HIS HD 7870 IceQ Turbo Review

Factory overclocked and custom cooled, the HIS HD 7870 IceQ storms the AMD party. See how it compares against the current crop of graphics cards available…

Product on Review: HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo 2GB
Manufacturer and Sponsor: HIS
Street Price: Estimated £290 inc. VAT (GBP)

The AMD HD7870 GPU codenamed Pitcairn has impressed us so far although as yet, has failed to do any more than that. The problem with the Pitcairn range of GPU’s is the price. It is a little too pricey for a mid range card yet not having the minerals to hang with the big boys at the top end of the scale. The reference card arrives clocked to 1GHz as standard but as we have seen in previous reviews, AMD have thankfully left a little overclocking reserve for thoe of us who like to push the GPU to it’s limits. After all, the closer we can push a mid-range card toward a top end card can only serve to increase the bang-per-buck performance!

The HD7870 is by no means a hot card but the cooler a sliver of silicon is, generally equates to better overclocking results or at the very least, allows higher overclocking headroom. With voltage adjustments now becoming standard on GPU overclocking, efficient cooling has never been so important to keep the temperatures under control.

So then what we have today appears to be a product that serves the above requirements very well. The HIS IceQ Turbo range is renowned for granting excellent cooling ability along with factory overclocked GPU’s. The HD7870 from this family is no different however, what we will see today is a slightly refined cooling design compared to the ‘love it or hate it’ IceQ cooler we saw on the previous generation which many people found was a step too far, even for HIS. Hopefully this cooler will still retain the fantastic cooling ability the 6XXX series cards enjoyed under the IceQ cooler…

About HIS
HIS is proud to be AMD’s Authorized 1st Tier AIB Partner, Certified Partner and Launching Partner. Long term and favourable relationship with AMD, enable HIS to work closely with AMD to promote the HIS AMD Graphics Board; and to strive for best value on the marketing and sales of HIS AMD Product Line. In Sept 2003, HIS incorporated the state-of-the art Supreme Cooling Technology in the award winning HIS 9800Pro IceQ, which caught the attention of worldwide media. Since then, HIS IceQ series and the latest IceQ X series has been the limelight in the market for its outstanding performance and features over the other rivals. Today, HIS continues its avid commitment to quality product and service. HIS is certain to be Your Choice of Graphics Board Supplier.

