It’s been a while since I last saw a HIS product. For years, it has been one of the most prominent manufacturers of (at the time) ATI Radeon GPUs and had been famous for its competitive pricing and cool designs (pun intended). So it had been a real surprise when I received a HIS product, specifically the HIS Radeon R9 285 IceQ X2 2GB OC card.
COLDILOCKS
The HIS R9 285 IceQ X2 card is based upon the Tonga chipset, one of the newer platforms that has been AMD introduced. The chipset has a lower TDP, meaning quieter and cooler graphic card as well as much more headroom for a performance gain. Indeed, the HIS card comes factory overclocked as well, meaning that you should get some extra performance right out of the box.
ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN
The HIS 285 IceQ X2 is large. In a good kind of way though. This is due to the cooler as the main PCB is only 2/3rd the size of the IceQ X2 cooler. This means you are still getting the full benefit of the IceQ X2 cooler, even with a small PCB, as the more surface area there is, the more heat can be dissipated. The heatsink shroud is black, something of a normality for all graphic card nowadays, although I would have preferred it to be in white. Then again, there is a white HIS sticker going through the middle of the shroud.
ICE QUEEN
HIS has kept to the normal AMD output of dual DVI, one HDMI, and a single DisplayPort. One of the DVI supports analogue with an adapter for those that still rely on a VGA monitor. There are no crossfire pins on this card, a new update on all newer AMD Radeon cards. 2GB of GDDR5 RAM powers this GPU with a core clockspeed of 938MHz.
LET IT GO
So how does HIS Radeon R9 285 IceQ X2 fare? Well as a medium entry card, it’s decent. The long and large cooler works like a charm, especially if you’re looking to overclock it. Yet it’s slim enough that it does not take much room in the casing. Even if cannot crunch games at Ultra settings, but for casual gaming, especially RPGs or DotA 2, this is more than enough.
VERDICT
Cold - in a good sort of way.
SPECS
Dimensions (W x H x D) 270 x 140 x 42mm
Weight 1.2kg
Chipset AMD R9 285
Memory Size 2GB GDDR5
Memory Clock Up to 5500MHz
Core Clock 938MHz
Memory Interface 256Bit
Expansion 2 x DVI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x HDMI with 3D