HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo

HIS HD6870 IceQ X Turbo X

We recently reviewed the HIS HD6850 IceQ X Turbo X and found it to be an excellent overclocker with an impressive cooler. Today we are looking at a similar card, this time using the HD6870 GPU. HIS markets the HIS HD6870 IceQ X Turbo as "The World's Fastest HD6870", a claim we need to test. On paper, it is easy to see why HIS makes these bold claims: the card comes pre-overclocked to 975 MHz (GPU) and 4600 MHz (memory). This is a 8-10% overclock over the stock frequencies. To give a little perspective, the PowerColor PCS+ HD6870 is overclocked to 940/4400MHz. However, the specs aren't the only thing that HIS increased on this card: the price also is higher. At launch these cards can be found for around $260 (US) / 2000 SEK, which is around $40 more expensive than the regular HIS HD6870, and in the same ballpark as a pre-overclocked NVIDIA GTX560 Ti. Is it worth the extra cash? Read on to find out. While the name implies that the HD6870 is intended to replace the HD5870, AMD decided to change the naming convention. The HD6950 and HD6970 are intended to replace the HD5850 and HD5870. The HD6870 is therefore a mid-range card aimed at users that want great performance but do not want to pay through the nose for it.