Specification

-1100MHz Engine Clock
-2GB GDDR5 Memory
-1200MHz Memory Clock (4.8 Gbps GDDR5)
-92 GTexels/s
-153.6GB/s memory bandwidth (maximum)
-GCN Architecture
-20 Compute Units (1280 Stream Processors)
-80 Texture Units
-128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
-32 Color ROP Units
-Dual Geometry Engines
-Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE)
-256-bit GDDR5 memory interface
-PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface
-DirectX® 11.1-capable graphics
-OpenGL 4.2 support
-Partially Resident Textures (PRT)
-Ultra-high resolution texture streaming technology
-Image quality enhancement technology
-Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing
-Adaptive anti-aliasing
-Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
-Enhanced Quality Anti-Aliasing (EQAA)
-DirectX® 9/10/11 Supersample Anti-Aliasing (SSAA)
-Requires AMD Catalyst™ 12.2 or later
-16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
-AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology2
-Up to 6 displays supported
-Independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
-Display grouping
-Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
-Discrete Digital Multi-Point Audio (DDMA)
-AMD App Acceleration3
-Supports OpenCL™ 1.2, DirectCompute 11 & Microsoft C++ AMP
-Double Precision Floating Point
-AMD HD Media Accelerator
-Unified Video Decoder (UVD)
-H.264
-VC-1
-MPEG-2 (SD & HD)
-MVC (Blu-ray 3D)
-MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid)
-Adobe Flash
-DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
-WMV HD
-Video Codec Engine (VCE)
-Multi-stream hardware H.264 encoder
-Full-fixed mode: 1080p @ 60 FPS encoding
-Hybrid mode: Stream Processor-assisted encoding
-Enhanced Video Quality features
-Advanced post-processing and scaling
-Deblocking
-Denoising
-Automatic deinterlacing
-Mosquito noise reduction
-Edge enhancement
-3:2 pulldown detection
-Advanced video color correction
-Brighter whites processing (Blue Stretch)
-Independent video gamma control
-Flesh tone correction
-Color vibrance control
-Dynamic contrast
-Dynamic video range control
-AMD HD3D technology5
-Stereoscopic 3D display/glasses support
-Blu-ray 3D support
-Stereoscopic 3D gaming
-3rd party Stereoscopic 3D middleware software support
-AMD CrossFire™ multi-GPU technology6
-Supports dual-GPU performance scaling
-Cutting-edge integrated display support
-DisplayPort 1.2
-Max resolution: 4096×2160 per display
-Multi-Stream Transport
-21.6 Gbps bandwidth
-High bit-rate audio
-Quad HD/4k video support
-1080p60 Stereoscopic 3D
-HDMI® (With 4k, 3D, 3GHz, Deep Color and x.v.Color™)
-Max resolution: 4096×2160
-1600p60 Stereoscopic 3D
-Quad HD/4k video support
-Dual-link DVI with HDCP
-Max resolution: 2560×1600
-VGA
-Max resolution: 2048×1536
-Integrated HD audio controller
-Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
-Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats
-AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology4
-Automatic power management with low power idle states
-AMD PowerTune technology4
-Intelligent TDP management technology
-Dynamic clockspeed/performance enhancement for games
-AMD ZeroCore Power technology4
-Ultra-low idle power when the connected display is in power saving mode
-Efficient low power mode for desktop work
-Secondary GPUs in an AMD CrossFire™ technology configuration power down when unneeded
-AMD Catalyst™ graphics and HD video configuration software
-Software support for Windows 7 and Windows Vista
-AMD Catalyst™ Control Center – AMD Catalyst™ software application and user interface for setup, configuration, and accessing features of AMD Radeon products.
-Unified Graphics display driver – AMD Catalyst™ software enabling other PC programs and devices to use advanced graphics, video, and features of AMD Radeon™ products.

While the HD79XX series and HD78XX series of GPU’s have different core names, the two cores are very, very similar in design. Similar to the way NVIDIA graphics card compute, the new AMD GCN archetecture has tiny ‘cores within a core’ – stream processors with each processor working on an instruction set until that work has been completed. This is the make up of AMD’s GCN (Graphics Core Next) archetecture which is based on the same 28nm process as the Tahiti cores. There are 20 of these compute units on-board the HD7870 core equalling 1280 stream processors, 160 more than the HD6870 but quite a lot less than the 1536 the HD6970 possessed. Comparing the the HD7870 against the previous gen though is pointless thanks to the new GCN archetecture as even the mighty HD7950 had few more at 1752 and comparing the HD7950 against the HD6970 is like chalk and cheese.

Using the new Pitcairn core, the HD7870 comprises of 20 Graphics Core Next Compute Units (1280 stream processors) which is slightly trimmed down from the higher end 7900 series which has 32 CU’s. With 32 ROPs and a 256-bit GDDR5 memory interface (equalling 153.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth), the specifications are twice that of the HD7770 GPU we reviewed earlier. The card also features a 9th generation tessellator which equates to the HD7870 being 425% faster than the HD6970 so programmes that require tessellation should so a big improvement over last generation GPU’s.

AMD suggests that the HD7870’s performance is expected to sit between NVIDIA’s GTX580 and GTX570 cards which makes sense as this where the GPU’s price point lies. As you can see from the slide above, the HD7870 has many advantages over its smaller sister card, the HD7850, namely the extra clockspeed and 16 TU’s which enhances the remainder of the specifications by a fair margin. Both cards have the same 2GB of GDDR5 and 256-bit memory interface.

Let’s take a look at the features of today’s review sample…

Features

Turbo
HIS Classfied OC Card
Turbo cards are faster than regular cards! The card is bios-overclocked out of the box with 1100 MHz/ 4800 MHz core clock and memory clock respectively, offering the performance edge for gamers!

