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.

Like the older Radeon HD 5870, the 6870 GPU has been fabricated using the 40nm process, yet AMD has been able to drop 454 million transistors and as a result the die size has shrunk by 24%.

The core is clocked at an impressive 900MHz, 50MHz higher than the Radeon HD 5870, while the GDDR5 memory operates slightly slower at 1050MHz. Pairing that frequency with a 256-bit wide memory bus gives the Radeon HD 6870 134.4GB/s of bandwidth, slightly less than the HD 5870.

The Radeon HD 6870 differs from the older HD 5870 in its core configuration. The HD 6870 has been downgraded from 1600 SPUs (Stream Processing Units) and 80 TAUs (Texture Address Units) to 1120 SPUs and 56 TAUs, while there are still 32 ROPs. It'll be interesting to see how this impacts the HD 6870, as it has 30% less SPUs and TAUs than the Radeon HD 5870, though again it's made evident this is more of a cut-down mid-range offering based on a refined version of the same technology.

The AMD reference design uses a fairly large aluminum vapor chamber heatsink made up of 39 fins measuring 13.5cm long, 6.5cm wide, and 2.5cm tall. The heatsink is then cooled by a 75x20mm blower fan that draws air in from within the case and pushes it out through the back.

HIS has done away with the vapor chamber concept and gone with a large aluminum heatsink with a copper base, assisted by four huge 8mm copper heatpipes. The bulk of the heatsink measures 13.5cm long, 8cm wide and 3.5cm tall, making it considerably larger than the standard heatsink. A similar 75x20mm blower fan has been used, though the HIS design allows the fan to draw in more air from the topside as well as the underside.

This fan operates very quietly, helped by the impressively low 19 watt idle consumption of the Radeon HD 6870. When gaming the fan will of course spin up, as the card can consume up to 151 watts under load. That being said, at all times we found the fan barely audible, making the HIS Radeon HD 6970 IceQ a perfect candidate for Crossfire.

Whereas the heatsink and fan design of the AMD reference cards are fully enclosed within a custom built housing, HIS has taken a more traditional design approach. The back side of the card is fully exposed, showing off the blue PCB. While the large heatsink also cools the eight GDDR5 memory chips, the cards power circuitry is passively cooled using aluminum heatsinks.

To ensure the graphics card gets enough power, AMD has mounted a pair of 6-pin PCI Express power connectors -- identical to what you'd find on the Radeon HD 5870 as well as older Radeon graphics cards such as the 4870 and 4890.

Naturally, the Radeon HD 6870 supports Crossfire, and therefore in the standard position we find a single connector for bridging two cards together. The only other connectors are on the I/O panel. HIS has included a pair of dual DL-DVI connectors, a single HDMI 1.4a port, and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 sockets, a typical configuration for a Radeon HD 6870.

It's worth noting that while all Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards can support a max resolution of 2560x1600 on up to three monitors, this requires the use of the DL-DVI ports and a DisplayPort connector. HIS has managed to allow Eyefinity 3 support using the HDMI port instead, providing a more flexible option. Still, for those that want to stick with the mini-DisplayPorts, that is also an option.

Hardware - Intel Core i7 920 (Overclocked @ 3.70GHz) - x3 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 9-9-9-24) - Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (SATA 6Gb/s) - Asus GeForce GTX 580 (1536MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 (1280MB) - Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560 Ti (1024MB) - Inno3D GeForce GTX 480 (1536MB) - Palit GeForce GTX 470 (1280MB) - HIS Radeon HD 6970 IceQ (2048MB) - Gigabyte Radeon HD 6970 (2048MB) - VisionTek Radeon HD 6950 (2048MB) - HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ (1024MB) - Asus Radeon HD 6870 (1024MB) - HIS Radeon HD 5870 (1024MB) - Asus P6T Deluxe (Intel X58) - OCZ ZX Series (850w) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit - Nvidia Forceware 285.38 - AMD Catalyst 11.9

The HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ was slightly faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870 that we had tested previously, it was also able to overtake the 5870.

The performance test delivered similar performance trends and again the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ was faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870 and in the process also defeated the 5870.

The HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ averaged 41fps at 1680x1050, making it 2fps faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870. This meant that it was just 3fps slower than the Radeon HD 5870 and 1fps faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. The 1920x1200 performance was much the same, as the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ was again 2fps faster than the Asus version, while it trailed the 5870.

When testing with Battlefield Bad Company 2 the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ averaged 72fps at 1680x1050 and 63fps at 1920x1200. This made it 1–2fps faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870, while it trailed the GeForce GTX 560 Ti by 1fps at 1680x1050, and defeated it by 3fps at 1920x1200.

The HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ averaged 94fps at 1680x1050 and 82fps at 1920x1200 when testing with Call of Duty Black Ops, making it 2–3fps faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870. Meanwhile it still trailed the Radeon HD 5870 by 3-5fps, and was considerably slower than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti.

The Radeon HD 6870 is also considerably slower than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti when testing with Crysis 2. Here we see the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ average just 19fps at 1680x1050 and 16fps at 1920x1200. Although this was 1fps faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870, it was much slower than the competing Nvidia graphics cards.

When running the Dirt 3 benchmark the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ averaged 61fps at 1680x1050, while managing 54fps at 1920x1200. This made it 1fps faster than the Asus Radeon HD 6870 at 1680x1050, while it matched it at 1920x1200.

When testing with Just Cause 2 the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ managed a playable 39fps at 1680x1050 and 33fps at 1920x1200. Surprisingly this allowed it to match the performance of the more expensive Radeon HD 6950.

The HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ performed well in Splinter Cell Conviction, averaging 65fps at 1680x1050 and 56fps at 1920x1200. This made it faster than both the GeForce GTX 470 and 560 Ti, which was impressive.

The last game we are going to look at is The Witcher 2 and here the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ also performed very well. With 47fps at 1680x1050 we found the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ to be very playable, while 41fps at 1920x1200 wasn’t bad either.

The power consumption of the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ was exceptionally low, as the entire system consumed just 150 watts at idle and 291 watts under full load. This is considerably less than the same system using the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which reached 358 watts when playing Crysis.

The operating temperature of the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ was also remarkably low as the graphics card never exceeded 66 degrees when load testing with FurMark. This made it 12 degrees cooler than the Asus Radeon HD 6870 (DirectCU) which was also using an upgraded cooling solution.

Within months users can expect to see the arrival of the Radeon HD 7870, allegedly codenamed Thames XT, it should offer performance considerably greater to that of the 6870. This makes HIS’s decision to develop a new Radeon HD 6870 graphics card this late in the game somewhat puzzling. Furthermore it makes investing in a premium 6870 graphics card an interesting proposition for gamers.

Putting aside what is to come in the next few months, how does the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ stack up to the here and now? When compared to existing Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards which can be had for as little as $170 US, though most cost at least $180 US, there is no denying users are paying a premium for that big cooler.

Still, if you plan to purchase more than one Radeon HD 6870 graphics card for a little Crossfire action then the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ is a nice way to go given its extremely impressive thermal performance. Although you are paying about $40 US more, we feel the 11% premium is worth it for Crossfire users.

On the other hand, if you are willing to spend another 20% we feel a pair of Radeon HD 6950 graphics cards for a $480 US Crossfire setup is an even better way to go. After all, you can unlock these graphics cards to mimic Radeon HD 6970 performance, a setup that would otherwise cost $700.

Getting back on topic, another advantage to the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ comes when overclocking. Although our results were not much more impressive than what we had previously achieved with cards using the AMD reference design, it was how this IceQ graphics card performed when overclocked that impressed us the most.

With the GPU overclocked to 985MHz and the VRAM at MHz 1205MHz (GDDR 4820MHz) the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ wasn’t even audible when stress testing. Other Radeon HD 6870 graphics cards built around the AMD reference design sound like they are trying to suck all the air out of the room.

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However there is a price to be paid for all this silence and that price could hurt compatibility. At 28.5cm long the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ is a giant amongst mid-range graphics cards and squeezing this card into most standard ATX towers is not going to happen.

Finally, our biggest complaint we have regarding the HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ is the fact that it was only released a few weeks ago, whereas similar products have been out for almost a year, such as HIS’s own “6870 Fan”. That said, it is here now, and for those looking for a quiet 6870 graphics card, this has to be it.