At first I would like to thank HIS for offering a sample of their R7 360 iCooler OC 2GB Video Card for testing and reviewing.

 

 

About HIS:

 

“HIS - Hightech Information System Limited is an internationally acclaimed graphics cards company. Time and time again, HIS were compared and tested by hundreds of worldly renowned critics. The results are phenomena, HIS have proven to offer far superior, cooler, quieter, and faster graphic cards than any other leading rivals. Up to the fourth quarter of 2011, HIS has won over 1600 awards with AMD graphic solution from major media worldwide. HIS is being recognized by providing performance leading and award-wining products: IceQ, IceQ X and Turbo Edition.

HIS was established in 1987 with the mission to produce the highest quality PC products in the industry. Besides strong devotion to excellent products and services, HIS has been conducting business with the aim to "Glorifying God". Honesty and integrity are the two key principals of how HIS are conducted. Ethical business practice has been an everyday commitment to our clients, vendors, and investors.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, and with sales offices and distribution networks in Europe, Middle East, North and South America, Asia Pacific Regions; our worldwide customers benefits from efficient and localized services. ISO Certified, HIS's manufacturing facility in China is managed by a team of professionals with expertise in quality control and production planning. Working with world-class clients, HIS has been consistently meeting high quality standards and fulfilled volume order in short lead-time.

HIS is proud to be AMD's Authorized 1st Tier AIB Partner, Certified Partner and Launching Partner. Long term and favorable relationship with AMD, enable HIS to work closely with AMD to promote the HIS AMD Graphics Board; and to strive for best value on the marketing and sales of HIS AMD Product Line.

In Sept 2003, HIS incorporated the state-of-the art Supreme Cooling Technology in the award winning HIS 9800Pro IceQ, which caught the attention of worldwide media. Since then, HIS IceQ series and the latest IceQ X series has been the limelight in the market for its outstanding performance and features over the other rivals.

Today, HIS continues its avid commitment to quality product and service. HIS is certain to be Your Choice of Graphics Board Supplier.”

Product Features:

 

The HIS R7 360 video card is equipped with iCooler, making it extremely quiet and noise level is less than 28dB. You feel the quietness when viewing photos, browsing webs, checking your email and playing movies in UVD mode.

 

Long Lasting Design: Safer, Last Longer!

 

Enhances stability in critical gaming situations!

 

HIS cards are engineered with the highest standard of safety, preventing them any potential damages. Full Solid State Capacitors ensures the best power quality and enhances the card’s stability in critical gaming situations.

 

Built for Crossfire

 

CrossFireX Ready!

 

The card's is armed with Crossfire Connector, ready for CrossFire & strengthened performance!

 

AMD FreeSync™ Technology

 

The FreeSync™ technology resolves the communication issues between processor and monitor, eliminating image tears and choppiness for effortlessly smooth gameplay.

 

GCN

 

With AMD 2nd generation GCN technology, the card optimizes DirectX® 12 gaming performance automatically up to 2.5 times faster! It also offers up to 4.5x compute performance and up to 95% lower GPU Idle Power Consumption.

 

Apps Faster & Smoother!

The card enables a “quality graphics” experience on everyday applications, giving huge performance boosts on image processing, file compression, media converter apps, and a lot more!

 

AMD TrueAudio

 

With the sonic brilliance of AMD TrueAudio technology, your games now sound as good as they look. You get the most revolutionary, realistic and breathtaking sound we’ve ever put in a GPU.

 

AMD Eyefinity

 

Set up Eyefinity on 3 displays with No ACTIVE DisplayPort Adapter is needed.

 

PCI-e 3.0 Support

 

Armed with the latest PCI-e 3.0 bus design maximizes performance by delivering double bandwidth per lane of PCI-e 2.x. Paired the card with the latest platforms and get the ultimate performance!

 

More Graphics, Less Power!

 

The new architecture of the card gets more usable processing power for your money, enabling better frame rates in the latest games at high resolutions. In addition, with AMD ZeroCore Power & AMD PowerTune technologies, you can optimize the balance between performance and power consumption of your system by adjusting the engine clock during runtime of the card. Manage the power and keep your wallet loaded!

 

See More, Enjoy More!

 

The card supports 30” LCD monitor and any large size TV up to 80" feature with 16:9 ratio in amazing 4096 by 2160 resolution. Up-scaling your computer into a multimedia center with the biggest display!