IceQ– Cooler, Quieter.
IceQ ensures effective cooling when there is another card in front blocking the fan inlet, such as in CrossFire setup.
By expelling the hot air, IceQ removes all the heat generated by the GPU out of the computer chassis, prevents the hot air from accumulating inside and enhancing the overall stability. The more crowded the chassis, the greater will be the impact.

The demonstration shows that the IceQ does outperform the 3rd party cooler in closed environment. Cool air is drawn from both sides of the fan and hot air is forced out of the computer case. This ensures effective cooling when there is another card in front blocking the fan inlet, such as in CrossFire setup.

Black Hole Impeller
Black hole impeller ensures large amount of cool air is ready. It draws cool air from both sides of the fan even there is another card blocking the fan inlet on the front side of fan.

Cooler
With IceQ, the card is up to 25 °C cooler than the reference cooler.
The super large 80 x 21.5mm single blower fan draws massive amount of cool air to cool the GPU directly.
The fan is extremely durable with a life span of up to 50,000 hours!

4 wide heatpipes optimize cooling performance by removing heat from the core area.
The extra large 35 x 30mm copper heatsink provides a large heat dissipation area.
The card also features fan control and fan monitoring, you are able to read fan speed & Asic temperature from CCC or software.

Quieter
IceQ is one of the quietest coolers. The card is below 28dB when watching movies, surfing Facebook, working. The card is quiet in 2D mode and remains quiet whether you are gaming, online socializing, entertaining or working.
The card is up to 6dB quieter than the reference cooler.

iTurbo
iTurbo is your software assistant to control your graphics card to be quiet, cool and experiece overclocking by simply pressing the iTurbo Button!

User Friendly Overclocking Software: Cooler, Quieter, OC!
iTurbo’s Fan Control and Fan Monitoring allow easy adjustment of your card to its maximum cooling performance or to run your card quietly!

Powerful Overclocking Software
Either you wish to unleash its full potential or to make it more environmental friendly, iTurbo is ready for you!

High Quality Components
HIS uses only the finest materials and the most advanced techniques to build our cards, making them one of the most stable and durable product in the industry.

CrossFireX Ready!
The card’s is armed with Crossfire Connector, ready for 2-way CrossFire & multiplied performance!

OC Equipment
OC material is ready for Overclocking to the limit! HIS cards utilize Dynamic Phase Control PWM IC to save power for better use. Along with digital power design, 2 ounces Copper Layer, HIS cards make the best out of power, allowing users to clock speeds to the full potential!

Safety Design
HIS cards are engineered with the highest standard of safety, preventing them any potential damages. Solid State Choke stabilizes the card and Full Solid State Capacitors enhances the card’s stability in critical gaming situations!

Stronger, Last Longer!
HIS special metal rib further strengthens the PCBs, making the cards extra stable and durable. You can count on HIS cards to game hard for 24/7/365 for years!

GCN Architecture

Available on select, high-performance AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 Series graphics products, the Graphics Core Next (GCN) Architecture is a radically new approach to the design of a consumer GPU.

Most importantly, it is the world’s first 28nm GPU architecture, which enables AMD to fit up to 4.3 billion transistors-the most basic building blocks of a GPU-into approximately the same space once needed to fit 2.6 billion. Increasing transistor density by greater than 60% is more than just a feat of engineering-it’s responsible for the world’s most powerful and advanced GPU.1

Designed to push not only the boundaries of DirectX® 11 gaming, the GCN Architecture is also AMD’s first design specifically engineered for general computing. Equipped with up to 32 compute units (2048 stream processors), each containing a scalar coprocessor, AMD’s 28nm GPUs are more than capable of handling workloads-and programming languages-traditionally exclusive to the processor. Coupled with the dramatic rise of GPU-aware programming languages like C++ AMP and OpenCL™, the GCN Architecture is truly the right architecture for the right time.

Performance

In simple terms, increasing the number of transistors in a GPU has a big impact on the potential performance of a graphics card-but transistors alone are not enough. It takes a truly great design, like the GCN Architecture, to effectively utilize that potential for real-world performance.

