PowerColor SCS3 HD7850 Pro Reviews

We like to see graphics-card partners attempt to do something a little different. PowerColor already has a very good Radeon HD 7850 in its line up in the form of the PCS+, but the manufacturer isn't resting on its laurels and has taken the effort to produce the world's first passively-cooled variant. The SCS3 HD7850 is an ambitious attempt, and one that will appeal to a very specific consumer, however it isn't without limitations. Cooling a 130W GPU without any fans was always going to be tricky, and in PowerColor's passive card we've found that adequate airflow is essential in keeping the card from throttling. It's our opinion that, if you are going to have fans in a system, they may as well be on the hottest-running components, which in any Radeon HD 7850 build is likely to include the GPU. We remain eager to see a passive mid-range card that can drive full-HD games while comfortably keeping temperatures below 80ºC, but for that we may have to wait until the next generation of SCS3 cards. Bottom line: PowerColor's innovative HD7850 is too hot and hungry for mainstream users and is best suited to those who are willing to invest the time and effort in maintaining stable temperatures.

We love that PowerColor continues to try out new things and that they support the silent PC movement, but they might have pushed the limits a bit too much here.

PowerColor's HD 7850 SCS3 is the dream of all low-noise fetishists. The card is completely passively cooled, which means that it will never produce any noise. Built on the foundation of AMD's Radeon HD 7850, it has enough gaming power for gaming at full HD, but we do recommend dropping AA levels or reducing details a bit for better playability in some games. PowerColor did not overclock their card, which makes sense as heat output will govern the viability of such a product. As a result, performance almost matches that of the HD 7850 reference design, with the exception of 2560x1600 gaming. At 2560x1600, the card's 1 GB VRAM will get overwhelmed with graphics data, causing severe performance drops. I, while some may cry out now, don't think of this as an issue. A HD 7850 class card is simply not made for full details gaming at 2560x1600, no matter how much memory you put on it. Getting rid of 1 GB of VRAM helped PowerColor keep the price of their card down while also reducing power consumption a bit, which takes some stress off the passive cooler. Reasonable choices in my opinion.