PowerColor rolls out passive HD6850

S

srangara

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very nice. been waiting for a decently powerful card cooled in this manner. gonna be awesome for a htpc
 
Looks like somebody left an anchor ontop of the 6850.
Mount some 120mm fans on there, and you've got the best cooler ever. Hah.
 
Don't understand the point of full passive, a 400rpm fan is inaudible to me in a silent room and will keep your hardware lasting that much longer :)
 
The problem with things like that is you still need good case airflow. Look at the fin density. In a stagnant room, that wont cool the card enough. You're just using a case fan instead of a dedicated fan.
 
That design looks to rely heavily on a side intake. The fins are facing the wrong direction (should face front to back, not perpendicular like they are) for an efficient passive design.
 
Nightbird said:
Don't understand the point of full passive, a 400rpm fan is inaudible to me in a silent room and will keep your hardware lasting that much longer :)
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I think the passive card would outlast the fan cooled,with no moveing parts to wear or fan to pack it full of dust.
 
Never mind price... how much does that thing weigh?

And for the fin direction... I guess heat rises that's why. In a HTPC just make sure you have a grill over it and looks fine.

But wow that's a big heat sink...


Y.
 
Like most powercolor aftermarkets, this is a bad design, and as someone noted, you will still need exceptional case cooling to dissipate the 127w of heat that is produced. I do not see the market for this product.
 
requiem99 said:
Like most powercolor aftermarkets, this is a bad design, and as someone noted, you will still need exceptional case cooling to dissipate the 127w of heat that is produced. I do not see the market for this product.
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Would that not be the case for any air cooling (GPU or otherwise) that isn't shrouded to vent outside the case? If you've got good airflow around your components, it should be fine.

The thing is certainly butt-ugly, although I'll wait to see how it performs before making any other judgements.
 
Nightbird said:
Don't understand the point of full passive, a 400rpm fan is inaudible to me in a silent room and will keep your hardware lasting that much longer :)
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But 0 fans means much reduced dust :), and its just cool.
 
Mr. K6 said:
That design looks to rely heavily on a side intake. The fins are facing the wrong direction (should face front to back, not perpendicular like they are) for an efficient passive design.
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How would you have the fins like that? What youre proposing is an impossible design.
 
srangara said:
Would that not be the case for any air cooling (GPU or otherwise) that isn't shrouded to vent outside the case? If you've got good airflow around your components, it should be fine.

The thing is certainly butt-ugly, although I'll wait to see how it performs before making any other judgements.
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Even with poor case airflow, an actively cooled graphics card can still dump heat into the case. The issue with a high fin density passive card is that it doesn't transfer heat to the case as well. Denser fins give better cooling, but need more airflow to do it.

It seems like a solid product, and id buy it so I could throw one of my San Ace 120mm fans on it and have amazing and quiet cooling, but this design seems poor unless there is a case fan very close to it.
 
I just like big heatsinks, this would be awesome to play with.
 
nalc said:
Even with poor case airflow, an actively cooled graphics card can still dump heat into the case.
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I'm not sure I understand this statement. The goal is to get the heat out of the case, yeah?

Active or passive, as long as the GPU stays cool, we just need to make sure that heat gets vented before it affects everything else.
 
srangara said:
I'm not sure I understand this statement. The goal is to get the heat out of the case, yeah?

Active or passive, as long as the GPU stays cool, we just need to make sure that heat gets vented before it affects everything else.
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Let's imagine mediocre or poor case airflow, like a htpc. With an active card, it circulates the air in the case through the graphics card, cooling the card but heating up the case. With a passive card that has a high fin density heatsink, the lack of forced airflow reduces the rate at which the heatsink dissipates heat, so that the card runs hotter. A heatsink like this will only be effective if there is plenty of case airflow
 
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Taking another look at the heatsink does suggest that the fins are a little too dense.
 
As mentioned above, the heat produced makes this card impractical to run in a passive system. If you need case fans anyways to keep your system from melting down, the passive cooling benefit is moot. However, I do see this as an overclockers dream as far as air cooling goes, since you can add 2 800-1200rpm fans to this massive radiator and run at 45C load probably, and push the card to its limits without worrying about temperature.
 
Nightbird said:
As mentioned above, the heat produced makes this card impractical to run in a passive system. If you need case fans anyways to keep your system from melting down, the passive cooling benefit is moot. However, I do see this as an overclockers dream as far as air cooling goes, since you can add 2 800-1200rpm fans to this massive radiator and run at 45C load probably, and push the card to its limits without worrying about temperature.
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Except at the price premium you will most likely have to pay for this card you could buy one the even NOT overclocked will beat its performance. This card has a very small niche market IMO. Very very small.
 
Direfox said:
Except at the price premium you will most likely have to pay for this card you could buy one the even NOT overclocked will beat its performance. This card has a very small niche market IMO. Very very small.
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True but the idea is to be quiet and reliable. Haven't you ever have a video card fan die and not be able to find an exact replacement?
 
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