Link to article at Tomshardware:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Passiv ... 21992.html
Judging by how long it took for their passive 6850 (that I bought and use with a 600 rpm fan zip-tie mounted)
to become available, don't hold your breath for this one.

Interesting. I wonder what the dimensions are, it looks kinda big. EDIT: on second examination, it seems to have the same length as the regular 7850 cards.

I'm not sure I'd use a 7850 completely fanless. It would need a very good case airflow, preferably from the side panel intake, going around the card (an airflow which is not typical for silent cases).
But if you can mount a slow 12cm fan on it, it would make cooling much easier.

The 7850 has a reference TDP of 130W. This compares to 126W for the Geforce 8800GT and 9800GT which were both available passive from a couple of manufacturers and the Accelero S1 rev 2 was released with these cards in mind. Therefore I wouldn't be too worried about the TDP and you would think that for a AIB to release such a card they will have done their homework so that they don't get lots of RMAs. They are guaranteeing that it should work and if it doesn't then you should be taking it up with them.

You're right, they've probably done their math and figure they won't get a lot of RMAs in the two years of warranty.
But I have fanless video cards with lower TDPs and they can get quite hot. A 4670 Ultimate without much airflow next to it can easily go to high 80s. A 7850 would probably go higher.
As long as this affects longevity (during or after the warranty period), it's something I like to consider.

True, but the TDP itself then has to be matched by the thermal conductivity of the cooler. An entry level passive card might hit 70C on only 30W but it doesn't mean that a 120W will go any higher, you need to know the thermal conductivity to decuce that and you would expect the cooler for the higher TDP card to have a matching higher conductivity cooler. Temperature != heat. Temperature = heat per unit mass.

The Sapphire 4670 Ultimate has a pretty basic small passive cooler. Looking at the Powercolour, the cooler is over twice as big in heatsink area so it's fair to assume that it'll be able to handle over twice the TDP, hence no reason to assume that the 7850 will inherently run hotter because it's got a higher TDP. Wait for the first reviews but I wouldn't expect it to be that high. That cooler looks about a match for an Accelero in which case maybe expect 75C.

Any proof that 85C in particular affects longevity? It's generally ancillaries that fail, not the GPU itself which will run way north of 100C (my record is 118C for a Geforce FX with a loose IHS and some Via processors are rated at 150C). Things like VRMs have heatsinks on many modern cards and for good reason, these are the things more likely to fail rather than the GPU. There's therefore no reason to assume that a GPU temp in this range indicates premature failure.

More images of it at Techpowerup:
http://www.techpowerup.com/183700/power ... -card.html

Would be rather interesting to see a review of that one. I had a passive 3870 SCS3 back in the day, which was quite a nice card. I attached a low profile 12 cm cooler onto it at low rotation speed, around 500 -800 rpm I guess, which was still totally inaudible but increasing cooling capacity quite tremendously (like a 20 °C decrease).

Would be interested in that one to replace my 5770 from MSI.

I own the passive 6850 and ended up attaching a 140mm 500RPM fan to it. It's fast, quiet and cool this way, so I can't complain too much.

It would have been nice if PowerColor had added some fan mounting holes and a PWM connector but they didn't.

You can run it passively only if you have one of those gaming cases with a massive side fan. Otherwise it simply runs too hot. Temperatures in the 60's even when it's idling.

Thing is, I bought an MSI GTX 660 TwinFrozr for my latest build, and it's really quiet. I'm no longer tempted by "passive" cards that require massive case fans.

Hmm... interesting. Assuming it sees release soon, wouldn't this be the most powerful passive video card currently available?
It looks like it might work well in a Silverstone Fortress FT02 case - the fin orientation is parallel to the airflow direction in that case, so it would get plenty of fresh air from one of the 180mm floor fans.

Here's a preview:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/radeon ... 22584.html

Looks like the cooler on the Powercolor 7850 is a lot smaller than the one on my 6850. Which means that you're going to need massive airflow through your chassis. Quite frankly, if silence is your primary goal you can get TwinFrozr and DirectCU versions of the same card, so I don't really see the point of the exercise.

Another review:
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/55413-powercolor-scs3-hd7850/

As expected, it runs quite hot at load. But every case has its own airflow, so I guess it depends.



For someone who only needs silence in idle/2D mode it might still make sense.

That's a shame, the old 3870 doesn't get hotter than 75 degrees in my case (viewtopic.php?f=14&t=59450). The new cooler must have less surface area or possibly the contact with the die is worse..

..and higher TDP (130W vs 108W for your 3870). Given the relatively slow rise in temperature over time, I think the die contact is good. If it were poor, the temp would spike up much faster. The cooler just can't disperse the collected heat. Strap a low rpm silent fan on it and I bet the GPU temps would be fine.

Given the high power use vs the reference design, the VRM circuitry must be broiling. I'm curious about that part. Too bad Hexus didn't do a teardown.

For those interested, it's already available in Germany:
http://www.amazon.de/PowerColor-HD7850- ... words=scs3
I am not interested, since it comes with only 1GB VRAM (wonder why didn't they implement the full 2GB).