Below you will find just a few examples of how this truly next-generation architecture delivers on one very simple design goal: enable the world’s most powerful graphics cards.1

Starting with GPU utilization, AMD has taken great strides to ensure that the GCN Architecture is capable of efficiently using its hardware resources. This seems like such a simple idea, but designing a GPU to frequently approach its peak theoretical performance is a challenge the GCN Architecture tackles with ease.

The GCN Architecture is designed for improved utilization, which ensures that the GPU is making optimal use of its resources for maximum performance.

DirectX® 11 tessellation has also seen incredible improvement from previous AMD Radeon™ products. On the left in the image below, a chart plots the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970’s performance across 32 levels of tessellation, and the results are stunning: a 350% boost at the highest factors.2 And on the right, the GCN Architecture’s ability to effectively utilize its potential again shines through: highly-tessellated games are decisively faster by an average of 79%!

The GCN Architecture also benefits from dramatically improved tessellation performance. Games featuring this DirectX® 11 technology are considerably faster than they were on the previous generation of AMD Radeon™ products.

Every gamer knows that the GPU’s clockspeed also has a big impact on the performance of a graphics card, and the GCN Architecture keeps that in mind.

But what many don’t know is that every graphics card is designed to draw only a certain amount of power from your PC’s power supply. This is called the Thermal Design Profile, or TDP, and it’s critical that the GPU architecture is capable of making the most of every watt. The GCN Architecture can do that thanks to a technology called AMD PowerTune technology.

AMD PowerTune is an intelligent system that performs real-time analysis of the games and applications that utilize a GPU. Examples of such software might include Battlefield 3 or Furmark. In the event that an application is not making the most of the power available to the GPU, AMD PowerTune can improve that application’s performance by raising the GPU’s clockspeed by up to 30%! Best of all, this technology is completely automatic and is designed specifically to improve gaming performance.

Available on all 28nm AMD Radeon™ products, AMD PowerTune is designed to enable significantly higher clockspeeds in your favorite games-automatically!

Image Quality

But performance is not enough for today’s demanding gamers. Image quality, or the clarity and accuracy of textures and effects, is equally important. The GCN Architecture is equipped with three key technologies that dramatically raise the bar in this regard.

Partially Resident Textures (PRT)
Even in the latest titles, gamers may have noticed that games often re-use or repeat textures, particularly on the ground or in background scenery such as mountains or trees. This is because increasing the physical size or number of textures in a game can have a negative impact on the performance of a GPU. PRT is a radical new technology that hopes to break this cycle.

PRT can utilize absolutely enormous texture files, up to 32 terabytes large, with minimal performance impact. PRT accomplishes this by streaming small bits of these massive textures into the GPU as needed, giving compatible games a virtually endless supply of unique texture data it can apply to the game world. The GCN Architecture in 28nm AMD Radeon™ products is the first GPU design to feature a hardware implementation of this technology.

Partially Resident Textures (PRT) enables future games to utilize ultra-high resolution textures with the same performance as today’s small and often repetitive textures.

Improved Anisotropic Filtering (AF)

Available on every modern GPU, anisotropic filtering is a technique that assists the GPU in making sure textures in your favorite games remain razor sharp, even at a distance. Most games now offer the ability to enable this feature, and the AMD Catalyst™ driver suite has long provided players with the option to force enable anisotropic filtering for all of their games.

Where every GPU design differs, however, is in the way the anisotropic filtering is actually executed. The GCN Architecture has been specifically optimized to produce superior results when AF is enabled.

Improved anisotropic filtering in products like the AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 Series ensure gamers get sharper, better textures when this technology is enabled.

Improved DirectX® 11 Tessellation
As DirectX® 11 titles become more mature, game developers are naturally pushing the envelope of realism by utilizing a greater degree of special rendering effects. One such effect is tessellation, which can dynamically generate additional detail in a scene on the fly.

A wireframe scene of a rally car in DiRT 3 driving through water. On the left, notice there are no ripples. On the right, after tessellation, there is new and dynamic detail in the game.

As with anisotropic filtering, tessellation is not new to GPUs, but the manner in which tessellation is executed can have a large impact on the gaming experience. Because of this, the GCN Architecture has again been optimized to deliver up to 4x the performance of the AMD Radeon™ HD 6000 Series in heavily-tessellated games.

