Page 10 - Noise Factor and Conclusion
In terms of noise, this area is quite subjective. While measurements in dBA provide a more visual element to the review, there is one thing that must be noted: The emission of certain frequencies must be taken into effect as one may affect more than another.
In the beginning of this article, I mentioned in regards to the aluminum heatsink with a 40mm fan. How important is this? Firstly, it shows us that the PowerColor X1550 generates a minimal amount of heat that can be easily dissipated with a small heatsink. In fact, PowerColor has passive versions of this card.
However, one downside to this is that a small fan needs to spin at high RPMs in order to cool down the target component. If it generates a lot of heat, it needs to spin faster. If it generates less, then theoretically it can spin slower.
What if it does not know how hot the core is?
The Radeon X1550 has no temperature sensing devices to check temperatures; therefore no fan speed regulator that can be maintained by drivers nor can software be implemented. This means that the fan must spin at full speed at all times, which promotes a problem -- for the fact that it has to spin fast enough to cool down the GPU at the engineered maximum load all the time. So if you are in 2D mode, the card will generate the same amount of noise as it is in 3D mode.
Bringing up to this point, the card emits a semi-high rough-sounding noise (Sort of like a small vacuum cleaner to a lower degree) when turned on. While it's not THAT loud to be regarded as a dustbuster, it can really get on me frequently as I am quite picky about the noise of my computer -- any individual components that generate distinctively more noise can be clearly heard. Other components that emits noise inside our test system include: Seasonic M12 500W (120mm fan - Very quiet), Noctua NF-S12-800 and NF-S12-1200 (Quite quiet), Scythe Infinity (Quiet), and a Seagate 7200.10 320GB hard drive (Sort of quiet).
Moving on to the performance aspect, one thing we must largely emphasize in regards to this video card is the target group -- it is for people who are regularly booting up games, but rather users who want a dedicated graphics card for Vista and other office work to take a load of the system memory. And of course, a light touch of gaming couldn't hurt.
The PowerColor X1550 256MB/64Bit graphics card is definitely not performance oriented, as you can clearly see in our benchmark tests. Of course, running games at a lower resolution will give much better performance rather than running them at 1680x1050. Just remember though: AA and AF will really tax this card, so personally I won't be using these settings any time soon if you are planning to do some light gaming on this card. Make sure it's just light gaming though -- and light gaming only -- please remember that.
On the other hand, a few calculations will reveal whether this card is justified in your next PC purchase. Even if you are not into gaming, I would aim for a 7600GT for at least 2-3 times the performance for approximately just thirty dollars more. You (Or someone that uses the same computer as you) might develop an interest in casual gaming afterwards, and in addition to that -- 7600GT based graphics cards possess temperature sensors and software controllable fan speed for silencing your card without spending a single penny. Is the PowerColor X1550 256MB/64Bit worth it? If you are building 50 computers, sure, 30 bucks less for each computer might make a difference, but other than that, I would just loosen out the budget a bit and go for a card that performs much better. Or just use integrated graphics if you really don't mind at all.
Special thanks to Ron over at PowerColor for making this review possible.
Rating: 6.0/10
- The rating 6/10 means "A product with its advantages, but drawbacks should not be ignored before purchasing".
- More information in our Review Focus.
The PowerColor X1550 is aimed for users who are interested in running Windows Vista and not interested in gaming -- or maybe casual gaming. However, the fan could be quite annoying, and there are graphics cards out there for a little more cash with several times the performance.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Specifications, Bundle
2. A Closer Look
3. Test System, Benchmark: Half Life 2: Lost Coast
4. Benchmark: FEAR
5. Benchmark: Prey
6. Benchmark: Quake 4
7. Benchmark: CS:S cs_militia
8. Benchmark: 3DMark06
9. Power Usage, Overclocking
10. Noise Factor and Conclusion
