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Powercolor X1550 SCS


Date
: 04/15/07 – 12:02:29 AM

Author
:

Category
: Video Cards

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: PowerColor

Price
: $76.99 After $20 Rebate

PowerColor has been a very popular name these past few months at Overclockers Online. It's for good reason too as they continue to manufacture a wide variety of products to suit your specific needs.

As Jody mentioned in his review, the X1550 is essentially a tweaked version of the X1300. The minor change is that this card is Windows Vista certified. The major change in the version Jody reviewed and the sample I hold today is that mine is passively cooled. The
S
ilent
C
ooling
S
ystem on the X1550 reminds me of the PowerColor X700 Bravo where the card was cooled by a large heatsink and a pair of heatpipes. Let's see how the X1550 SCS stacks up against the original X1550!

Page 2 : Package Contents

The X1550 SCS arrived in a much larger package compared to the original X1550 reviewed by Jody. The cover of the box reveals a few product details and a female figure looking for your attention.

The back of the box has an image of the same lady and some specifications in a few languages.

Until we look at the side of the box we don't really have a lot of information about the card. We have a very small picture of the card and part of the cooling system, but not much more. On the first side we don't see too much, but don't be fooled.

On these sides, we have the system requirements and box contents.

So while we have a lot of written information about the product, the number of pictures of the card is severely lacking. I think it would be advantageous for PowerColor to add a large image of the video card and cooling system as that is focal point of this product.

Page 3 : Specifications & Features

While we already got a lot of the details about the card on the written portion of the package, there is always more information to find on a company website. PowerColor's site is very easy to navigate and I didn't have any issues finding the X1550 SCS.

Here's a rundown of the specifications found on their page:

The RV515 core runs at 600MHz making it no different than all the other X1550s currently available in the world. What will set this card apart will be passive cooling system. Early reports say the heatsink may not be sufficient for cooling, but we'll see what happens…

The 512MB of memory is supplied by Qimonde which is manufactured by Infineon. The part number is HYB18T512161BF-25 and an in-depth look of the module can be found on this page. Note that the link opens a PDF file from the Infineon website.

The accessories included with this card:

Last but not least, the features:

The X1550 chipset is loaded with the standard ATI features that include everything from full support of Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0, Avivo Video and Display abilities, and of course, CrossFire. You can find a complete list of features present in the ATI X1550 chipset at the ATI web site. Here is a brief quote from the ATI web site describing the X1550 chipset:

We will now take a complete look at the card itself and then onto some installation photos followed by benchmarking.

Page 4 : Package Contents

The X1550 SCS had a straightforward package, cardboard box with sectioned off areas for the video card and accessories.

With the accessories, you get a simple manual, a driver CD, a DVI to D-Sub dongle, and a S-Video to RCA video adapter. For a budget card, this is the standard deal. PowerColor is already off to a good start with the use of two DVI outputs as opposed to a DVI and DSub that some manufacturers still offer.

The video card is packaged inside an anti-static bag. It's positioned inside a tight fitting compartment to minimize movement during shipment.

The heatsink on the card takes up about 50% of the real estate. The large heatsink has a single heatpipe that wraps from the top face of the card to the bottom face.

As I mentioned above, PowerColor has a one-up on a lot of other manufacturers with their dual DVI output. Anyone looking to run a pair of LCD monitors at high resolution will have no problems with this card.

As Jody so elegantly pointed out in his review of the X1550, this card uses a PCB that can be found on multiple video cards.

The LF 51B is marked for my X1550 SCS and the LF 53B is probably reserved for the X1600 cards. We also see that three memory flavours are available depending on your need.

The low power requirements for the card limit the number of capacitors and MOSFETs required. The capacitors are TK and Rubycon KZG and will have no problems lasting a lifetime of use.

The heatsink has a few rubber pads to prevent transistors from being crushed. We can see that the heatsink made great contact with the core before I removed it.

The heatsink is held onto the card via two spring-loaded bolts. These springs will ensure that the right amount of pressure is applied onto the heatsink for a good contact.

You'll notice in the above picture that two stickers identify the model number and serial number for this card.

The naked card is now identical to our original X1550!

Page 5 : Installation & Overclocking

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to be able to install the X1550 SCS. Don't let the large heatsink fool you; while it may be bigger than some other stock options, it doesn't make it any more difficult. Simple slide out your old video card and slide in the new X1550 SCS.

The card will not get in the way of expansion slots below the card nor will it prevent the installation of large heatsink or northbridge coolers.

The only time I ran into an issue with this card is when I started using my overly large Thermalright HR-07 memory coolers where the heatpipe made contact with the PCB.

This is definitely not the fault of PowerColor. All I had to do to remedy the issue above was to rotate the heatsink on my memory.