AMD ZeroCore Power

When a discrete GPU is in a static screen state it works to minimize idle power by enabling a host of active power saving functions including (but not limited to); clock gating, power gating, memory compression, and a host of other features. However, GPUs with AMD’s exclusive ZeroCore Power technology can take energy savings to entirely new heights by completely powering down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.

Nearly all PCs can be configured to turn off their displays after a long period of inactivity. This is known as the long idle state; where the screen is blanked but the rest of the system remains in an active and working power state (ACPI G0/S0). As soon as the system goes into long idle state and applications are not actively changing the screen contents, the GPU enters the ZeroCore power state. In the ZeroCore power state, the GPU core (including the 3D engine / compute units, multimedia and audio engines, displays, memory interfaces, etc.) is completely powered down.

However, one cannot simply remove the GPU and its associated device context completely; particularly when it is the only GPU in the system as is the case in many enthusiast platforms. The operating system and SBIOS must still be aware that a GPU is still present in the system. For this reason, the ZeroCore Power state maintains a very small bus control block to ensure that GPU context is still visible to the operating system and SBIOS. The ZeroCore power state also manages the power sequencing of the GPU to ensure that the power up/down mechanism is self-contained and independent of the rest of the system.

The enablement of the ZeroCore Power feature is controlled by the driver. The driver monitors the display contents and allows the GPU to enter the ZeroCore Power in the condition that the GPU enters long idle and subsequent work requests are no longer being submitted to the engine. If any applications update the screen contents, ZeroCore Power technology can periodically wake the GPU to update the framebuffer contents and put the GPU back into the ZeroCore Power state. Furthermore, applications such as Windows 7 desktop gadgets are architected to minimize activity and save power in the long idle state. These applications are active during screen-on mode to display dynamic content such as weather, RSS feeds, stock symbols, system status, etc. but also have the intelligence to suspend any updates and activity when the system enters long idle. These applications will not wake the GPU from the ZeroCore Power state in long idle.

AMD ZeroCore Power technology delivers tremendous energy savings. Many PCs remain in the long idle state for a variety of use cases that are highly relevant to everyday consumers, enthusiasts and professionals. In ZeroCore Power mode, users can still enjoy non-graphics activities such as file serving/streaming, motherboard audio and music, and remote access while the GPU core is essentially powered off.

ZeroCore Power technology also scales with AMD CrossFire™ technology. With an AMD CrossFire platform, all non-primary GPUs are in the ZeroCore Power state when not in use. For AMD CrossFire workloads, the driver will engage the non-primary GPUs to deliver full performance on-demand. The primary GPU can also enter the ZeroCore Power state during long idle as well. This delivers scalable benefits for the enthusiast. First, it effectively removes the power increase for users of AMD CrossFire under idle and light (single GPU) workloads. Second, it removes the noise penalty multiGPU users have always had to endure since the GPU fans are off in ZeroCore Power mode.

Packaging & Accessories

Box Front

The box the HD7870 IceQ Turbo comes packaged in is quite large, certainly larger than the competitions HD7870 packaging. The outer sleeve has the familiar frosted effect along with a smattering of feature emblems on the front including two additional stickers, Turbo and iTurbo.

Box Rear

To the rear we see that HIS have left no stone unturned because even more of the cards features are displayed, each with a small description. HIS claim the card is cooler and quieter than a reference cooler and that it will support up to four displays.

Inner box

After removing the outer sleeve we get a very thick and sturdy black cardboard box with the product manufacturer’s moniker printed in white.

Packaging

The graphics card is quite literally jammed into the foam bracket which secures the GPU from any untoward knocks and bumps along it’s travels. Beneath this quite impressive method of holding the card steadfast is a hidden compartment which holds the accessories.

Accessories

The accessories of the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo are as follows: Quick Installation guide (multi language), installation diagram, VGA-DVI adapter, Crossfire bridge, driver CD and the iTurbo software cd. Quite a complete listing but sadly there is no free game which was a shame as some of the 6 series IceQ Turbo cards had bundled copies of Dirt 3.

