Card appearance II
It's time to see just how the SCS2 system is implemented and what's underneath.
The smaller part of the GPU-facing heatsink comes away with 4 small screws. It's good to see PowerColor's care and attention goes right down to placing an appropriate amount of thermal interface material between the heatpipes and larger part of the cooler.
Stripping away the cooler by removing a couple of larger holding screws, it's strictly reference design underneath. The front has 8 256MBit Samsung chips that are rated at an impressive 1.6ns, which are often found providing X850 XT and XT PE cards. Even so, PowerColor is conservative and runs the devices at an effective 980MHz.
Almost a carbon copy of the front. That's to be expected. ATI X800 XL GPU runs with a 256-bit memory interface and, as is evident here, can address 16 memory devices without issue.
512MB X800 XLs all tend to carry dual-DVI outputs, 16 DRAM devices, and ATI's venerable Rage Theater ASIC. All in all, a reference card is used as a base here, although PowerColor has gone its own way with the cooling, which rarely produces anything other than a quiet hum.
Software and bundle
PowerColor shipped us its 512MB X800 XL in OEM form. The retail version, costing around £290, will have the usual array of goodies. PowerColor informs us that it will ship with Hitman: Contracts, Cyberlink's ubiquitious PowerDVD, a gaggle of VIVO cabling, and, of course, a driver CD and DVI dongle. What's interesting is that the bundle will also carry an additional fan that users can mount in their cases and direct towards the card. It's not a necessity at stock speeds, however.
