Manufacturer: HIS Price: $ 200 US Author: Steve Date: 10/24/2011

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out a new graphics card from HIS, as they reinvent the Radeon HD 6870 with a new IceQ model. Sporting what HIS call a black hole impeller, this new graphics card receives a massive upgrade in the cooling department, said to deliver 24 degrees lower temperatures. This new design should not only improve thermals and operating volume, but it should also enhance the overclocking performance... Despite being released way back in October of 2010, making the Radeon HD 6870 now 12 months old and likely near the end of its product cycle, HIS has just developed their latest and greatest version yet. The Radeon HD 6870 is still considered one of the best sub-$200 US GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) and it certainly gave HIS a lot to work with. Codenamed “Barts XT” the GPU consists of some 1700 million transistors in a die that measures just 255mm2, made even more impressive by the fact that it is designed using the 40nm process. Although AMD had originally planned to build the Radeon HD 6000 series using the 32nm process, they were forced to fall back on the older proven 40nm process as TSMC canceled its 32nm plans in favor of 28nm development. Despite sticking with the 40nm process, the Radeon HD 6870 still proved to be an efficient graphics card, using roughly the same amount of power as the GeForce GTX 550 Ti and considerably less than the GTX 560 Ti. That said, based on more than a dozen games we found that the Radeon HD 6870 was on average just 5% slower than GeForce GTX 560 Ti at 1920x1200, while it was 3% faster than the GTX 460. Keeping that in mind, todays pricing makes the Radeon HD 6870 the better value product, as the heavily modified HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ is still 15% cheaper than your typical GeForce GTX 560 Ti. That being said, the 6870 IceQ is also around 11% more expensive than most standard Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards, as it retails for $200 US opposed to $180 US. Still, that extra 11% should buy gamers more overclocking headroom. Furthermore it does deliver a quieter operating volume coupled with cooler performance. Another huge plus for gamers is the more flexible Eyefinity 3 support, which now does not require the use of DisplayPort and can instead be used with HDMI.

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ in Detail Test System Specs & 3Dmark 11 Benchmarks: Aliens vs. Predator, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Benchmarks: Call of Duty Black Ops, Crysis 2 Benchmarks: Dirt 3, Just Cause 2 Benchmarks: Splinter Cell Conviction, The Witcher 2 Power Consumption & Temperatures Conclusion Next Page ->

rusta

Posted on: 11/02/2011 10:23 PM Thats a cool looking 6870 with one insanely massive cooler!