Blog by Dave Rose

This is a review of the HIS 6870 IceQ 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI/2xDVI/2xMini DP video card.  This is my second HIS video card, as my first was a HIS HD 5770. Before I get into the details, I figured for some of you, will just want the summary:

Summary

Overall this is a great video card, and I definitely recommend that you buy it! Amazingly quiet and the price for performance on this card can’t be beat!

Pros:

- Blazing fast graphics! You can play Battlefield 3 at Ultra settings using 1920 x 1280 resolutions!

- Eyefinity support, I ran with three monitors (20″ – 28″ – 20″ )  and this adds a completely new gaming experience!

- This card is amazingly quiet!

Cons:

- This card is long, be sure you check your case dimensions as for my case the Antec Sonata III 500, it was tight fit.

- Three monitor setup would not allow me to use the HDMI port and the two DVI ports, only the mini display port and two DVI ports.

- Had to buy another mini display port to DVI adapter.

Review

I decided it was time to upgrade my video card as I wanted to play the new Battlefield 3 Video game! It’s not that my previous card was not working well it was, but I wanted to take it to the next level. My previous experience with HIS video cards was a very positive one. I purchased my first card by them almost a year ago on a Boxing Day sale from Memory Express. Since my current card was working so well, I decided to continue using the great products from HIS. Like many of you, I’m sure price per performance is a key factor, not all of us want to empty the wallet on the latest and greatest, and the HIS 6870 IceQ is the perfect bang for the buck video card model!

What’s In the Box:

• HIS Graphics Card
• CrossFireXTM Bridge
• 2x Power Cable 2x 4pin in, 6 pin out
• DVI-VGA Adapter
• Install CD with Multilingual User Guide
• Quick Installation Guide
• HIS Power Up Label
• DiRT® 3™ Redemption Coupon

Specs:

Model Name: HIS 6870 IceQ 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI/2xDVI/2xMini DP
Chipset Radeon: HD 6870 PCIe Series
ASIC: RadeonTM HD 6870 GPU
Manu.Process (Micron): 40nm
Memory Size (MB): 1024
Memory Type: GDDR5
Engine CLK (MHz): 900Mhz
Memory CLK (Gbps): 4.2Gbps
Memory Interface (bit): 256
Power Supply Requirement: 500 Watt or greater power
Max. Resolution: 2560*1600
Bus Interface: PCI Express x16
Mini Display Port: Yes
HDMI: Yes

My Experience:

Overall I am happy with this card. The installation was a bit difficult as compared to my previous card, as this video card is much longer. In fact, I had to take some extra care to get this card installed as it is very long. The computer case I have is an Antec Sonata III 500, and what I would consider a very popular case so when I went to install this card, I found it to be a very tight fit. Be advised when you purchase this card to check the following dimensions: 13.8 x 4.6 x 28.7 cm (HxWxD), and make sure it going to fit for you.

Once I got the card physically installed, I went to hook things up. My setup includes three monitors, two Dell 20″, and one Viewsonic 28″. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the HDMI port to work at the same time as the DVI ports, it just isn’t a supported configuration, and that being said, I needed to purchase an active mini display port to DVI adapter cable to get all three monitors working at the same time. HIS has switched from the full size display port connector, to a mini display port connector, so I needed to purchase another adapter cable. On the plus side however, they include 2 mini display ports so you can connect up to 4 displays! Once the monitors were connected I found that I needed to uninstall my previous drivers, and to install the latest and greatest from the HIS website. Windows 7 recognized everything as you’d expect, and using the Catalyst Control Panel was very easy and intuitive to get my three monitors working just as I wanted.

Once things are configured correctly, this card just works. I next installed the PC version of  Battlefield 3. The installation went flawlessly and the game recognized and used the video card perfectly. I was able to configure and play using 1920 x 1080 at Ultra settings! The gaming detail and fluid frame rates of this card make playing this game an awesome experience! If you are into any sort of game playing, this card will not disappoint! My second test for this card, was to set up Eyefinity. For some, you may not know what this is. Essentially, if you have more than one monitor, you can configure the monitor software to extend the games playing screen across all of your monitors. In my case, I have my Viewsonic 28″ monitor in the middle, and on each side I have a 20″ Dell monitor. When configured with Eyefinity, I can have my central play view on the big 28″ monitor, and see to my left and right in the game without moving my mouse, only my head! The reality that this brings to a game is second to none, and if you have more than one monitor, this is just a must have!

I’m not going to go into benchmarking this card, as there are many sites that already do this. This review is from the point of view of a user, and most of us just want a card we can rely on, and something that just works out of the box. This card definitely does that, and you won’t be disappointed when you buy this card.

Where to buy:

You can buy the HIS HD 6870 card through Amazon

You can also buy this at Tiger Direct.