HIS Intros HD 6870 IceQ 1 GB Graphics Card

[btarunr]

HIS today released its latest performance segment graphics card, the HD 6870 IceQ 1GB. This card makes use of the large IceQ cooler found on Radeon HD 6970-based IceQ graphics cards. Its cooler makes use of a large heatsink to which heat is fed by four exposed-copper heat pipes, and ventilation is care of what HIS calls "Black Hole Impeller", a blower that draws in air from both sides of the card (obverse, reverse), channels it though the heatsink, and out of the case. This cooler, HIS claims, can keep temperatures down by as much as 24°C, and noise levels down by as much as 10 dB, compared to the AMD reference cooler.

Under the hood is an AMD Radeon HD 6870 GPU, which follows reference clock speeds of 900 MHz core, and 1050 MHz (4200 MHz effective) memory. It is backed by 1 GB of GDDR5 memory over a 256-bit wide memory interface. Perhaps the idea here is to let users take advantage of the cooler and overclock the card themselves. The HD 6870 packs 1120 VLIW5 stream processors, and is DirectX 11 compliant. The card draws power from two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. Display outputs include two DVI, one HDMI 1.4, and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 connectors. There is a single CrossFire connector, that allows you to pair with any other HD 6800 series graphics card. Expect the HIS HD 6870 IceQ to charge a small premium over the reference base model graphics card.

[Kaleid]

The fan is too small.

[tigger]

Wonder how much noise it makes.

[micropage7]

yep the fan aint looks promising

[Haytch]

I love the ATi/AMD Reference cooler.

My 1950XTX's, 3870x2's, 4870x2's and now my 6970's were/are all reference cooling. Never had temperature issues. Seriously, the fan set to 100% is a tornado!

Granted, i dont care much for noise levels. That's probably because when it's time for the GPU to work, im too busy playing games, LOUDLY!

At the moment, on idle , my temps read;
GPU 1 :- 40c @ 42% Fan Speed.
GPU 2:- 39c @ 42% Fan Speed.
Dropping these temps by up to 24c seems unlikely for me.

The reason why both cards are set to 42% Fan Speed is because when i set it lower, the other fans sound louder at their minimum settings.

[tigger]

My xfx 6850 with its vapor cooler idles at around 34c with fan on 40%, i can hear the fan tho'

[RejZoR]

My TwinFrozr III on HD6950 idles at 45-48°C and goes full load to 75-78°C. At just 30% fan speed (fixed value). It's absolutely silent. It dumps the heat isnide teh case but man, at just 30% fan speed it manages to stay below 80°C. Just awesome.

[HossHuge]

Originally Posted by Haytch

I love the ATi/AMD Reference cooler.

My 1950XTX's, 3870x2's, 4870x2's and now my 6970's were/are all reference cooling. Never had temperature issues. Seriously, the fan set to 100% is a tornado!

Granted, i dont care much for noise levels. That's probably because when it's time for the GPU to work, im too busy playing games, LOUDLY!

Reference cooler on the 4850 sucked!!

[RejZoR]

I hear ya. It was loud and dumped all the heat at the back of the case (the frame was so hot you couldn't touch it for long). But it was single slot...

[AlienIsGOD]

Originally Posted by HossHuge

Reference cooler on the 4850 sucked!!
http://img.techpowerup.org/110922/at...on_hd_4850.jpg

Yep ! temps of almost 80c thats why I opted for Zalman VF1000s for my pair, and havent looked back since

[Isenstaedt]

That cooler is just plain ugly. HIS used to have great looking coolers.

[newtekie1]

Originally Posted by Haytch

At the moment, on idle , my temps read;
GPU 1 :- 40c @ 42% Fan Speed.
GPU 2:- 39c @ 42% Fan Speed.
Dropping these temps by up to 24c seems unlikely for me.

The 24°C was likely a load scenario, notice they said "up to". There generally isn't much room to move idle temperature, and of course idle temperature doesn't really matter either.

And remember, the reference cooler lets the GPU get up to 90°C when left alone on stock fan profiles(which I don't believe even let the fan pass 60%). So really the "cooler" could improve that by 24°C just by adjusting the fan profile and making it more agressive.

Though looking closely the cooler does have potential. First of all, the fan is actually bigger than the reference cooler's. Pulling images of the two up and adjusting them so they are at the same scale, and the fan on the IceQ card is about 1cm bigger. Plus it looks like the reference cooler only has 3 6mm heat pipes and the IceQ has 2 8mm and 2 6mm, though it is hard to tell what the reference card really has from the images I have available.

For anyone interested here are the comparisons I made:

This one is where I overlayed the reference card over the IceQ and adjusted them so they are both scaled the same, mainly by lining up the PCI-E connectors so they were the same size:


This second one I moved the reference overlay so the fan hubs lined up, and outlined the opennings, reference in red and IceQ in blue:


Not only is the IceQ fan bigger than reference, but the hub is smaller, giving even more openning for the air to get into the fan.

Originally Posted by HossHuge

Reference cooler on the 4850 sucked!!
http://img.techpowerup.org/110922/at...on_hd_4850.jpg

Yeah, it sucked so hard it allowed the cards to bake when under load to the point that ATi/AMD put limits in the drivers to keep load down on the card and preven overheating and dead cards...

Originally Posted by Isenstaedt

That cooler is just plain ugly. HIS used to have great looking coolers.

Oddly enough, I was just going to say that this reminded me of their old coolers. It is very similar to their old IceQ coolers that made them famous.

[N3M3515]

i'll keep my 4870...........2.5 years old and still rocking

[Shihabyooo]

Could've looked cooler if they used a White PCB instead.

Originally Posted by Haytch

At the moment, on idle , my temps read;
GPU 1 :- 40c @ 42% Fan Speed.
GPU 2:- 39c @ 42% Fan Speed.
Dropping these temps by up to 24c seems unlikely for me.

My DCII does that @ 20%

Originally Posted by RejZoR

My TwinFrozr III on HD6950 idles at 45-48°C and goes full load to 75-78°C. At just 30% fan speed (fixed value). It's absolutely silent. It dumps the heat isnide teh case but man, at just 30% fan speed it manages to stay below 80°C. Just awesome.

Where do you live ? The N.Pole ?
They should ban open cooler designs. They are killing ma CPU

[Kaleid]

Review
http://www.pureoverclock.com/article1365.html

[eidairaman1]

i wonder when Arctic Cooling is going to release these coolers as upgrades again

[laszlo]

"four exposed-copper heat pipes"

sure is copper ? or just galvanized.... like older ICEQ...

[tigger]

Originally Posted by N3M3515

i'll keep my 4870...........2.5 years old and still rocking

Er your specs say 4890

[N3M3515]

Originally Posted by tigger

Er your specs say 4890

Had to sell it , and too lazy to update specs

[tigger]

That's a shame i feel for you bro'

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

Dear HIS please stop making cards that look like toys from the 99cent store!

[Dj-ElectriC]

Im holding the ICEQ Turbo model of HD6970 witch use the same cooler and it does its job quite good
the fan is noisy but in the case of HD6870 it should be quiter