 

Enjoy HD Beauty

 

With Full HD 1080p support, the card delivers high quality 1920X1080 graphics, enabling seamless full-screen video playback. See HD, hear HD and feel HD - Enjoy the beautiful graphics now with the card!

 

Enjoy Copy Protected Movies

 

The card is HDCP complaint, enabling users to play copy-protected content, such as commercial DVD movies.

 

Enjoy True to Life Graphics

 

ULTRA HD videos have resolution four times that of current HD videos, meaning images too clear that may deceive your eyes! With the card, you are set for getting the movie theater experience to your home. You may be able to watch a video shooting the Eiffel tower and zoom it in to see your friend’s face clearly from the top! Get your eyes impressed and enjoy mind-blowing graphics with extreme clarity, depth and texture!

 

See More, Win More!

 

The card is capable to turn your computer into a super gaming machine. Enjoy the latest 3D games with stunning graphics and effects that your enemies cannot match! Get an immersive experience with AMD Eyefinity!

Expand your game across up to 3 displays while your opponents have one monitor. Along with all-new support for stereo 3D, universal bezel compensation and brand new display configurations, take the unfair advantage over your opponent and win more with the surround sight

 

View More, Work Better

 

Having one dedicated screen just for twitter or Facebook and a second for outlook is not a dream anymore. The card features a DisplayPort for enhanced workspace flexibility. You can easily connect to the 27” Apple LED Cinema Displays with the DisplayPort. The dual-link DVI port allows you connect to a 30” DVI display up to 2560x1600. Resolution can even reach 4096x2160 with HDMI® , good for TV up to 80"!

 

Hear Better in Video Conference

 

Most GPUs today support only one audio stream at a time. The card, however, has Discrete Digital Multi-Point Audio that can simultaneously output multiple, independent audio streams. Audio seamlessly follows the video, providing affordable multi-display, multi-audio conferencing for consumers!

 

Product Specifications:

 

With the R7 360 video card from HIS, we are now reaching the low-end segment and is meant as a replacement for the R7 260 video card from the previous series. The cut-down and refreshed Bonaire GPU is featuring 768 stream processors, 48 texture units and 16 ROPS; while the R7 260 had its core clock set at 1GHz and RAM at 1500MHz, the OEM Radeon R7 360 has its GPU clock at 1050MHz and the memory at 1625MHz. While we are dealing with an overclocked model from HIS, the manufacturer has overclocked the core even more so we will have the card running with the GPU at 1070MHz, while the RAM clocks remain the same. Both old and new series feature GCN 1.1 and were built on the TSMC 27nm manufacturing process. The GPU is paired with 2GB of GDDR5 (instead of 1GB on R7 260) which runs on a 128-bit memory bus.

 

It is safe to say that these cards are mostly meant to be bought by gamers which run MOBA or strategy games which do not require as much resources and here we could remind DOTA2, LoL etc.

 

This low-cost component is shipped in a smaller-size cardboard box, with a slightly different box art:

 

 

 

Some of the product features are represented with small pictograms on the top area of the packaging:

 

 

 

 

On one of the lateral sides we will get to see the list of internal box stuff:

 

 

 

More in-depth product details are available on the back side of the enclosure:

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging layer, we will end up with a back box, which features the manufacturer logo on top:

 

 

 

 

For the low-end offering, HIS no longer uses foam material to protect the internals, but a plastic mold in which the card is staying secure:

 

 

 

As bundle, we will receive one multi-language installation guide, along with the driver disk:

 

 

 

The iCooler cooling system has not changed from the previous generation and this one is composed from the rather circular aluminum heatsink with fins, the high-quality 2-ball bearing Japanese 90mm fan, but also the anti-dust cover:

 

 

 

The layers can be easily seen when viewed from the sides:

 

 

 

 

The card VRM comes with super alloys MOS in order to provide stable voltages during operation and these are covered by a small aluminum heatsink with fins:

 

 

 

On the back side of the board, we will be able to see the VRM and GPU cooler mounts and some additional factory stickers:

 

 

 

The card picks up the extra power it needs from a 6-pin PCI-Express power connector:

 

 

 

The HIS R7 360 OC is also provided with a Crossfire finger in order to connect two cards for better performance:

 

 

 

As outputs we do have one DisplayPort port, one HDMI and two DVIs:

 

 

 

Test Setup

 

CPU: Intel I5 4690K Retail @ 4.6GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX

Motherboard: BIOSTAR Z97X Gaming

RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 4x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)

