HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review

We get around to testing CrossFire performance with two HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX video cards.

Published
Updated
Manufacturer: HIS
17 minutes & 7 seconds read time

Introduction and Package

HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review 02

Until now we never got around to checking out AMD's Radeon HD 7850 in CrossFire. It was due to a combination with no paired video cards coming in along with just a huge amount of new product launches. It was something that never seemed to happen - that is until today, though.

With the help of HIS we're finally able to get around to testing this configuration via a pair of HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB cards. These cards are part of not only the IceQ X series, but also the TurboX series as well which means we're not only dealing with an upgraded cooler, but also a good out of the box overclock as we deal with the TurboX model instead of the standard Turbo model.

With the new HD 7970 GHz Edition and NVIDIA now offering the GTX 670 and GTX 680, it's going to be interesting to see how this mid-range model in CrossFire competes against the big single GPU cards in our tests today. As always, though, there are a few things we need to do before we get into the performance of the CrossFire setup we're dealing with today.

The first thing we're going to do is check out the box and open it up to see just what kind of bundle is on offer from HIS. Once we've done that we'll move onto the cards to see how they look, before we get into the specification side of things to find out just what kind of overclock the TurboX offers. Once we've done we check out our testbed and then get into the performance side of things to see what we're able to get out of this CrossFire setup.

Package

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HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review 04

Having a look at the box we can see the two main features are highlighted on the box, which are of course the IceQ X and TurboX naming schemes that lets us know about the upgraded cooler and out of the box overclock.

On the back side we see the a lot more detail explaining the features of the IceQ cooler along with mention that higher quality components are used which include Dynamic Phase Control PWM IC, Full Solid State Capacitors and Solid State Choke.

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Moving inside we've got the normal driver CD, manual and HIS sticker present along with another CD which includes the iTurbo overclocking software. If you want to have a closer look at that I recommend that you check out our HIS HD 7870 IceQ 2GB in CrossFire article in which we expanded on the iTurbo software on page two.

Along with that we've also got a CrossFire bridge, DVI to VGA connector and a PCIe bridge that HIS have included recently to help keep the video card stable in your system.

The Card and Specifications

The Card

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Checking out the video card we've got a really nice looking card here with a great looking cooler that takes up just about the whole PCB. You can see we've got a large fan in the middle and behind that we've got the heatsink while coming out the top you can see some heatpipes.

The middle has this diamond like plating which adds a really nice touch to the whole cooler and you can see we've got a bunch of branding present including TurboX, IceQ X, HD 7850, HIS and iTurbo.

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HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review 08

Looking around you can see we've got a single 6-pin PCIe power connector at the back. Due to the way the cooler over hangs, it can be a little fiddly removing the connector. Moving across the top and closer to the front you can see we've got a single CrossFire connector and today that's something we'll be making use off.

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In the I/O department you can see we've got a pretty strong setup with a Dual-Link DVI connector, HDMI connector and two Mini-DisplayPort connectors. This is a nice line up, however it would've been nice to see a MiniDP to DP connector in the bundle.

Specifications

As we've already mentioned a few times, being part of the TurboX series means that this card comes overclocked out of the box. The TurboX series as we've also mentioned is an upgrade from the normal Turbo series and brings with a stronger overclock than normal.

HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review 01

Looking above we can see a 1000MHz core clock which is a rather strong improvement on the default 860MHz.

As for the 2GB of GDDR5 that's also been bumped up from 4800MHz QDR to 5000MHz QDR. Along with this you can see across the bottom CrossFire is enabled via two cards today.

Overall this is a nice performance boost and the core clock should help yield some really strong performance.

Benchmarks - Test System Setup

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We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair.

Looking at our testbed you can see the same X79 machine that we've been using for a while now. With everything really covered in the testbed side of things in the above image, we can move onto the video cards that we'll be including in our graphs today with the first of course being the HIS HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX CrossFire setup.

