HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card After seeing a excellent digit of reviews which covered overclocked and custom cooled versions of NVIDIA’s flagship card –the GTX 580- many of our readers have been asking for us to take in the same types of cards from AMD’s side of the fence. Now we mark the first step of our journey into the planet of high performance Radeon products with a pair of Turbo-branded cards from HIS Equipment.

Being one of AMD’s premier board partners has contracted HIS Digital and pleased spot surrounded by the North American promote but their presence here at Hardware Canucks has been slim to none over the last few being. Nonetheless, their newest HD 6970 and HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card commanded our attention in view of the fact that they are uncommon from very near everything else out there. Both sport augmented timer speeds but what really distinguishes them from many competitors is uncommon versions of HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card iconic IceQ heatsink design.

Just like many NVIDIA lines from the past few being, privileged than reference performance AMD cards seem to be a dime a dozen these days and in terms of timer speeds, neither of these cards is whatever business disturb a curfew breaking. Certainty be told, AMD’s partners are quite conservative when HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card comes to pre-overclocking their designs and HIS follows along in the same footsteps.

The $369 HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card IceQ Turbo is the flagship of HIS’ current release GPU lineup but it only offers minimal timer speed increases over the reference card which is likely why it only orders a $30 price premium. The HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card on the additional hand offers a reasonable overclock but its price of $299 causes it play in the same promote as some GTX 570 and HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card 2GB cards. That’s some tough struggle to be sure. But according to HIS, most of these cards’ appeal comes from their silent surgical course of action and low temperatures rather than any real planet performance enhancement over have a give of designs.

So what we have here are two AMD cards that should be the best of the best among their respective peers but can HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card promises of cool, silent computing give explanation for their augmented cost? We’re in this area to find out.

HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card

The peripheral packaging for this card is basic but the interior protection machinate of rigid fake is one of the best we’ve seen. The belt choice isn’t whatever business to enter home either with the typical power, Crossfire and DVI adaptors. Even if, most new aficionado-end AMD cards come with a free downloadable copy of Dirt 3 which does add a excellent $40 regard if you don’t already own it.

This HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card heatsink design on this card is unique to say the last. Instead of by the typical custom heatsink design with a centrally mounted fan, this one takes some of its direction from the reference cooler by by a rear mounted fan to exhaust hot air through the backplate. Sorry to say, the upshot of HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card deal with resulted in a “like it or despise it” look for this particular card but this shouldn’t be of too much interest if HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card lives up our expectations.

Editor’s Note: HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card has been brought to our attention that this card does to be sure take up vaguely more the two additional room slots. As such,HIS HD 6970 IceQ Turbo & HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo X Card will eliminate Crossfire compatibility of certain motherboards which have meticulously placed PCI-E slots.

The heatsink itself lives and dies by the amount of airflow produced by the release intake fan or in this case what HIS calls their “Black Hole Impeller”. Even with its unconvinced marketing name the “impeller” is hooked up to some impressive hardware which consists of a pure copper core contact plate and a foursome of generous heatpipes that wind into a dense fin assembly.

There are benefits to this intake / exhaust design like decrease in-case temperatures but additional heatsinks with centrally located fans blowing down onto the fins are renowned for quieter surgical course of action and best GPU cooling. The reason for this is quite austere: a design like the one we see privileged than causes the fan to work at privileged RPMs in peacefulness to push air through the UV insightful blanket and over the domestic aluminum fins.

Along with a custom designed PCB that includes an upgraded PWM HIS has also implemented several supplementary cooling enhancements for onboard components. The GDDR5 modules are together to the heatsink’s main contact plate with thermal pads even as the voltage regulators are cooled with a generous –albeit unsteady- secondary fin assembly.

The power and record productivity connectors on the IceQ Turbo wait the same as on the reference card with a 6+8 pin setup along with a amalgamation of dual DisplayPort 1.2, twin DVIs and a release HDMI 1.4 connector on the backplate.