Since the X1550 SCS is a budget card with a fanless solution, you really can't expect the overclocking performance to be all that great. With the stock GPU at 600MHz, I was only able to squeeze an additional 7MHz out of it. The memory has a stock timing of 400MHz and I was stable at 432MHz.

To test for stability, I made sure the settings were capable of artifact-free performance in ATITool for 1 hour and artifact-free and crash-free performance in 3 loops of 3DMark2001, 3DMark06, and a couple round of BF2142. With a final overclock of
607/432
, my initial impression of this card being a silent budget card stands correct.
Overclocking shouldn't even factor into your decision-making process when buying a video card of this type, but the results are included in the following benchmarks.

Page 6 : Test Setup

It's been a little while since I've upgraded my machine so the hardware is a bit dated.

The suite of synthetic software used included FutureMark 3DMark2001se, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06, and SpecViewPerf8.1. For games, I put the card through Half-Life 2, Doom III, and Battlefield 2 with various resolutions and combinations of 4xAA and 8xAF.

Each application is executed three times and the final result is the average of the runs. During the performance evaluations, I did not see anything more than a 1-2% deviation in the results. Keep in mind that your system configuration will affect these results.

Let's begin!

Page 7 : Synthetic Performance

Here is a quote taken from previous reviews outlining my benchmarking process for the following pages of results:

We start off with a look at how the card performs in the 3DMark series of benchmarks from FutureMark.

3DMark2001se / 03 / 05 /06

3DMark06

While the X1650Pro and X800GTO16 out-muscle my X1550 SCS, that's not what I'm really concerned about. What is important is that the X1550 SCS stays on par with the X1550 Extreme and edges out my X1300. The best part about the X1550 SCS is that the passive cooling makes the card completely silent.

Spec View Perf 8.1

SpecView Performance results show similarities between the X1550 performance and X1650 performance in some programs such as Catia. In others, however, the stronger X1650 Pro and X800GTO16 does show a decided advantage like 3D Studio Max and Ensight. If you are in the market for a video card for one of these programs, you will definitely want to do your research because more expensive is not always better.

Page 8 : Battlefield 2 Benchmarks

Battlefield 2 was benchmarked using the Guru 3D benchmarking application. I've yet to get Battlefield 2142 to benchmark correctly, so until then we'll stick with these results:

I have purposely excluded the results from 1600×1200 as this card just isn't powerful enough to run at that resolution. The best performance will be at 1024×768 and 1280×1024 if you tone down some of the details. Keep in mind that this card is not particularly engineered to outperform or come close to performing at an extreme gamer level. We're looking for realistic results aimed towards a budget user who simply hates noise.

Page 9 : Doom III Benchmarks

Doom III is another "oldie but a goodie" as they say. With the details turned up to maximum, Doom III still has the ability to push some of the higher-end video cards out there, especially ATI-based cards. Right off the bat, ATI-based cards are hard pressed to run Doom III as it is optimized for video cards that handle OpenGL better than DirectX which means NVIDIA based cards are at an advantage.

We once again see the card struggle at the higher resolutions, which is why 1600×1200 results have been left out. You are better off running this game at about 1024×768 should you decide to do some light gaming.

Page 10 : Half-Life 2 Benchmarks

Half-Life 2 is one of the most taxing games on your CPU but definitely not on your GPU. That doesn't mean that you don't need any video card power to run it; it just means that less video card power will go a lot further in powering the game through higher resolutions. Let's see how the PowerColor X1550 made out.

Even with this budget-oriented card, we were able to push close to 50 frames a second at 1280×1024, which is fairly respectable. This game can definitely be enjoyed with the right detail levels set.

Page 11 : Conclusion

PowerColor has put together an excellent offer for those looking to balance performance, price, and noise level. The X1550 512MB SCS comes with dual DVI connectors, which is very important with the popularity of dual LCD configurations, and a custom cooler that effectively reduces the cards heat without adding an ounce of noise.

For those more interested in shaving a few extra dollars off their bill and are not particular interested in eliminating system noise, PowerColor also has a X1550 Extreme edition which is very similar to this card but instead of a passive color, there is a small quiet heatsink and fan combo.

The X1550 512MB SCS has certainly blown me away. The ATI 1550 backbone offers users ample support when it comes to video-out enhancements, driver control through the Catalyst Control Centre, and sufficient power to do some low-resolution gaming. All in all, this is a very favourable video card for a multimedia system that won't break your piggy bank with that 76.99 price tag!

Advantages

Feature-packed ATI X1550 chipset in a budget package
Passive cooling eliminates any noise output
Handles gaming at lower resolutions

Disadvantages

Limited frame rates for new games or games played under high resolution

Overclockers Online would like to thank PowerColor for making this review possible.