PowerColor Radeon X1950 PRO SCS3 (Silence Edition) video card review

Typically speaking, the graphics board market tends to favour mid-range and low-end parts for SKUs based around passive cooling solution, the simple reason for this being the relative ease with which these cores can be cooled without making use of a more traditional heatsink and fan arrangement.  When it comes to bringing a higher-end passive solution to market however, the challenges facing AIB partners as much greater, and involve far more 'thinking outside the box' - Hence, we see such boards unfortunately rarely.

Thankfully, every once in a while we see a company pull out all of the stops to bring us something a little different, and today we take a look at just such a board.  PowerColor have braved the pitfalls of a high-end passively cooled graphics card, taking the hugely popular Radeon X1950 PRO and giving it a very different cooling solution, courtesy of their relationship with those good people who know their stuff at Arctic Cooling.  What this partnership brings us is the Radeon X1950 PRO SCS3 - How does it shape up?  Read on to find out as put our sample through its paces in Windows Vista, including testing with the recently released S.T.A.L.K.E.R.