Roughly a year ago when somebody mentioned 1GB graphics cards we were all a little like what the heck do you need 1GB for? Admittedly, yours truly included. It's amazing how things evolve really, or more precisely how fast things evolve in the technology sector. This year a good number of games were released which actually make good use of a frame buffer larger than 512MB really well. And this specifically, in higher resolutions with some decent amount of anti-aliasing and DirectX 10 games, the benefits of more frame buffer is showing more intensely. Don't be fooled though. Say, you stumble into a 1GB based Radeon HD 4830 or something similar, chances are big it's just a waste of money. - Guru3D

HIS Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo Card Style Review

So mid-range graphics cards really hardly benefit from exceptionally large frame buffers over 512MB. But for the high-end cards that's a slightly different thesis to look at. We now have a good number of games like Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2 where the benefits of that large frame buffer starts showing off. Though the benefits are not huge per se, when the conditions are right it can make a nice difference. Suffice to say, we will look at a 1GB graphics card today. It's based on the Radeon HD 4870 and comes from HIS technology. The all new IceQ4+ Turbo cooling based model. And we have to admit to HIS, it's again looking good.

HIS submitted their Radeon HD 4870 not only with 1GB of memory, but it also comes with some customizations. And their reflective dual slot IceQ4 cooler is obviously present, and next to that this is the Turbo version, which boils down to the fact that the board is overclocked for you. Normally the Radeon HD 4870 would have a 750MHz core and shader frequency, and this model is clocked at 770MHz as standard for you. Next to that you will also gain some extra memory bandwidth as the memory clock is set at 4000MHz, which is 400MHz higher than the reference clock and these cards really love the faster memory.

So you always know what to look for in the stores, the packaging. Clean and simple, nothing wrong with that. The components are all well packaged. It's quite a good looking card really. It has a bit of a dark theme going on there, which we prefer a lot. The plastic is made out of UV reflective material, unfortunately most of the sticker is covering that effect up. Now due to the height of the cooler, the graphics card uses up two slots. And all the way to the left are two 6-pin power connectors and you will also find the CrossFire plugs. One molex converter is included should your power supply not have a second 6-pin connector.

The conclusion can be quite simple. Of course HIS has another classic in their hands with this IceQ4+ Turbo model. Though not perfect, we liked it very much. Next to all the customizations from the PCB to the cooling, it also has a little extra bite against the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 cards as it was overclocked slightly. What we're not used to from HIS is a noisy product. To date, all of their products have been silent. And the IceQ4+ cooler therefore caught us off guard a little. So that was the one thing that did strike us as odd, nothing major or extreme though as it cools better than the reference cooling design.

That aside, we have an eradicator video card. The Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo chews up, as you guys have seen, gaming frame rates easily. Thanks to it's design, you can also tweak a little more out of it and yet again gain roughly ten percent extra performance. The good thing is, HIS isn't offering the product at a much higher price. The Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo is next to being a mouth full of words, worth every penny and there's no doubt in our mind you'll absolutely adore playing your games with it as it'll guarantee you high frame rates, high resolutions and image quality at a very fair price. It's an absolutely lovely product.