| HIS Radeon HD 7870 IceQ Turbo 2GB |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |
| Written by Steven Iglesias-Hearst | |
| Monday, 26 March 2012 | |
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Radeon HD 7870 Final ThoughtsThe HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo is a really overwhelming video card; for starters you may be overwhelmed by the price, next you will be overwhelmed by its physical size and weight. When you install it into your system you will be overwhelmed by its performance and power usage. The HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo consumes a mere 16 watts at idle and 145 watts when running full load! Temperatures are 36°C idle and 65°C load, putting the fan on manual and cranking it up to 100% saw the temperature drop to 56°C. If those vital stats don't impress you then I don't know what will. This video card overclocked reasonably well considering it was already factory overclocked on both the GPU core and memory out of the box, and gained an average 5.86% increase in scores across the range of benchmark tests (bar the Vantage suite). With more time to tweak I'm sure we could have maybe squeezed more out of both clocks, thanks to the iTurbo software from HIS there is more range to play with, the cooler can definitely handle its workload. HIS IceQ Turbo ConclusionImportant: In this section I am going to write a brief five point summary on the following categories; Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality and Value. These views are my own and help me to give the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo 2GB Video Card a rating out of 10. A high or low score does not necessarily mean that it is better or worse than a similar video card that has been reviewed by another writer here at Benchmark Reviews, which may have got a higher or lower score. It is however a good indicator of whether the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo 2GB video card is good or not. I would strongly urge you to read the entire review, if you have not already, so that you can make an educated decision for yourself.
The graphics performance of the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo is good enough for playing most games at 1920x1080 with the highest settings. There are obviously some games that will test it if you put everything on maximum. Its performance out of the box was exeptional which I expected, for me the HD7000 series represents what the HD6000 series could and should have been - a proper upgrade. The HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo sits at the top of the pile in every test but does so at a much higher cost. The appearance rating of the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo is up for debate. There is not a lot I can say about a discrete graphics card that will get installed and then be out of sight. When we consider looking up close at the PCB cleanliness and the soldering quality then it does deserve a high rating. There are some that will surely disagree but thanks to the graphic nature of this review you can easily make your mind up for yourself. If anything lets it down it would be the untreated heatpipes Construction is excellent as you would expect from a company with a good reputation like HIS, despite the use of plastic for the fan shroud the whole package feels really solid. Taking the card to pieces and reconstructing it was a breeze and everything lined up perfectly, the IceQ HSF assembly is solid and is well made which reassures you that it is no fragile piece of hardware. It is really heavy but thanks to the weight lifter it can be supported from below to prevent warping of the PCB or socket. Functionality is very good, I can't help but keep singing praise for the HIS IceQ HSF, it really is so good. To bring a load temperature down by 11C is no easy feat, and to do it while remaining virtually silent is something that all AIB partners need to aspire to. There was some overclocking headroom but the fact that it was already factory overclocked on the core to 1100MHz meant that there wasn't much more to have cooling this beast on air. The HIS Radeon HD7870 IceQ Turbo 1GB video card model H787QT2G2M will cost you $379.99 at the current MSRP, but with the lack of fresh new competing video cards from the green team AMD and its AIB's are practically free to name their own prices. On average the HIS Radeon HD7870 IceQ Turbo costs $6.98/FPS in our benchmark tests (1920x1080) based on the current MSRP above, for a video card like this you will really have to want it regardless of the high price, either that or choose it based on which games you prefer the most. Pros:
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