HIS Radeon HD 6790 IceQ X Turbo 1 GB

[W1zzard]

HIS has taken the AMD HD 6790 reference design, increased its clock speeds and slapped their new IceQ X thermal solution on it. The result is a solid HD 6790 card that is about 5% faster than the AMD version, which delivers awesome temperatures and good overclocking potential.

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[sliderider]

Even in factory overclocked form the HD6790 still isn't worth the money. It still lags behind the lower clocked 6850 which can also overclock to 900mhz or more and trades blows with the GTX460 variants at reference speeds but those overclock like mad as well and will soon be phased out in favor of the even more powerful GTX 560 and 560 Ti. HD6790 is going to struggle to find a place in many computers with more powerful alternatives only a few dollars away in price and with GTX460 and HD5770 cards being blown out to make way for newer models. Combine that with the imminent arrival of 28nm parts from both companies and it's not hard to see that this card won't find much of a niche except maybe among the uninformed.

 

[Wyverex]

I think this is a fine card This is, imho, what 6790 was supposed to be. The reference model is suffering from too much competition on either side of it's price point.
Thank you W1z for the review, and I think there's a typo on page 1 of the review (where it says Memory Clock 1000, and later in GPU-Z screenshot it says 1100)

 

[W1zzard]

typo on page 1

fixed

 

[DrunkenMafia]

I don't get it, it uses more power than 6850 but is ~10% slower. I was a huge fan of the 5770 when it came out but I just can't see the point when both cards are pretty much the same price. In Aussie the 6850 is around 185 while the 6790 is around the 160 mark.

 

[Over_Lord]

Hmm, overclocked, only 10$ premium, custom cooler, lower power consumption too

WIN WIN!

 

[damric]

W1zzard, in future reviews can you detach the heat sink from the shroud to get a good photo of the top of the heat sink in the "a closer look" sections. Lately, I see a lot of shrouds disguising a crap heat sink as a good heat sink. Example: the sapphire 6850 looks like a good heat sink until you take the shroud off and you see it's a rather shoddy worked piece of aluminum with low quality fins. In this review I can't tell by looking at your picture whether this cooler has a similar good heatsink as my MSI GTX 460, or the same raggedly cooler as my Sapphire 6850, as they both kind of look similar from the bottom. Keep up the great work.

 

[Casecutter]

Well, AMD is just re-playing what they did when the 5830 came out originally, the price is just not ready for prime-time.

When Sapphire has that re-released 5830 Extreme and those have gone for $106 No-Rebate and included a KWorld UB445 TV stick (Egg deal April 26th) it's just not at the right price.
To me it really intended to oppose the GTX550/GTX460 786Mb, and nice Asus CU have been able to be picked-up for $115 –AR.

It needs better pricing considering it gelding background, and only a 2 year warranty. While it still appears not much has improved with HIS Customer Service even with the Kingdom of Gamer initiative. Give all that, more like $140 tops with No-rebate, while say $125 on a $15 rebate very soon. Right now Egg's listing at $160, though F/S.

Heck a nice XFX 6870 with Shogun title is only $12 more, and yes working a $20 rebate... But still!

 

[sliderider]

Well, AMD is just re-playing what they did when the 5830 came out originally, the price is just not ready for prime-time.

When Sapphire has that re-released 5830 Extreme and those have gone for $106 No-Rebate and included a KWorld UB445 TV stick (Egg deal April 26th) it's just not at the right price.
To me it really intended to oppose the GTX550/GTX460 786Mb, and nice Asus CU have been able to be picked-up for $115 –AR.

It needs better pricing considering it gelding background, and only a 2 year warranty. While it still appears not much has improved with HIS Customer Service even with the Kingdom of Gamer initiative. Give all that, more like $140 tops with No-rebate, while say $125 on a $15 rebate very soon. Right now Egg's listing at $160, though F/S.

Heck a nice XFX 6870 with Shogun title is only $12 more, and yes working a $20 rebate... But still!

Sapphire did that to steal away some customers from the GTX 550Ti. The HD5830 is noticeably faster in almost everything. The new cooler from the HD6870 allows better overclocking than the old HD5830, but Sapphire needs to be careful because this card at $120 or less could potentially steal sales from their HD6790 and HD6850 models. I understand their need to liquidate old stock so they don't end up having it to scrap it, but they also have to think of the sales of their current line of cards.

 

[micropage7]

iceQ one of best cooling solution and i like the design