All in all a very well packaged product. I was surprised at the weight and girth of the box but when you see the card overleaf, all will become clear…

First Look

Card Top

The first and quite obvious detail you will notice about the card is the mammoth cooler which overhangs the PCB by a fair margin. Measuring 14 x 4.4 x 29.7cm (WxHxL) it is a monster of a card being just short of 12 inches thanks to the IceQ cooler which hides the blue PCB beneath.

Card Bottom

I’m not a fan of coloured power circuit boards so while the blue PCB used by HIS is eye catching, I fear it is for the wrong reasons, especially as the cooler is black. I can’t help feeling that a black PCB would look so much better with that monstrous cooler. Surprisingly, there are only four screws holding the IceQ cooler to the card so removing the cooler for maintenance will be a cinch. You may also notice that there is a bracket running along the outer length of the card. This ensures that the PCB will not bow under the weight of the cards cooler.

Card Side

Here we get a profile shot of the card and a first glimpse of those gorgeous heatpipes which sprout out from the core area along the length of the card to dissipate heat efficiently. While the card may be described as a dual slot affair, the oversized fan area actually uses a little more than two slots and could prevent crossfire configuration if your slots are just two PCI slots apart i.e you will need two PCI slots between the primary and secondary cards for them to fit correctly.

I/O Area

The I/O area is one section of the card that is not customised having the standard dual link DVI-I port, HDMI port and a couple of mini-DisplayPorts. The cooler is partially shrouded so thankfully HIS have a full vented PCI slot above these connectors to assist on hot air expulsion.

Power Ports

HIS recommend using a 500w power supply to power the card which will deliver power through the PCIe port along with twin 6pin power ports allowing the card to theoretically draw a maximum of 225W.

Crossfire Tab

With only one Crossfire tab, the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo is limited to two-way Crossfire.

Heatpipes

The HD 7870 IceQ cooler has four heatpipes which are nickel coated copper. 2 of these heapipes are 8mm while the remaining two are 6mm and certainly look better than the plain copper versions used on the previous generation.

IceQ Cooler

Overall, the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo is a great looking, if somewhat oversized graphics card. The previous generation of IceQ coolers received criticism due to the translucent shroud which many believed was ugly. HIS have gone back to basics by using a streamlined black shroud while retaining the black hole 80mm impeller fan design. Regardless of the angle you view the card from, you cannot help but be impressed by its aesthetics.

Let’s remove the cooler and see what HIS have hidden beneath…

Closer Look

IceQ Heatsink

Inside the large plastic shroud we see that the heatsink itself is not actually that big. An aluminium baseplate has a cut-out for the copper core of which the four heatpipes are soldered to dissipate the heat to the aluminium finned heatsink array. Cold air is drawn in from the fan and pushed along the heatsink which will exit from the rear of the card however because the shroud is not enclosed, some heat may be expelled back into the PC enclosure.

Copper Cooling

The memory is cooled via two thermal interface strips that are stuck to the baseplate with the core receiving copper coling. The contact to the GPU core was very good with the paste used also being of good quality so there should be no need to replace the TIM for quite some time after purchase.

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Naked Card

While the card has a different colour PCB it retains the reference design with all of the components found in exactly the same place as the AMD reference card we reviewed earlier. The GPU core is framed by 8x256MB of GDDR5 with the VRM located towards the I/O area of the card.

Voltage Regulation

HIS coin their VRM design as Dynamic Phase Control PWM IC with the voltage controlled by the CHil CHL8225 controller. This little IC ensures that overclockers can adjust voltage through software based applications. Solid State capacitors and Solid chokes are used which are both efficient and durable.

Hynix Memory

The HIS HD 7870 IceQ Turbo carries 2GB of GDDR5 courtesy of Hynix. The product number is H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C which means the memory is certified to run at 1250MHz (5GHz effective). Hopefully, as with our other Hynix equipped review samples, this card will still have some overclocking headroom.

Pitcairn XT Core

The AMD Pitcairn XT core has 1280 Stream processors on-board which being factory overclocked to a blistering 1100MHz should equate to some impressive figures in our suite of benchmarks. Hopefully these figures can also be enhanced as we ramp up the voltage and overclock every last MHz out of the tiny piece of silicon.

