PowerColor HD 6850 1GB SCS3 Passive Review Comment Thread

[SKYMTL]

Passive cards are hard to come by these days and finding one that can provide decent in-game framerates is next to impossible. PowerColor is looking to change this with the newest addition to their Silent Cooling System 3 family: a HD 6850. Sporting the Barts GPU core, an impressive looking heatsink and 1GB of GDDR5 this new card looks able to succeed where others have failed.

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[Caldezar]

Well reviewed Sky.

As much as I applaud the efforts of PowerColor for bringing passive cooling in to the modern gaming world so effectively; I have to stop and wonder if there's a market for it. Passive cooling has always struck me as more an HTPC or workstation market. But with the advent of the new combo processors, I see that market changing drastically in the near future. I can't imagine that people will want to dump excess money and power in to a GPU when it's not necessary.

As for the gamers, performance or performance per dollar is a much more important chase than silence. And even if a gamer is after silence, there are a lot of aftermarket cooling solutions that provide near silent operation for much less money. Espescially when considering that your case will be operating some kind of fans regardless of your GPU.

[Keltron 3030]

its pure coincidence that I would just discover this card about 2 hours ago

I'm gonna have to agree with Caldezar on this one; gamers are not particularly in the market for silent graphics cards, and if they are, there is much better out there for the same price

also, that heatsink does look real beastly.

Great review sky!

[YukonTrooper]

Head over to SPCR and tell them there isn't a market for this type of card. You'll get run out of e-town.

Then again the market is definitely niche.

[ilya]

Originally Posted by YukonTrooper

Head over to SPCR and tell them there isn't a market for this type of card. You'll get run out of e-town.

Then again the market is definitely niche.

FYI, SPCR might be shut down come September this year. (really sad to see myself, wish I could do something) This niche market is too small and there are other solutions that can be run passive and offer more performance. It's nice to see Powercolor doing this, but TBH at this point it looks like it is in vain.

[Shadowmeph]

Good review as per usual.
I think that this is a great card for the Multi consumer like myself I play games but I watch all of my TV shows via PC as well and some of h e vid cards I have had can get a little noisy for my liking , kind of makes me think about the simple PC I just slapped together for my sis she is already noticing the heat from the older vid card I had laying around ( 3870hd ) a card like this would be perfect for her as well as myself

[_dangtx_]

nice.

there is a need for it. people using it will find a way to mount it in such a way that a direct fan may not be needed.

hell running it on me desk bare works just as good :)

[Arinoth]

Good card, unfortunately I think its price tag is a little high still for what you're getting.

[SKYMTL]

Originally Posted by ilya

FYI, SPCR might be shut down come September this year. (really sad to see myself, wish I could do something)

Oh? Where did you hear this!?

BOOOO testing methodolgy, I've never been a fan of testing on open bench, since it's a near useless real world example of what to expect since some fan designs perform terribly in case and marvously in the wide open.

Stuff it in a shuttle where the main cpu is water cooled and that's it. it's going to be in a living room stuffed in the back of an entertainment center or something, not on a open test bench or in a standard case. I mean how many people have a 120mm fan mounted on the side of their case? if you need 3 120mm fans to cool it what's the point? why not just buy a card with a 120mm fan built into it.

you let this thing off easy.