PowerColor SCS3 Radeon HD 4650 512MB

Examination:

The cooling solution found on the Sapphire Radeon HD 4650 OC (and generally the other Radeon HD 4650 parts following AMD's reference design) was a single-slot cooler that only actively cooled the RV730PRO core and not the video memory. PowerColor had instead decided to attach this rather large aluminum heatsink. This aluminum cooler with about 36 fins and also has two heatpipes that run through it for helping to transfer the heat away from the graphics processor.

Like the other Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards, the video memory is not cooled by any RAM heatsinks. PowerColor uses Samsung ICs for this DDR2 memory (yes, DDR2, not GDDR3 like many of the other HD 4650 cards) that is clocked at 800MHz. The Samsung ICs were marked K4N51163QZ-HC20. The RV730PRO is clocked at the reference 600MHz speed.

Unlike many other Radeon HD 4650 graphics cards, this PowerColor model also does not have any CrossFire connectors for providing multi-GPU rendering support. When it comes to power, the Radeon HD 4650 is able to procure all of its power from a PCI Express 2.0 slot, so no external PCI-E power connector is needed.

The display connectors on the PowerColor SCS3 Radeon HD 4650 512MB include two dual-link DVI and one video output. HDMI displays can easily be connected using the included DVI to HDMI adapter on the retail models.

On the backside of the PowerColor graphics card are the other four Samsung DDR2 ICs. The aluminum cooler is attached to the graphics card via four bolts.