Final Thoughts

The average Radeon Hard disk 6870 board (900MHz) is currently selling for about $220 -- in fact, HIS charges $205 for their stock Radeon Hard disk drive 6870. Then in that location is the 6870 IceQ X Turbo for $220 (920MHz) and the 6870 IceQ X Turbo X for $250 (975MHz, our review unit).

A similar scenario is found when looking at the Radeon Hard disk drive 6850 cards on offering. About $175 for a standard model (775MHz), while the HIS reference card is $165. Stepping things upwardly, the Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X is $180 (775MHz) and the 6850 IceQ X Turbo (820MHz, our review unit of measurement) costs $190.

In strict mathematical sense, yous can expect to pay 20% more for the 6870 IceQ X Turbo X over a standard reference card, while the 6850 IceQ X Turbo is fetching about 15% more. Unfortunately, both premiums are higher than the bodily functioning gains we've recorded during testing.

The Radeon Hd 6870 IceQ X Turbo X was ~7% faster than a stock carte and the 6850 IceQ Ten Turbo yielded just 4% more performance. Yet, the cards' upgraded libation proved to be a valuable feature, assuasive them to handle higher frequencies without increasing the operating volume. Considering the minor functioning heave, we believe the custom cooler provides a greater value than the factory overclocking. The 6870 IceQ X Turbo or 6850 IceQ X are a couple bucks more reference cards and should permit you see or exceed the same speeds as the height models.

HIS was keen on having united states of america compare the 6870 IceQ X Turbo 10 to the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, but based on the xiv games we tested, both cards delivered the same operation overall. The GTX 560 Ti boards have also dropped a little in price and most are now $230.

We should also annotation that Radeon Hd 6950 2GB cards are only $20 more expensive. That makes the 6870 IceQ X Turbo X roughly 7% cheaper, merely besides 7% slower. When you lot take into account that the Radeon HD 6950 wasn't overclocked and can be unlocked to see the 6970'southward specs, that seems like a better deal.

Although the numbers are stacked against HIS' overclocked cards when comparing unmarried-GPU configurations, they still impressed usa when testing Crossfire performance. Both cards scaled incredibly well in almost all the games tested and gave the current dual-GPU flagships a run for their money.

The HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo 10 Crossfire performed on average 4% slower than the GeForce GTX 590 and ten% slower than the Radeon HD 6990. Only while the IceQ X Turbo X combo costs $500, the other ii cards are fetching the $700 mark.

The 6870 Crossfire duo was on boilerplate 51% faster than the Radeon Hd 6970 and 37% faster than the GeForce GTX 580 likewise. Fifty-fifty compared to the Radeon HD 6970, which currently costs roughly $360, the 6870 IceQ X Turbo X Crossfire cards are 39% more than expensive for a 51% performance increment.

The $205 6870 and $165 6850 reference cards would withal provide a better value when Crossfired. The fact is, as much equally we actually similar the design and performance of the IceQ 10 Turbo and IceQ X Turbo Ten, the premium is hard to justify over a pair of quality stock cards if performance is all you are concerned with.