I cannot enjoy entertainment at home either as I am distracted by a different set of unacceptable norms specifically related to my home theater PC. DIY purists argue that all HTPC systems should be low power, silent and just be powerful enough to decode movies. There is a contingent of PC gamers out there however who wish they could play the latest games at the highest settings in their living rooms, DIY HTPC purist sentiments be damned. The selection of video cards that closely fit the bill is remarkably slim however and the search is very frustrating. Thankfully, PowerColor regularly releases a fanless SCS3 video card every generation which has more graphical horsepower compared to typical passive offerings from other manufacturers.

The PowerColor SCS3 heatsink has been updated to handle the 130W TDP Pitcairn Pro GPU. Instead of direct cooling, the PowerColor HD7850 1GB SCS3 makes use of the chassis’ ambient cooling to keep thermal levels within optimal levels. The new SCS3 cooling solution consists of six 6mm heatpipes arranged in a g-shaped design distributing heat from the HD 7850 core to several sets of aluminum fin arrays. Understandably, the PowerColor SCS3 carries the stock core clock of a typical HD 7850 set to 860MHz so thermal load is more manageable. The PowerColor AX7850 1GBD5-S3DH requires a single 6-pin power connector and has a full-size DisplayPort and HDMI which supports 4K displays as well as a standard DVI port that supports resolutions up to 2560x1600.