Powercolor starts selling Radeon HD 7850 SCS3 with passive cooling

Those who are looking for a silent graphics card can in most cases botanize in the lowest performance classes. Powercolor wants to change that bit and is now releasing a passively cooled model of the Radeon HD 7850 – according to the manufacturer the first with AMD’s graphics processor Pitcairn Pro.

The new graphics card is called Powercolor Radeon HD 7850 SCS3 and contains 1,024 stream processors, 256-bit memory bus and 1 GB of memory. The clock frequencies amount to 860 MHz GPU and 4,800 MHz GDDR5. This includes a really large aluminum flange for the graphics processor with six extra thick (6 mm) heat conduction pipes made of copper and another flange with heat conduction pipes for the voltage part.

Because passively cooled graphics cards are hotter than fan models, Powercolor adds a rebuilt voltage component with ferrite coils and polymer capacitors, which should be more efficient and have a specified lifespan of 50,000 hours. A 6-pin PCI Express connector is used for the power supply.

More details are connections for Displayport, HDMI and DVI as well as an included DVI to VGA adapter. Although it is not stated in the press release, the graphics cards should also be included in the Never Settle campaign, which means that the package includes the games Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.

The Powercolor Radeon HD 7850 SCS3 will be on store shelves soon. Some price information is not yet known.