PowerColor X1950 PRO SCS3

INTRODUCTION

G80 being out for a while, it's now AMD's turn to bring new generation of video cards. For that however, you will have to wait another month or so before we even see first R600 cards being sold. Meanwhile, AMD partners are going stiff and are seeking fresh blood to feed their customers. I would assume the madness that's going on as they can't deliver new cards thus make no money. Forget that for a while and let's move back in time to R500 era.

Back in October 2006, I've had a chance to check out PowerColor X1950 PRO running Arctic Cooling system. Ever since that day, we haven't seen anything new from AMD except for boiling X1550 SCS which brought nothing new except for name change. So what can AIBs do about not being able to get AMD's piece of the pie? The answer is release another SKU of the most popular card.

What I have for you today is PowerColor X1950 PRO SCS3. The card itself should be somewhat familiar, though "SCS3" suffix explanation might be needed. You probably gathered from our previous PowerColor reviews what SCS stood for, if not than read along. Silent Cooling System is what PowerColor used for the first time with their Bravo X700, X800 XL SCS2 512MB and then with X1550 SCS. Now it's time for something completely fresh.

KEY FEATURES

1. World’s fastest silent graphic card
2. Passive cooler designed by Arctic Cooling
3. Video-in/Video-out (VIVO)
4. Support for DirectX 9c, Open GL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0
5. High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) ready
6. H.264 playback with ATI’s Avivo™ Video- & Display Engine
7. Windows Vista ready
8. Internal Crossfire

The introduction of X1950 PRO eliminates the need for a Crossfire master card to operate properly. The X1950 PRO brings a slight, but healthy change. Instead of using external compositing chip, dongle as well as master/slave card ATI incorporated Crossfire support into the GPU. It's definitely the easiest approach with less complications for the end user. It does seem a lot like NVIDIA's SLI bridge solution with minor difference -- there are two connectors on the PCB instead of just one. Does any of this ring a bell to you? Daisy chained graphic cards is the answer. Although implementing an internal compositing engine adds costs to the production of a chip, ATI won't lose money and just the opposite they will profit from it big time. To recap, internal Crossfire is all about:

• Native support with no need for dedicated master / slave card or special hardware
• 24-bit connection with resolutions up to 2560x2048
• Supports both Intel and AMD platforms

Should you require more detailed information on X1K please revisit our article: The X1000 series - ATI goes SM3.0

PowerColor is a consumer brand focused on providing cutting-edge graphics card products to retail customers. Our goal for the Tul brand is to be the industry's number one provider of technology product solutions. Our goal for the PowerColor brand is to be the world's number one brand of graphics cards. PowerColor is in effect owned by Tul Corporation, however the brands are operated independently of each other.