Along with that we've got a number of high-end single GPU offerings to see just what kind of performance difference we have between this mid-range CrossFire setup and other high-end single GPU offerings which include the original HD 7970. Along with that we've also got the new GHz Edition HD 7970 along with the same card overclocked.

We've also got a bunch of cards from the NVIDIA side of things as well with the reference GTX 670 and GTX 680 present while we've also got the pre-overclocked GTX 680 2GB Phantom from Gainward to round out the collection of cards in our graphs today.

Let's get started!

The FPS Numbers Explained

When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. While many may argue that the human eye can't see over 24 FPS or 30 FPS, any true gamer will tell you that as we climb higher in Frames Per Seconds (FPS), the overall gameplay feels smoother. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks.

30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. The ideal situation is that even in a heavy fire fight, the minimum stays above 30 FPS making sure that you can continue to aim easily or turn the corner with no dramas.

60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. If we're getting an average of 60 FPS, we should have a minimum of 30 FPS or better and as mentioned above, it means we've got some smooth game play happening.

120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay.

Benchmarks - 3DMark 11

3DMark 11

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/

Buy It Here

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world's most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC's gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

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Starting with 3DMark 11 as always we can see really strong performance from our HIS HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX CrossFire setup with it coming out ahead of all our other setups here today.

We'll have to see if this translates into our real-world game testing a little later on.

Benchmarks - Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Version and / or Patch Used: 2.5

Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com

Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//

New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

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Moving into Heaven we see the same kind of results as we saw under 3DMark 11. Across the board we can see our HIS HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX CrossFire setup manages to outperform everything else here.

Benchmarks - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo

Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test

Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx

Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft. The game is the sequel to Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., released in 2009.

The game begins with Colonel David Crenshaw participating in a routine patrol mission in the Middle East. After halting an insurgent attack, a volley of missiles is fired at the Air Force base that Crenshaw was stationed at, with one of the missiles disabling Crenshaw's aircraft, resulting Crenshaw being in enemy captivity. A joint strike force composed of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and a Ghost Recon squad executes an operation to rescue Crenshaw. In Scotland, Royal Navy Pilot Colin Munro encounters an unidentified passenger aircraft that explodes from an on-board bomb when undergoing training exercise. In Russia, an air force squadron led by Colonel Denisov and Captain Dmitri Sokov engages separatist aircraft but is ordered to retreat from the region after numerous Russian military installations have been attacked.

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H.A.W.X. 2 continues the trend with some excellent performance across the board and you can see our single GPU setups sit a decent distance away from our CrossFire setup again.

Benchmarks - Mafia II

Mafia II

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.2kczech.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.mafia2game.com/

Buy It Here

Mafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game, the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech, previously known as Illusion Softworks, and is published by 2K Games. The game is set from 1943 to 1951 in Empire Bay (the name is a reference to New York's state nickname "The Empire State"), a fictional city based on San Francisco and New York City, with influences from Chicago and Detroit. The game features a completely open-ended game map of 10 square miles. No restrictions are included from the start of the game. There are around 50 vehicles in the game, as well as licensed music from the era.

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Moving into Mafia II we start to see some different results. At the lower resolutions we see that we're hitting a bit of a wall around the 130 FPS mark. This isn't the first time we've seen this from AMD cards.

Moving to 2560 x 1600 we do see the tables turn a bit, though, and the CrossFire setup manages to sneak ahead of most the other setups here. The only one it falls behind is the overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition.

Benchmarks - Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark - Test A Scene 1

Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.lostplanet2game.com/

Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates. After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. The last words imply possible DLC additions to the game, "There's nothing to be gained by wiping out snow pirates... unless you had some kind of grudge."

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The ever intensive Lost Planet 2 sees the CrossFire setup fall behind a number of setups including both GTX 680s at all resolutions. Compared to the AMD offerings we see it's ahead at 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050, but does fall behind the overclocked GHz Edition 7970 at 2560 x 1600.

