2pin non-PWM fans, like the Accelero L2)
Posted on Reply
#38
filip007
Well you can still put a fan on it with RPM control.
Posted on Reply
#39
Unregistered
Black HadesLooks like the radiator I use to heat up my room.
Except this one is for cooling!! :rolleyes:

But the thing is, while that radiator will cool the card, it will also ON THE SAME TIME, warm the inside of you case, because, like Black said, it acts just like a heating radiator. So If I would buy this sucker I would definitely put at least 1 120mm high flow fan. ;)
#40
pantherx12
TAViXExcept this one is for cooling!! :rolleyes:

But the thing is, while that radiator will cool the card, it will also ON THE SAME TIME, warm the inside of you case, because, like Black said, it acts just like a heating radiator. So If I would buy this sucker I would definitely put at least 1 120mm high flow fan. ;)
I'm sure a side panel fan and a decent exhaust would be plenty for these bad boys : ]
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