If we have learnt anything over the last few years, it's never to write one of the two major graphics manufacturers off. ATI know that they can't extract enough power out of their current top cards to be faster than the two new NVIDIA offerings. The red team aren't stupid, though. If you can't beat them in performance, you hit them in value. And in these tough economic times everyone's looking for a good bang for buck product. Monthly driver updates from ATI still make the Radeon HD 4800 series of cards an attractive offering and today we'll look at what HIS has done with the top single GPU card from ATI. With a fancy cooler, some mean clocks and a decent looking bundle, worth keeping an eye out for. - TweakTown

HIS Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Style Turbo Card Review

Nothing much has changed in the way HIS designs its boxes over the last few years. Across the bottom of the box we have the model mentioned and above that we have a picture of an adapter, while the middle of the box has the IceQ4+ logo. Running down the right side of the box, we have some of the main features listed. Across the top we have the HIS logo and also a mention that this card is part of the Turbo line-up. Upon turning the box over, we can see the card along with a number of bubbles that come off it and let you know some of the main features and how they will benefit you. Also included is a recent game title.

Moving onto the card itself, we can see that HIS has opted for an aftermarket cooler which manages to take up most of the card. We can see they have placed a sticker over the whole cooler letting us know who it's from and that it's part of the IceQ4+ series. If you have a look across the top of the cooler you can see that there are some heat pipes coming out the top of the card. This helps keep temps down and the cooler on a whole looks pretty good. Hopefully it will be able to cool as well as it looks. Towards the back of the card we have two 6-pin PCI Express connectors while at the front of it we have two CrossFire connectors.

Being a Turbo model, the card is of course an overclocked one. HIS has moved the core from the stock 750MHz to 780MHz. The 512MB memory clock has also headed north, moving from 3600MHz to 4000MHz effective speed. This increase in clock speed should give the Radeon HD 4870 IceQ4+ Turbo a bit more extra punch. While the green strobe light is set to high, we do see flickers of red between those flashes. ATI isn't dead. Do they have the fastest graphics cards on the market? No, do they offer some excellent value for money? Yes, speed isn't everything and not everyone can afford cards that are upwards of $400.

HIS has done a good job with the Radeon HD 4870 card today. They have used a method that we've seen for ages from them. Strap on a mean aftermarket cooler, overclock the card and make the bundle a bit more exciting. This is what we call a win win situation. What we ultimately want to say is that you shouldn't write the Radeon HD 4870 card off yet. Aggressive price drops and companies like HIS putting a lot of effort into the card mean that we're continuing to see some fresh designs that have their place in the market. Which is also the main difference between HIS and other brands, a wider range of series and versions.

HIS has done a good job with the IceQ4+ Turbo model and if you're looking for a Radeon HD 4870 that packs just a bit more punch than the standard model, it's a very good choice. Now if you are also willing to spend a few more dollars when compared to the GeForce 9800 GTX+ then it's also a very good choice with it performing better most of the time.