HIS Radeon HD 7950 IceQ X² Boost 3 GB

Introduction

Initially, AMD released their HD 7950 Boost Edition as a custom BIOS that enabled the boost state on reference HD 7950 cards for a quick and easy performance increase. While the new design hasn't led to as many new releases as the normal models, some board partners have chosen to build custom cards based on that new BIOS.



The HIS HD 7950 IceQ X² uses a new cooler that was introduced to the company's lineup recently. It also comes with a nice overclock out of the box and highly capable dual 8-pin power inputs.

Pricing is quite reasonable with $320, given that it is just $10 more than a normal HD 7950 reference design card and significantly cheaper than the GTX 670, which offers a similar performance.

HD 7950 Market Segment Analysis

	Radeon HD 7870	GeForce GTX 580	GeForce GTX 660 Ti	Radeon HD 7950	HIS HD 7950 X² Boost	GeForce GTX 670	Radeon HD 7970	HD 7970 GHz Ed.	GeForce GTX 680
Shader Units	1280	512	1344	1792	1792	1344	2048	2048	1536
ROPs	32	48	24	32	32	32	32	32	32
Graphics Processor	Pitcairn	GF110	GK104	Tahiti	Tahiti	GK104	Tahiti	Tahiti	GK104
Transistors	2800M	3000M	3500M	4310M	4310M	3500M	4310M	4310M	3500M
Memory Size	2048 MB	1536 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB	3072 MB	3072 MB	2048 MB
Memory Bus Width	256 bit	384 bit	192 bit	384 bit	384 bit	256 bit	384 bit	384 bit	256 bit
Core Clock	1000 MHz	772 MHz	915 MHz+	800 MHz	950 MHz	915 MHz+	925 MHz	1050 MHz	1006 MHz+
Memory Clock	1200 MHz	1002 MHz	1502 MHz	1250 MHz	1250 MHz	1502 MHz	1375 MHz	1500 MHz	1502 MHz
Price	$245	$430	$280	$310	$320	$380	$390	$400	$480