Benchmarks - Aliens vs. Predator

Aliens vs. Predator

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.rebellion.co.uk/

Product Homepage: http://www.sega.com/games/aliens-vs-predator/

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments, the team behind the 1999 original PC game, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The game is based on the Alien vs. Predator franchise, a combination of the characters and creatures of the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise. There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race/faction (the Predators, the Aliens and the Colonial Marines), that, while separate in terms of individual plot and gameplay, form one overarching storyline.

Following the storyline of the campaign modes comes the multiplayer aspect of the game. In this Multiplayer section of the game, players face off in various different gametypes in various different ways.

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At the 1920 x 1200 and 1680 x 1050 we see our CrossFire setup perform very strong with it only falling a little behind the overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition at 1920 x 1200.

Moving to 2560 x 1600, though, we can see while we manage to break that 60 FPS barrier we want for a smooth gaming experience, we do fall behind the HD 7970 GHz Edition at both stock and overclocked speeds.

Benchmarks - Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.2

Timedemo or Level Used: Dark Tower

Developer Homepage: http://www.eidos.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.justcause.com/

Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in Just Cause. The game is set on the other side of the world from the original Just Cause, on the fictional island of Panau in Southeast Asia. Panau has varied terrain, from desert to alpine to rainforest. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist, aiming to overthrow the evil dictator Pandak "Baby" Panay and confront his former mentor, Tom Sheldon.

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Just Cause 2 changes everything around again and you can see across the board we've got performance that is ahead of all our other setups at all resolutions.

Benchmarks - Metro 2033

Metro 2033

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.4a-games.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.thqnordic.com/

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360.[3] In March 2006, 4A Games announced a partnership with Glukhovsky to collaborate on the game.[4] The game was announced at the 2009 Games Convention in Leipzig;[5] a first trailer came along with the announcement.[6] A sequel was announced, currently titled Metro: Last Light.

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Metro 2033 paints a similar picture to Just Cause 2 where we see strong performance across the board with a very playable number at 2560 x 1600 and just overall stronger performance than all our single GPU offerings here.

Benchmarks - Dirt 3

Dirt 3

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.dirt3game.com/

DiRT 3 boasts more cars, more locations, more routes and more events than any other game in the series, including over 50 rally cars representing the very best from five decades of the sport. With more than double the track content of 2009's hit, DiRT 3 will see players start at the top as a professional driver, with a top-flight career in competitive off-road racing complimented by the opportunity to express themselves in Gymkhana-style showpiece driving events.

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Dirt 3 follows the same trend as we've seen from our last few benchmarks with strong numbers coming from our HIS HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX CrossFire setup that puts it ahead of all our other setups.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01

Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long

Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/

Buy It Here

The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

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We can see under Far Cry 2 we've got very strong performance across the board and overall numbers that sit ahead of the competition at all resolutions.

Benchmarks - High Quality AA and AF

High Quality AA and AF

While we test all our games with maximum in-game settings, turning on Anti-Aliasing (AA) and Antistrophic Filtering (AF) helps take the intensity of our testing to another level.

Here we see video cards go from playable FPS to an unplayable FPS and the real power houses continue to help break that 60 FPS mark we always aim for to provide a smooth gaming experience.

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Mafia II performance is strong and we can see at 2560 x 1600 it's the only setup alongside the overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition that is able to break the 60 FPS mark that we aim for to provide a solid gaming experience.

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Under Aliens vs. Predator we can see performance is very similar to the GHz Edition 7970 with 1920 x 1200 performing lining up with the overclocked number and 2560 x 1600 performance lining up with the stock GHz Edition speeds. Unfortunately that means our numbers aren't playable at 2560 x 1600.

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Far Cry 2 numbers are strong and we can see we're again ahead of the competition here with playable numbers at both resolutions when AA and AF are turned on.

HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review 33

We're again ahead of our other setups here, but unfortunately we still don't have the horsepower needed at 2560 x 1600 under Metro 2033 when it comes to turning AA and AF on.

HIS Radeon HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX 2GB in CrossFire Video Card Review 34

Finally we finish up with Just Cause 2 and we've got some great performance here that sees our CrossFire setup being the only setup that manages to break the 60 FPS barrier at 2560 x 1600.

Temperature Test

The temperature of the core is pulled from MSI Afterburner with the max reading used after a completed run off 3DMark Vantage and the Performance preset.

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Looking at the temperature side of things we can see the numbers look good with the warmest video card coming in at 61c under load.

Sound Test

Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

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Noise levels are strong. We're sitting at a similar level to the HD 7970 GHz Edition, which is a good comparison, considering the performance difference between the two setups.

Power Consumption Test

Using our PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum - only a SSD hard drive is used with a single CD ROM and minimal cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

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Finishing off with power draw we can see we're just shy of 500 watts at load. This is overall a pretty impressive number and most people buying this kind of setup should already have or be purchasing a quality power supply that won't have trouble dealing with this kind of power draw.

Final Thoughts

The results here today are quite interesting and what you see is under some of the most intensive games at the highest resolution, the HIS HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX CrossFire setup falls behind some of our higher end single GPU options. This isn't the first time we've seen this actually, not so much in a CrossFire setup, but when we've had heavily overclocked mid-range models.

What we tend to see is that the smaller memory bus comes into play more and at the higher resolution it's just being flooded giving the higher end cards a chance to come out ahead. Although, we see the dual mid-range video card setups come out sometimes considerably ahead at the lower resolution. I think one of the important things to note, though, is that we're getting very playable FPS out of the setup still when this happens and you can see throughout our testing there was times where this setup was the only one able to break the 60 FPS barrier.

This setup today also shows the power of the overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition which has just launched. Unfortunately the model is still yet to hit the retail market leaving the actual price a little unknown. On the topic of price, this is also going to be one of the dictating factors when it comes to buying this setup. A pair of the HD 7850 IceQ X Turbo X cards are going to set you back $569.98 or $284.99 each. This compares to a GTX 680 that is going to cost you $519 - $549 depending on the brand and an original HD 7970 $429 - $459.

The option on what setup to go isn't so cut and dry. Compared to the original HD 7970, this CrossFire setup is a good chunk faster. Compared to the GTX 680, it depends what you're playing and what resolution you're playing at. The good news for this kind of setup, though, is that it is not loud, nor does it run that hot either. It also looks fantastic and overall we see some awesome performance with it quite often being the fastest setup that we tested.

The CrossFire setup has a certain coolness factor about it and the quality of the cooler we're seeing out of HIS draws us towards this setup even more. Gone are the days where multi GPU setups really cause any kind of problems. In the end we'd probably opt for this option, especially since these cards are a lot more readily available than the GTX 680 which continues to struggle with stock.

Getting a little more specific on the HIS HD 7850 IceQ X TurboX, though, we've just got a great all round card here. HIS have offered a really good out of the box overclock that helps bring strong performance. The cooler looks fantastic and you can see in CrossFire it performs extremely well looking at the numbers. The bundle is pretty typical and comes with everything you need and the price point while a bit more expensive than other HD 7850s is still very strong thanks to the excellent performance that's on offer from the card.

If you're after a HD 7850 that is going to perform strong this is an excellent one that manages to tick a lot of the boxes. If you're looking for some really strong performance, though, you could look at two if you've got the cash. Checking out the performance today you can see a really nice boost in performance that lets it more often than not easily compete with the high-end single GPU options.

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Shawn takes care of all of our video card reviews. From 2009, Shawn is also taking care of our memory reviews, and from May 2011, Shawn also takes care of our CPU, chipset and motherboard reviews. As of December 2011, Shawn is based out of Taipei, Taiwan.

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