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 HIS HD 4870 iCooler x3 1GB
HIS are no strangers to Viperlair, and they've sent out over there HD 4870 with iCooler x3. Solid black cooler and very imposing, we find out if this card is as no nonsense as its appearance would suggest.
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About this time last year, it was common knowledge that AMD/ATI were not only back but doing very well indeed compared to the competition. So much so that NVIDIA adjusted it's prices and also a few of it's products to better fit in with the market. The 216 core GTX 260 replaced the earlier 192 core, muddying the waters when it come to purchasing a 260, but making it much more competitive with the HD 4870 from the red camp
ATI's response was already in the pipeline anyway; a new 4870 with 1GB of GDDR. The GTX260 and the 4870 1GB traded blows in the benchmarks but were quite evenly matched. The pricing of the cards, and also the closely performing 4850's meant that we consumers, as long as we did our homework, had a good choice to choose from.
Today, little has changed, and card makers are still churning out products based on these very good cards. However, experience has shown that the 4870's can be noisy and quite hot under load. But the 4870 was always very good value for money too. have a cheap HD 4870 1GB card that aims to address the noise and cooling without increasing the price overly much. The is the card in question, so let's take a look a good look at it.
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Specifications
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Model Name
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HIS HD 4870 iCooler x3 (Full HD 1080p) Native HDMI 1GB (256bit) GDDR5 Dual Link-DVI / VGA / HDMI (HDCP) PCIe (RoHS) |
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Chipset
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Radeon HD 4800 PCIe Series |
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Pixel Pipelines
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800 stream processing units* (Unified) |
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Vertex Engines
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800 stream processing units* (Unified) |
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Memory Size
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1024MB |
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Manu. Process
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55nm |
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Memory Type
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GDDR5 |
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RAMDAC
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400MHz |
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Engine CLK
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750MHz |
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Memory CLK
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3600MHz |
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Memory Interface
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256bit |
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Max. Resolution
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1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI) |
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Bus Interface
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PCI Express x16 |
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Power Requirements
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500 Watt or greater power supply with two 75W 6-pin PCI Express® power connectors recommended (600 Watt and four 6-pin connectors for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode) |
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Ports
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1x VGA, 1x DVI, 1x (Native) HDMI |
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The box for the HIS HD 4870 iCooler x3 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 is actually quite small, being large enough to fit the card and a few extras only; there is little wasted room inside. The outside of the box is also relatively understated but that's in comparison with other HIS products we've seen. On a shelf with other cards, it's clean appearance will likely get your attention and the product features are clearly marked on the front and the back in greater detail.
Inside is a second blue box which opens to reveal the card in a clear plastic tray. A few of the extras are also visible. HIS include two 2 molex to 1 PCIe 6pin power adapters, a standard Crossfire bridge connector, and a nice looking wallet that has the software CD, manual and a 'Power Up!' HIS case badge.
The software CD obviously includes the drivers, but you also get Bumptop – a 3D Desktop environment software package. Also included is a redeemable voucher for the game Stormrise which you can download and use the supplied key. I have to say that I like the idea of using digital distribution to include a game with the card. A shame about that game itself though as I hear it isn't all that good. But at least you don't have to pay for it!
The card itself is very prominent looking. The large solid gloss black cooler is not a subtle affair and looks wonderful in my opinion. There is plenty of room under the coolers hood too, so I would guess that more than a few modders could add this to a black themed case with or without various visual adjustments/lighting etc.
The coolers hood is highly reflective and styled with these grills on each side, as well as the HIS logo near the IO ports.
Centrally, you can see the fan which draws in the air used to keep the 4870 GPU cool. The fan's blade design is not a standard look, with curled and shaped blades to further draw air into the cooler and keep noise levels down. Underneath all that black, the fan sits right above the GPU and cools the thick heatpipes by sucking air in. Warm air is pushed to either side, to rear and out of the case, as well as to the back of the card itself and into the case on the opposite end, cooling the fins as it goes.
The memory is covered by a black plated heatsink on the top of the card as well as on the back, but only the memory under the iCooler is air cooled, and then only by proxy of the air flowing through the cooler before it exits into the case. Also in this area is the two PCIe 6pin power headers.
The iCooler x3 is securely held in place with a cross shaped bracket on the other side of the card as this is quite a heavy set up. Indeed, the card itself is pretty heavy.
The IO options for the card are threefold (not including the PCIe and Crossfire headers of course). First, a DVI-I port. Secondly we have s 15pin VGA D-Sub. And a third option is a native HDMI port for carrying both video and 7.1 sound.
Overall the HIS HD 4870 iCooler x3 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 card is a good looking card with a solid dark appearance to it that many will like. The cooler itself appears to be well designed and with very little flair or exuberance.
Testing
Testing the HIS HD 4870 iCooler x3 Native HDMI 1GB GDDR5 consists of putting it through it's paces in a few games and also seeing how far we can overclock it. For comparison, I'm using a 4850 512MB card. Obviously the 4870 is going to be the faster card here, but the 4850 will give us a reference to compare how much of a difference there is.
Test Setup: Intel Core 2 Duo 6420 @ 3.00GHz, 4GB of OCZ PC2-6400 Ram @ 900MHz, Asus Blitz Formula, Maxtor Diamondmax 10 7200 250GB HDD, Asetek Waterchill Watercooling, Hyper Type M 730w PSU. All latest drivers as of September 2009; Catalyst 9.8 was used for both cards.
Software
Left 4 Dead – Recording a custom demo on the No Mercy – Sewers level (outside in the rain), we used FRAPS to record frame rates as we played back the demo on both cards at same settings.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars – ETQW gives us our OpenGL test results as we run through a recorded demo on the Slipgate level. Settings for both cards were the same.
Crysis Warhead – We used the Framebuffer benchmark tool to run through the Ambush demo and recorded the results with FRAPS. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.
Racedriver: GRID – Grid has some very good looking visuals. We used FRAPS as we took a Skyline for a test drive around the Ring. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.
Assassin's Creed – We headed for the nearest tower from the bureau roof in Acre and repeatedly climbed to the top. With 2 leaps of faith and a good look of the city from on high, we once again used FRAPS to record our framerates. Settings for each card were set to highest possible for that card.
Devil May Cry 4 (Benchmark) – DMC4's benchmark provides a nice way of testing that anyone can do. Results are all from the benchmark itself, and include average framerates as well as 4 graphs for each level tested. Settings for both cards were the same.
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