Temperature:

To be completely honest, I don't know for sure if ATI did so well on the cooling part of the HD4850 card. I know, it's a single slot cooler and people like silent solutions over noisy fans, but the heat load on the HD4850 is quite high. I ran the test setup out of its casing and I literally felt the heat of the card. In addition, I actually smelled the heat, as the plastic cover of the video card started to smell like it was melting. Of course, the card didn't melt, but the smell of the card didn't really make me sit comfortable next to the setup when running the tests.

The main problem of the heat load is the standard settings in CCC, Catalyst Control Center, where ATI has set the maximum fan speed to a mere 24%, which is a bit too little if you want a cool system. The trick of a cool and silent HD4850 system is pretty simple: find the right balance between temperature and noise level. We had a look at the temperatures with the fan spinning at 99% and yes, there was a noticeable difference. However ... the noise produced by the fan was not that great. I was expecting the setup to fly around the room when I first heard the fan at 99%.



To change the fanspeed, you need to alter the CCC profile manually as it's not possible to change the fanspeed in the CCC user interface. Here's a small how-to for changing the fan speed.

1) Create a profile in CCC, for instance 'FanHigh'
2) Open the XML of your profile with notepad.

XP: 'C:\Documents and Settings\YOURACCOUNT\Local Settings\Application Data\ATI\ACE\FanHigh.xml'

VISTA: 'C:\Users\YOURACCOUNT\AppData\Local\ATI\ACE\FanHigh.xml'

3) Find the following lines in the XML file:

'Feature name="FanSpeedAlgorithm_0"
'Property name="FanSpeedAlgorithm" value="Automatic"

'Feature name="FanSpeedPercentTarget_0"'
'Property name="Want" value="29"

4) Change the following:

Automatic to manual

29 to the desired fan speed

5) Activate the profile FanHigh in CCC.

Power usage:

Power usage starts to be more and more important for end-users as global warming is threatening to extinct human life ... well, sort of. Whether or not you believe in global warming and whether or not you're willing to work on a healthier planet, the power usage is for most people only a matter of having a less expensive bill at the end of the month.



At first, you'd think that the higher the fan is spinning, the higher the power draw should be. However, because of the fan spinning at 99%, the temperatures drop and in the end, the power usage drops.