Up Close & Personal

You should by now gotten the main impressions of the Radeon X1950 XTX card, and for us that means it is time we dig a bit deeper into the PowerColor Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB and check out the card a bit more closer in detail. We will start with the front and move slowly to the back. We might not have mentioned this, but the PowerColor edition is built upon the reference design set by ATI. And when looking back at the Radeon X1900 XTX, you might not notice much difference neither on the board itself besides the new redesigned cooling solution. Okay, here we go...

The PowerColor Radeon X1950 XTX edition features the standard cooling solution designed by ATI. The only minor difference that PowerColor might apply with the retail package is to replace the ATI sticker on top of the cooling fan by their own logo. The fan used on the XTX series isn't the same as we saw on the ATI Radeon X1900 XT and XTX cards, instead ATI opted to come up with a new design following the Arctic Cooling way, and thus able to provide a more quiet cooling solution. This certainly is some good news as that has been the biggest burden of the Radeon X1900 series.

We couldn't just leave without some images with the focus on the fan itself. It has a decent amount of fins which add up in the air flow it can generate and on top of that it is UV sensitive. The red fan will definitely please some case modders out there who are using all kinds of LED's for getting their system that unique look and feel. On top of that the complete cooler is semi transparent and following the red color scheme that ATI has laid out with all their products.

The new heatsink design looks awesome as a hole and does look quite more impressive than the cooling solution used on the Radeon X1900 series. Next to the fan intake you will find the ATI logo surfacing from the mirror shining X-shape. The cooler is bigger than we are used to from ATI, but it does have its advantages over the cooling solution used on the Radeon X1900 series. As that was one of the weak points, ATI has taken up the task to get this sorted by a full redesign of the cooling solution.

The cooling system of the Radeon X1950 XTX is actually a blower pumping air from inside the PC case and into the thin-ribbed copper heatsink with a massive sole and is then exhausting it to the outside. This is quite efficient and has been used adequately by most of the Arctic Cooling heatsinks. This technique also makes use of a lager blower which will run slower though can move more air and reduce the noise tremendously. This alone is already a nice feature and change since the Radeon X1900 series.

The cooling solution is designed quite simply. The copper sole that has direct contact with the GPU transfers its heat to a heatpipe which is passing the heat over to the set of thin copper ribs on the left of the fan; the ribs are covered with a profiled case. The hot air is exhausted outside, which helps the overall cooling efficiency. The cooling system is manufactured well. The copper ribs are pressed tightly to the heatpipe to ensure proper thermal contact. Both sections of the heatsink become very hot at work, indicting good heat transfer.