ASUS and MSI Innovate Custom Cooling over Referece HD 4550, HD 4350 PCBs

AMD released the Radeon HD 4550 and Radeon HD 4350 graphics cards today. With their introduction, AMD allowed the AIB partners to roll out custom designs right away. Sapphire and Force3D have already taken the advantage of releasing their own PCBs, while ASUS and MSI have used the reference PCB design with their own coolers. ASUS for one (model: EAH4550/DI/512MD3), has used a black metal chunk with projecting metal that is actively cooled, while MSI (model: R4350-D512H/R4350-D256H) adopted passive cooling with a single large heatsink. The only glitch, is that the heatsink spans across two expansion slots. MSI has already released its card, while ASUS releases its card soon. Both cards use reference ATI parameters, and could carry price-tags around the US $60~$40 marks.