RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition: Worth Your Time

All high-end solutions developed by ATI technologies have always been very compact in size and featured pretty modest cooling system onboard. Of course, some graphics card developers did use their own designs, but we have to admit that ATI’s reference coolers have always been relatively small. However, now it looks like this distinguishing feature of ATI’s products is about to sink into oblivion. The RADEON X850 Platinum Edition, which we managed to get into our lab looks very impressive. It is for the first time in our lab that a reference graphics card from ATI does feature a massive cooling solution occupying two-slot space and blowing the hot air outside.

Cooling System Under Closer Look

The cooling system blower takes the air from the PC case, blows it through the copper heatsink giving away the heat generated by the VPU and memory chips and blows it outside the case through the grids in the retention bracket. I assume the ATI engineers could have made the entire cooling somewhat more efficient if they had arranged the cooler to get the air from the outside the case initially, however they didn’t do it this way. We removed the cooling system from the RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition in order to take a closer look at it:

The design is very smart and thorough and at the same time very simple. The heatsink cut from a solid chunk of copper is fastened to a massive aluminum base: the ribs are not stuck or soldered to it: it is all a solid construction. The fan is equipped with a thermal sensor unlike the solutions from NVIDIA, which theoretically allows managing the fan rotation speed more flexibly. Such technical enhancements as heatpipes, for instance, are absent, which will definitely have a positive effect on the price of this solution.

As you see, the new cooling system developed by ATI Technologies is fastened to the PCB in 6 locations, so that there is hardly any risk resulting from improper contact with the cooled components. The aluminum base features a specially shaped cut, through which the copper heatsink contacts the VPU surface. The contact surface is generously covered with thick dark-gray thermal paste. According to our experience, this is a really high-quality paste, ensuring efficient heat dissipation from the VPU surface and proper thermal resistance in the contact area of the heatsink base and the VPU die.

The memory chips also contact the heatsink surface through special square raised portions covered with thick pink thermal pads. To tell the truth we are a little bit skeptical about the efficiency of these pads. NVIDIA in this case uses special fibrous pads soaked in thermal paste, but their coolers are very carefully adjusted for each board, which allows using pretty thin pads this way. In our today’s case we do not see a really thorough piece of work here that is why it makes perfect sense that they used thick rubber-like pads instead to guarantee that the memory chips get all the cooling they need. In fact we were very pleased to see such extensive approach to memory cooling, because the entire RADEON X800 family never boasted memory cooling at all. Those memory chips that are located on the reverse side of the PCB are also equipped with some kind of a heatsink. It is an L-shaped aluminum plate, which also serves as a cooling system fastening element. A thick bracket made of spring steel, which used to be around the VPU has now been removed, and the rigid fastening is guaranteed by the above described plate.

All in all, the new cooler looks pretty simple and efficient. However, we are going to find out later how efficient and quiet it actually is. And now let’s take a closer look at our today’s heroes and see what the differences are between RADEON X800 and RADEON X850 in greater detail.