Manufacturer: HIS Price: $ 229 US Author: Steve Date: 02/20/2013

[ Introduction ]

Today we are checking out a pair of graphics cards based on a GPU we really didn’t think we would look at again, the Pitcairn Pro, commonly known as the Radeon HD 7850. Launched almost 12 months ago the Radeon HD 7850 is starting to get a little long in the tooth. However this hasn’t stopped HIS from making the most extreme version yet... Despite its age HIS has just recently announced an iPower IceQ Turbo 4GB version of the Radeon HD 7850. Usually we would skip over any graphics card based on a 12 month old GPU, so what is different about this HIS card? For starters HIS has applied their custom high-end IceQ cooler on a completely custom PCB design. They have then added the iPower feature for more voltage when overclocking and we should point out that the card has undergone some pretty serious factory overclocking to begin with. Then to top it all off HIS has doubled the on-board memory from the standard 2GB to a much more substantial 4GB. These modifications not only make the HIS Radeon HD 7850 iPower IceQ Turbo 4GB one of the most well equipped mid-range graphics cards, but it is also the first 7850 to receive a 4GB memory buffer. As many of you will know larger memory buffers become particularly useful when gaming at extreme resolutions using high levels of anti-aliasing as both eat up memory. However we wonder if the Radeon HD 7850 is really able to make use of all that extra memory. After all not long ago we found that a GeForce GTX 680 armed with 4GB memory was kind of pointless unless you had two. This is because the resolutions and quality settings required to max out a 2GB memory buffer are simply to demanding for a single GTX 680 to handle. So then how could we expect the Radeon HD 7850, which is 43% slower than the GTX 680, to go when comparing GFLOPS/W performance? The answer seems obvious. But what if we take two new HIS Radeon HD 7850 iPower IceQ Turbo 4GB graphics cards and place them in Crossfire, how will they go then? To answer that question we have done just that and rather than test at typical single monitor resolutions we have gone for a triple monitor setup.

Table of Contents >>> Introduction <<< HIS 7850 iPower IceQ Turbo 4GB Test System Specs Benchmarks: Battlefield 3, Crysis 2 Benchmarks: Max Payne 3, Sleeping Dogs Benchmarks: Borderlands 2, Medal of Honor Warfighter Benchmarks: Far Cry 3, Hitman Absolution Conclusion Next Page ->

Subbie

Posted on: 02/24/2013 10:40 PM look like nice cards. whats the deal with the 8000 series?

Mira	Posted on: 02/26/2013 01:07 AM Give us some AA performance