Test Setup

With the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

Some of the components for our test bench were kindly donated by CORSAIR who provided the majority of components without whom we would not have been able to bring you this review so a big thanks to them.

Graphics cards on test:

HIS HD 7870 IceQ Turbo

HIS HD 7870 IceQ Turbo Overclocked

MSI HD 7870 Twin Frozr III OC
GIGABYTE HD7850 OC WindForce x2
ZOTAC GTX680 2GB GDDR5
AMD HD7870 2GB GDDR5
Zotac GTX580 AMP2! 3GB GDDR5
XFX R7970 Black Edition 3GB GDDR5
XFX R7770 Black Edition ‘S’ 1GB GDDR5
AMD HD7750 1GB GDDR5
AMD HD7770 1GB GDDR5
HIS HD7970 3GB GDDR5
XFX DD Radeon R7950 3072MB GDDR5
PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD7950 3072MB GDDR5
AMD Radeon HD7950 3072MB GDDR5
AMD Radeon HD7970 3072MB GDDR5
ZOTAC GTX570 AMP! 1280MB GDDR5
NVIDIA GTX570 1280MB GDDR5
MSI GTX560Ti-448 Twin Frozr III 1280MB GDDR5
MSI GTX560Ti-384 Twin Frozr III 2GB GDDR5
AMD HD6990 4GB GDDR5

For this review we will be using the very latest CAT 12.4 drivers which is a change of driver from the CAT 12.3 drivers used on the HD79XX series.

Motherboard: MSI X79 Big Bang X-Power II
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – ANTEC High Current Pro 1200W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
We have also updated our range of benchmarks to include the following games which will give the graphics cards a challenge and sort the wheat from the chaff. Each benchmark will be run at both stock and maximum overclock settings and utilise 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions along with AA at various levels (application dependent):

Battlefield 3
Crysis 2
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Batman: Arkham City
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
DiRT 3
Futuremark 3DMark 2011
Unigine: Heaven 2.5

Let’s see how today’s cards performed…

Overclocking, Temperature & Power Consumption

The HD 7870 reference design comes clocked at 1000MHz. HIS have added a further 100MHz to this figure to make this among the fastest HD7870’s currently available.

All of the new AMD cards bit it Tahiti or Cape Verde have overclocked very well indeed so we expect similar results from the Pitcairn XT core found on the HIS HD 7870 IceQ Turbo. For our overclocking exploits we will be using HIS’s new ‘iTurbo’ overclocking software tool which is very easy to use and offers a variety of settings including voltage and fan control along with both memory and core clockspeed adjustments which should enable us to get the very best overclock from this hardware.

Using the HIS software was very simple and intuitive. With the voltage slider maximised, we achieved a quite remarkable 1267MHz on the core which was stable for most of the benchmarks we ran. Sadly it fell over using Heaven 2.5 so we lowered the clock slightly to a still very impressive 1250MHz which was rock solid stable throughout all of the benchmarks ran today along with a four hour repitition of Unigine Heaven 2.5

Power Consumption
To test for power consumption we do not use anything to technical, just a wall meter which measures the total system power draw minus the monitor.

At reference speeds with no voltage adjustment, the card system drew a little more than the MSI competition at 189W which was also seen at load however the measurements were well within the realm of ambiguity. There was no mistaking however that the HIS card is a hungry beast when the voltages are increased however with a full system draw of 353W under load, equalling what a GTX680 would demand!

Temperature & Acoustics

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we ran Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained.

Being named IceQ you would like to think that this was one cool card and I am happy to report that this is the case. At stock, factory overclocked levels, the card was one of the coldest on test hitting a maximum 58c. Even with the huge voltage and clockspeed increases, the card barely budged above 64c. It did this while being near silent throughout the tests with the fan noise not being noticeable at all. Of course, when the fan speed was manually increased, the noise levels also rose but during testing, there was simply no reason to adjust the fan speed as the cooler did it’s job so well.

