| HIS Radeon HD6950 IceQ-X Turbo-X Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Steven Iglesias-Hearst | |
| Thursday, 09 June 2011 | |
|
Page 1 of 18
HIS HD6950 IceQ X Turbo X 2GB Video Card
Manufacturer: Hightech Information System Limited Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by HIS. HIS first introduced its IceQ coolers in 2003 to its Radeon 9800PRO series of video cards, eight years later HIS return with the IceQ X cooler, which thankfully performs much better than it looks. In this review the IceQ X cooler is strapped onto a HIS HD6950 Turbo X video card which comes factory overclocked at 880MHz GPU and 1300MHz Memory. Pushing clocks this far on a factory overclocked video card takes some guts, but HIS know that they have nothing to worry about, their IceQ cooler is up to the job. As was the case with the HIS HD6870 IceQ X Turbo X and the HIS HD6850 IceQ X Turbo, the HIS HD6950 IceQ X Turbo X video card also has a very relaxed fan profile. Thankfully this model did not suffer any shutdown issues like the 6870 Turbo X, but it was happy to sit at 78°C while the fan was only spinning at 51%. Any other video card cooler fan would be 70% at the least with this GPU temperature so a more aggressive profile is needed, considering the fan is not very loud at high speeds.
For this review we have a wide range of video card comparisons in our usual mixture of DX10 / DX11 synthetic benchmarks and current games to get a good idea where it fits in performance and price wise. We also intend to overclock the HIS HD6950 IceQ X Turbo X to its limits and see if the IceQ X cooler really has what it takes to cool the GPU and other components effectively, so without further delay let's move on and get stuck in.
|
|
Comments
I'm glad to be different from the masses, I do a lot of research before I buy things and I like to get the best deals possible.
Your comparison charts spoke of something, to me at least. All the cards in the comparison would be pleasing to own. Not a real "dog" amongst them. I'm keeping in mind that gaming performance is a primary consideration. But even without games, these cards are all excellent to have in an HTPC or demanding video environment.
Oh and one more thing to watch when buying HIS graphics cards is the Fan wont last long if it's anything like the one on my HIS HD5770 (which it looks to be) not even 6 months old and it's already noisy as on start-up takes about 10~15mins of running before it gets to some semblance of quiet.. You all know the sound that grinding labored sound a fan starts to make when it's just about to fail
try it at 1920x1080 with lower AA and see how it goes
For the benchs I seen of one of those cards fully unlocked and with some good extra OC put in, its performance is way better than 570.
Unfortunately, these low-profile manufacturers are so for a reason, they don't have any feature to stand themselves ought of several sharks like PowerColor, Sapphire, XFX, ASUS and of course MSI.
In the end you only need that super high speed fan on TF3 if you're OCing it close or beyond a 1ghz core frequency.
But please note this are just suppositions I've made base on looking at both coolers and reading testimonies. For example, notice that HIS cooler, unlike TF3, hasn't got the back opened, allowing to suck in the air coming from front fans.
P.S.: For instance, because of that feature alone, I'm thinking on making a mod to my case so I can mount a Noctua P12 fan close to HD bays, to pressure air into the Graphics card cooler through the back of the cooler (the 6 pin connectors are above, so the intake from that position is very optimized)
And you completely ignored what I said about the noise per watt of heat spread. Without keeping this in mind you're just comparing apples with oranges...
Your guesses and suppositions might be plausible in the absence of any concrete data, but reviewer Steven Iglesias-Hearst did in fact point you to the concrete data that informed his assessment, data that he derived from (1) Full Reviews of the two cards that (2) He conducted personally, 17 days apart, using (3) A single Temperature Testing methodology (FurMark 1.9.0 Torture Test) and using (4) The exact same 'Lancool PC-K63'/'Intel P55'/'i5 760' System for each Review.
It?s rare that so many variables (Reviewer, Methodology, Case and System Cooling Config) are kept constant when comparing two cards, so his assessment of the relative merits of the two Cards should probably carry more weight than random testimonials. His results:
HIS 6950 IceQ X - Ambient Temp: 24 / Fan: 100% / FurMark Load Temp: 61 / Sound: ?Quite Bearable? Noise is a non-issue?
MSI 6950 Twin Frozr III -- Ambient Temp: 28 / Fan: 100% / FurMark Load Temp: 59 / Sound: ?Noise level is too much??
Granted, (5) Ambient temperatures are different (24 versus 28 degrees), but if (6) the Twin Frozr Fan is creating significantly more noise than the IceQ X, while (7) achieving approximately the same Load Temperature in FurMark (59 versus 61 degrees), then (8) your speculation -- ?You would need a lower speed [on the Twin Frozr 3] to match the [HIS IceQ X], and at that lower fan speed, it would make less noise than the top HIS heat spread? ? is not really consistent with the data.
Note also that in the test, the HIS Card was running at a higher default clock speed (880 MHz, versus 850 MHz for the MSI Card).
To be sure, we could ask Steven Iglesias-Hearst to (9) quantify (in decibels) ?quite bearable? and ?too much?, and also to (10) demonstrate the effect of a 4 degree difference on Ambient Temperature on FurMark Load Temps, but I think the data he has already provided is more than enough to support his assessment that the HIS Cooler is ?better? overall.
In the absence of such survey data, the overclocking results in Hearst?s review -- Street Fight IV 152.76 FPS @ 950/1350 (max OC) for the HIS IceQ X, versus Street Fighter IV 143.30 FPS for the MSI Twin Frozr III @ 900/1325 (max OC) -- give us the most helpful picture of the relative power/performance of the two cards.
Those OC numbers (900/1325) aren't the mirror of that MSI's true potential, since I've read dozens of high OCing numbers, being 975mhz on the core what most got, and a few lucky individuals got 1000mhz+ (cant remember memory speed). With such numbers I believe MSI's card would get similar results as HIS', and but with more durable and stable OC with its well-known military class components.
Here's win or win situation in which specific personal requirements make a difference (OC roof, silence, durability), but overall they seem to be in same level (opposite of my previous statements)
I end up loosing the right time for purchase with HD6xxx, so for HD7xxx I'll keep an open mind about this 2 coolers.
Offtopic: Does anyone think the thermal paste that comes with the card (with all brands) is as good as Arctic Silver 5 or a similar one? Never got the chance to compare then and now results with same ambient temperature, reason why I'm asking.
It's very hard to say without doing actual testing, but in my honest opinion you will not gain more that 2-3 degrees Celsius if you are lucky.
idle temps before AS5 were 36~37c after AS5 and curing time 27c
load temps before AS5 63c after AS5 52c (using F@H to load GPU's)
Because over time thermal paste gets dry and loses some of their heat transference capabilities, reason why if you already used the card for some time it's an unfair comparison.
I got the same results back then, after changing the 2 year old thermal paste of my HD4850, reason why I guess you did the same.
to flash my card is one that is the 840mhz version
thanks before hand
I need this card is at 880MHz core gpu bios
can use this bios
my original bios is the 840mhz version?