Video: Currently reviewed card

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB + OCZ Vertex 460

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

With the help of the GPU-Z utility, we could extract lots of information regarding the video card clocks,memory type, pixel and texture fill rate and so on:

 

 

To receive more in-depth information regarding the GPU, we have used the AIDA64 utility:

 

 

 

 

Temperature tests:

For finding out the temperatures in both IDLE and Full Load with the fan set on Auto, we left the computer IDLE for about 25 minutes and then started monitoring with HWINFO64 and logged the values obtained while running Heaven 4.0 at the 1920x1080 resolution for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, with details at Maximum and Tesselation set to Extreme. During this time, the ambient temperature was held steady at 26.7 degrees Celsius:

 

 

Noise measurements

Before measuring out the noise the video card was producing, we have first measured the noise inside the room the tests took place and we found out it was 29.1 dBA (with everything turned off).

At all times, the sound meter was placed 20cm near the video card.

The GPU fan was controlled by the latest version of the Sapphire ThriXX utility:

 

 

 

3DMark 11

 

3DMark 11 is a DirectX 11 video card benchmark test for measuring your PC's gaming performance. 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of DirectX 11 features including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 consistently and reliably tests your PC's DirectX 11 performance under game-like loads.

 

 

3DMark 2013

 

3DMark includes everything you need to benchmark your hardware in one app. Whether you're gaming on a smart phone, tablet, notebook, laptop, desktop, or a high performance gaming PC, 3DMark includes a benchmark designed specifically for your type of device. And it's not just for Windows. You can compare your scores with Android and iOS devices too. It's the best 3DMark we've ever created.

 

 

Unigine Heaven 4.0

 

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system's potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms, such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

 

 

Hitman Absolution

 

Hitman: Absolution is a stealth video game developed by IO Interactive and published by Square Enix. It is the fifth installment in the Hitman game series, and runs on IO Interactive's proprietary Glacier 2 game engine.

 

 

DIRT: Rally V0.5

 

Dirt Rally is a racing video game developed and published by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows. An early access version of the game was released on 27 April 2015, via digital distribution service Steam.

 

 

Sleeping Dogs

 

Sleeping Dogs is a 2012 open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games and Square Enix London. It was published by Square Enix and Bandai Namco Games for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

 

 

Tomb Raider

 

Tomb Raider is a media franchise that began as a video game series and includes comic books, novels, theme park rides, and movies, centering around the adventures of the British archaeologist Lara Croft.

 

 

Sniper Elite III

 

Sniper Elite III is a tactical shooter video game developed by Rebellion Developments and published by 505 Games for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

 

 

Metro Last Light

 

Metro: Last Light is a single-player post-apocalyptic-themed first-person shooter video game with stealth and survival horror elements, developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver.

 

 

Bioshock Infinite

 

BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games and published by 2K Games.

 

 

Crysis 2

 

Crysis 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Crytek, published by Electronic Arts and released in North America, Australia and Europe in March 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

 

 

Batman Arhkam Origins

 

Batman: Arkham Origins is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Warner Bros. Games Montréal and released by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for Microsoft Windows and the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 video game consoles.

 

 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

 

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor is an open world action-adventure video game set within Tolkien's legendarium, developed by Monolith Productions and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

 

 

Alien: Isolation

 

Alien: Isolation is a first-person survival horror stealth video game developed by The Creative Assembly and published by Sega.

 

 

GRID Autosport

 

Grid Autosport is a racing video game released by Codemasters for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on 24 June 2014 in North America and 27 June 2014 in Europe.

 

 

The R7 360 OC iCooler video card from HIS is designed with a custom cooling system in order to stay cool at all times, but the GPU is not too potent since we have the same solution we have found with the previous AMD Radeon R7 260 but with higher clocks from the box and 2GB of memory buffer instead of 1GB on a 128-bit memory bus. The manufacturer has boosted a bit the GPU clock since we are dealing with an “OC” card; we are saying a bit because the boost is only by 20MHz and the card is capable of much more as we have seen from our overclocking tests.

 

Speaking of the overclocking tests, we have succeeded to raise the GPU clocks up to an impressive 1274MHz from the original 1070MHz, while the memory was upped to 1699MHz. The 3DMark Performance test score was increased too:

 

 

 

Despite the high overclocking capabilities, the HIS R7 360 remains a card from the low-end segment, mainly meant for running games at higher details than integrated CPU graphics like recent MOBA titles or older games.

 

We would like to thank again to HIS for making this review possible!