FRONTPAGE HIS R9 280X iPower IceQ X2 Turbo Graphics Card Review

[Overclockers.com]

The new AMD GPU14 partner cards are beginning to surface, and we're here to bring you a new offering from HIS. The HIS R9 280X iPower IceQ X2 Turbo is the flagship R9 series for HIS at the present time. It's factory overclocked and promises voltage control via their iTurbo software. The card is also outfitted with their best cooler to date, the IceQ X2. With the factory overclock, voltage control, and a good cooling solution, the card certainly appears to be geared towards the overclocking and enthusiast crowd.

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[ninjacore]

Very nice review!

Must...resist...lateral...upgrade.

 

[neo668]

Love this review and will be getting this (most probably). My favorite piece of info is that the Total System Draw is only 437W when the card is overclocked. My Seasonic 520W should be able to handle this.

Thank you Lvcoyote.

 

[GatorChamp]

This is nice. What I am eyeing for my upgrade. That price is just too good. I just want to wait and see where the 290 officially comes in.

 

[neo668]

If rumours are to be believed the 290 will debut end of October, after BF4.

 

[Humanoid1]

Nice review thanks.

Stating to tempt me to upgrade my current card to one of these if the 290(X)'s end up too over priced for me.

One question, what GPU voltage did you actually need to get stable at 1,250MHz ?

 

[deathman20]

Very nice card.
Almost makes me want to consider upgrading to a next Gen GPU. Probably want to wait for the big dog 290-290X's

 

[neo668]

Just bought the HIS R9 280X for my son's gaming rig. Couldn't wait fot the 290s. My son's rig specs are as follows:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
MB: MSI 990XA-GD55
Graphic: HIS IceQ X² R9 280X Turbo Boost
Ram: Corsair Vengeance DDR-3 1600 2x4GB
PSU: Seasonic M12 II 520W
OS: Win 7 x64

Haven't played a real game on it yet. But physically it is longer and thicker than the old XFX HD6850 it replaced. With the MSI motherboard I have the space between the 2 PCI-E slots won't allow crossfire. Previuosly, I had crossfired 2 HD6850s without a problem.

I am now a proud owner of a used XFX HD6850.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Wow, your son has a rocking gaming system! You're a kind dad.

 

[cyclode]

what is your case sir? its a long and wide card. i hope it will fit in my cm k280. im also using antec hcg 520m. manufacturer recommended psu is 750w or more, thats is to much. now we knew that a decent 500w psu is eonugh. thanks for this review

 

[Mpegger]

Wow. At that price, it's very tempting for me to drop my 560Ti SLI and go for this. I'd still rather wait for the next gen hardware to finally make its appearance though. That and I really want to get back to 3D gaming. There are a couple of competing "VR" glasses/HMD in the very near future being released, so I'm still undecided on whether to go with a LightBoost2 (nVidia) monitor, or the VR setup (should work just fine with AMD).

 

[neo668]

Wow, your son has a rocking gaming system! You're a kind dad.

Thanks Hokie. That rig was actually mine which I built over time when I was just learning how to overclock from Trents. Then my son graduated from an Xbox gamer to a PC gamer. So I decided to swap internals with him.

what is your case sir? its a long and wide card. i hope it will fit in my cm k280.

My son only has a generic mid-tower case. At first, it gave me a scare when trying to install the card because the HDD bays seemed to be in the way. I thought the card was too long. Fortunately, with some coaxing and nudging I managed to fit the card into the PCI-E slot without damaging anything. I just had to unplug all the wiring first and make the vicinity free of wires and cables. I'm sure your CM K280 should have no problem.

manufacturer recommended psu is 750w or more, thats is to much. now we knew that a decent 500w psu is eonugh.

According to LVCOYOTE who did the review here, the maximum Total System Draw came to only 437W. So I was quite confident that my 520W would be able to handle it.

Haven't tried the card out yet. My son is waiting for Batman which will come out next week.

 

[cyclode]

@ neo668

thanks for the very helpful response sir. really appreciate it.

 

[OnDborder]

Does the warm air exhaust out the back of the card?

 

[neo668]

Does the warm air exhaust out the back of the card?

I've read that some graphic cards vent air out at the back of the card. But don't know how that works. All cards with a fan that I've seen all blow air at the heat sink. Unless the heatsink, and the pcb behind it, is porous I don't know how the air can be directed to the back. The air should blanket the heat sink and then disbusrse around within the case. Hope someone chimes in as, frankly, I'd like to know how the air can be exhausted out at the back.

 

[hokiealumnus]

No, this isn't a blower style heatsink that blows air out the back. It's up to your case fans to draw the GPU heat out.

 

[Humanoid1]

HIS made the last great blower type on their 7950 IceQ Turbo

As you would see in that round up review of 7950's it was easily one of the best performers - and actually very quiet too.

Personally I Love this style of card, the heat from my Asus 7950 Direct CUII TOP adds about 9c to my CPU temps while running folding@home on GPU as well as CPU.

Looking back I would Definitely have gone for that HIS model blower!!!


Sadly I understand that this design is not up to cooling cards capable of producing significantly more heat than a 7950. (this is only what someone told me in a forum and unconfirmed).

Of course reference designs almost all use the blower style, but I've not seen a high end OC type model use it for ages - I hope that changes.

 

[neo668]

Thanks guys for all the info concerning how a GPU exhausts warm air out the the back.

Thanks to Hokie I was able to google "blower style heatsink" and learn something I never knew.

Thanks to Humanoid I immediately understood what a blower heatsink was. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.



I stole this pic from here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-review-benchmark,3207-2.html (Humanoid's link)

So, now I can safely say that the HIS IceQ X² R9 280X does not exhaust the warm air to the back. You mostly see blower style heatsinks on AMD reference cards and NVidia cards. At least, that's my understanding.