HIS HD6950 IceQ X Turbo X 2GB Video Card

Manufacturer: Hightech Information System Limited
Product Name: HIS HD6950 IceQ X Turbo X 2GB
Model Number: H695QNX2G2M
Price As Tested: $299.99 at NewEgg

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.

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