HIS HD6850 IceQ X Turbo 1GB Video Card

Manufacturer: Hightech Information System Limited
Product Name: HIS Radeon HD6850 IceQ X Turbo 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E
Model Number: H685QNT1GD
Price As Tested: $184.99 at NewEgg and Amazon

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by HIS.

HIS first introduced its IceQ coolers in 2003 to its Radeon 9800PRO series of video cards, eight years later HIS return with the IceQ X cooler, which thankfully performs much better than it looks. In this review the IceQ X cooler is strapped onto a HIS HD6850 Turbo 1GB video card which comes factory overclocked at 820MHz GPU and 1100MHz Memory. Increasing clocks on any video card requires above average cooling and HIS know that they have nothing to worry about, their IceQ cooler is up to the job.

As was the case with the HIS HD6870 IceQ X Turbo X, the HIS HD6850 IceQ X Turbo also has a very relaxed fan profile. Thankfully this model did not suffer any shutdown issues like its bigger brother, but it was happy to sit at 79°C while the fan was only spinning at 53%. Any other video card cooler fan would be 70% at the least with this GPU temperature so a more aggressive profile is needed, considering the fan is not very loud at high speeds.

For this review we have a wide range of video card comparisons in our usual mixture of DX10 / DX11 synthetic benchmarks and current games to get a good idea where it fits in performance and price wise. We also intend to overclock the HIS HD6850 IceQ X Turbo to its limits and see if the IceQ X cooler really has what it takes to cool the GPU and other components effectively, so without further delay let's move on and get stuck in.

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