Let’s move on to our suite of benchmarks…

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next instalment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

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Crysis 2

Crytek took an internet beating from its loyal fans due to the fact that they pandered to the console masses and dumbed down the graphics to DirectX 9. Fortunately, fans of the PC version of Crysis managed to force Cryteks hand and they have since developed a DX11 patch and have also enhanced the textures with added tesselation. It is for this reason that we have decided to include it in our suite of benchmarks.

To test the cards we used the Crysis 2 benchmark courtesy of Adrenaline with both the 1.9 patch, DX11 update and Hi-res texture pack. Settings were manually placed to Ultra, DX11 and tessellation enabled with the Central Park map being run 3 times per resolution benchmark test.

Crysis Warhead

Following the success of Crysis, the stand alone expansion “Warhead” was hotly anticipated to bring more game play, more weapons, improved visuals whilst maintaining better performance, the latter being what gamers wanted most. After all how many people upgraded their rigs just to play this game… In the game, you play as the upbeat Brit Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes, chasing down a Korean nuclear warhead. Throw in some ice shooting aliens and we’re bound to have a great game. It sure delivered.

Testing was done using Framebuffer’s Crysis Warhead benchmarking tool. The tests were configured to DirectX 10 at Enthusiast levels. Each test on the Ambush map was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.

Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security “home” for all of Gotham City’s thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.

The results below were obtained from the builtin benchmark utility from the game. All the settings were set to

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

DiRT 3

As players race to elevate their global standing, DiRT 3 is back delivering mud, sweat and gears world over: from the intense weather-beaten rally stages of Europe, Africa and the US, to executing performance driving showcases and career challenges where car control is pushed to spectacular limits.

The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available and DirectX 11 was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

Metro 2033

Based on the novel by the same name, Metro 2033 is a first person shooter with elements of survival horror. As Artyom, you trawl through the mutant infested metro systems of post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game delivers presents a grim ambience that reflects on the overall atmosphere of the underground setting. Metro 2033 uses the setting as a back drop to showcase some of the best visuals of any games out now, making it the ideal benchmark for those looking for the best graphics card.

The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Metro 2033, configuring the settings to High and making use of DirectX 11. The frontline scene was looped 3 times for each configuration. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

Futuremark 3DMark 2011

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. The benchmark was run in both Performance and Extreme presets.

Unigine: Heaven 2.5

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine™ engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Conclusion

Cooler and quieter are how HIS describe the HD 7870 IceQ Turbo when compared to the reference design. They did however miss out on the biggest attraction – faster! While it is hardly a slouch at stock clockspeed thanks to the 100MHz factory overclock to the core, Turbo just doesn’t cut it when you consider that this card, when manually overclocked to the maximum speeds possible, traded blows with the much more powerful HD 7950 and almost toppled the mighty HD7970. It did this by being both cooler and quieter. It should be stated that there have been driver enhancements since we reviewed the HD7950 but for all intents and purposes, the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo would be punching above its weight even without a driver revision.

The HD7870’s we have reviewed thus far have impressed us but all have suffered at the hands of AMD’s pricing strategy. The same criticism could be handed to the HIS HD7870 IceQ Turbo too in that it is the most expensive HD7870 based graphics card we have reviewed so far, weighing in just below the £300 mark (estimated). Therefore the same argument persists: For a little more you could buy a reference HD7950! The manually overclocked HD7870 IceQ Turbo may well perform better than a reference HD7950 but when both cards are overclocked, the HD7950 is the faster card. It will however be noisier, hotter and consume more power so the decision is not as straightforward as you would think.

When all is said and done though, the HIS HD7870 is the fastest card of the Pitcairn family we have tested to date and so clearly deserves our Elite award. I struggled long and hard over what ‘medal’ to give the GPU. I could easily dismiss the HIS as a Gold winner and to be truthful, I almost did as it really is that good. Were the card not priced so close to the HD7950, Gold is the award that the card would receive and deservedly so as it performs extremely well in all areas bar one – the price. It therefore, like the other HD7870’s, has to settle for Silver, albeit a very shiny, highly polished silver!

Pros:
+ Fastest HD7870 on test
+ Very Quiet
+ Very Cool
+ Good Packaging
+ Giant killing performance (when overclocked)

Cons:
– Too Expensive compared to HD7950
– Oversized cooler
– Power hungry when overvolted