Just a couple of months ago we got our first taste of the HIS line-up in the form of their Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX video board. With its custom cooling, beefy overclock, decent package and unique looks, the card was a refreshing break from the usual array of reference ATI cards customised with little more than a sticker. Since then HIS have been hard at work adding a bit of magic sparkle to the fairly new Radeon HD 4870 and today we've been given the chance to taste the fruits of their labour. Crowned the Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo and dubbed by HIS as being the the fastest single GPU card ever, this certainly leaves the card open to competition from the likes of the GeForce GTX 280. - Overclock3D

HIS Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo Style Card Review

Simply by analysing the name of the Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo we can tell that the card has been fitted with HIS's award winning aftermarket cooling system. This performed exceptionally well in our previous testing of the Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX and as the following information below will tell us, slight improvements have been made to the IceQ4 cooler design, hence the inclusion of the plus symbol at the end of its name. As you would expect from a graphics card bearing the word Turbo in it's name, the HIS Radeon HD 4870 1GB edition comes pre-overclocked to 770/4000MHz for the core and memory respectively.

While it seems to be a growing trend for manufacturers' to package their graphics cards inside boxes that barely fit through your front door, HIS have thankfully kept the outer box of the Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo board at a reasonable size which will undoubtedly make it easier to ship also. The primary colors of the packaging are black and blue, with the IceQ4+ logo taking centre stage and several general specification stickers aligned to the right. Turning the box over reveals a windowed cutout that serves the purpose of showing off the IceQ4+ cooler beneath. Several circular images surround this area, pointing out features.

With a price tag expected to be around $325, the HIS Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ 1GB Turbo card is clearly positioned to be a direct threat to NVIDIA's recently released GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 cards, and a threat it certainly is. Factory overclocked to 770MHz with GDDR5 memory running at 4000MHz, the IceQ4+ Turbo managed to give the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 we happened to have in our office at the same time a proverbial run around, beating it in both Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 while also coming within a few frames in games such as Far Cry 2 and Quake Wars. So a bit mix results for both graphics card series.

This combined with the stunning look and performance of the IceQ4+ cooler that kept the GPU temperatures well under 60°C at all times and noise levels to little more than a whisper certainly makes the card worth every penny. In our previous article of the HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ4 TurboX, we concluded that the card was the crème de la crème of Radeon HD 4850 series cards. This is something that also rings true for the HIS Radeon 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo in their series. There really is no Radeon HD 4870 that we've seen or checked out to date which can come close unless you go for the higher price segment.