Powercolor Preparing Non-Reference HD 4890 PCS

[btarunr]

Barely a week into the launch of Radeon HD 4890, AMD's partners are already emerging ready with non-reference PCB and cooler designs for the card. One of the first in the league is Powercolor Radeon HD 4890 PCS (Professional Cooling System), a name given to the card owing to its superior cooling system and factory-overclocked parameters. The company seems to have worked on a non-reference PCB design.

The 10-layer PCB breaks away from the reference design with its simpler VRM area consisting of standard chokes and MOSFETs. The design-approach is known to greatly reduce manufacturing costs. The GPU is cooled by a Zerotherm cooler with a large central fan, and aluminum fins to which heat is conveyed by four heat-pipes. The card will feature a rather high clock speeds of 950/1100 MHz (core/memory), against the reference speeds of 850/975 MHz. The price isn't known at this point in time, though we don't expect it to be priced much higher, looking at the design.



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[kenkickr]

I like that Zerotherm HSF.

 

[theorw]

memory heatsinks...????

 

[nafets]

Could be a pre-production shot. I'd assume there would be heatsinks on the memory and VRM area for retail cards, considering the factory OC of 950/1100.

Hopefully they have thoroughly tested the cards at those speeds. Powercolor had problems before with non-reference/modified reference HD4870s back when they first came out last year...

 

[ShadowFold]

memory heatsinks...????

My GDDR5 memory doesn't get hot at all and it doesn't have sinks. Tho the VRM's are going to need them!

 

[Basard]

when will they start integrating a little metal circle to the top of the memory chip, replacing the black ceramic stuff, so it makes contact with the die inside.....? thus allowing effective heat transfer.... then our ram will hit 4ghz easy

 

[soryuuha]

lol at the fan wire

 

[1Kurgan1]

Thats some crazy clocks for a card to come out of the box with.

 

[WarEagleAU]

the memory shouldnt need it with the cooling apparatus, but the VRM could benefit greatly.

 

[SparkyJJO]

the memory shouldnt need it with the cooling apparatus, but the VRM could benefit greatly.

That's what I was thinking. The VRMs on my 4870 get burning hot even with a heatsink on them. Even my X1900 got really hot and it had a heatsink too.

 

[theorw]

That's what I was thinking. The VRMs on my 4870 get burning hot even with a heatsink on them. Even my X1900 got really hot and it had a heatsink too.

Μy 1900 was waaaay too hot too!!Anyway,theres a chance not to put anything even on the VRM area but leave it with room for us to put aftermarket ramsinks...?Its possible i think....

 

[FryingWeesel]

re-read the artical, the VRM area isnt like the 1950/4800 cards, its an old style choke/fet setup , it will get hot/warm but shouldnt be as prone to overheating as the newer style of VRM's

i have seen high quility boards that used high end fets that barly got warm under heavy extended load, the problem is most companys use fets that are just up to, or just a little over the spec's needed for the job they are doing.

sure it costs a bit more for higher end fets, but that could be balanced by the lack of need to coole them and also the lower fail rate

 

[D4S4]

we definetly need overspec'd mosfets and capacitators on our hardware...

 

[FryingWeesel]

specly ppl like WileE who are known to blow their stuff up all the time

 

[theorw]

Anyway i d put a heatsink on every part of the VGA that heats up,especially in the VRM area.
All the 4850s for example have naked RAM VRM and its considered safe to be so but if u OC a little it gets HOT as hell there.I put a heatsink in mine and i cant even touch it.So i think that the sinks are the only way for this card.IMO anyway!

 

[Hayder_Master]

nice , what about the others

 

[my_name_is_earl]

That is just sick. Just bought an overclocked Sapphire 901MHz. The price is just right. 2 of these can beat a gtx295.