At first we would like to thank HIS for offering a sample of their R9 380X IceQ X2 Turbo 4GB 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:

 

IceQ X² – Cooler, Quieter

 

Cooler

With IceQ X², the card is cooler than the reference cooler.

 

Quieter

IceQ X² is one of the quietest coolers, making the card quieter than the reference cooler. The card is below 28dB when watching movies, surfing Facebook, working. The card remains quiet whether you are gaming, online socializing, entertaining or working.

 

Fan Design

 

The super large 2x 90mm dual axial fans draws massive amount of cool air to cool the GPU directly.

The Q&C fan blade increases air velocity make cooling more efficiently while keeping noise level at minimum.

The fan is extremely durable with a life span of up to 50,000 hours.

 

Cooling system

 

The 4x 6mm wide heatpipes optimize cooling performance by removing heat from the core area.

The extra-large 60 x 62 mm copper heatsink provides a large area to dissipate heat efficiently.

The card also carries memory and mosfet heat sinks to provide extra heat dissipation from these areas.

The card also features fan control and monitoring; you are able to read fan speed & ASIC temperature from iTurbo or other software.

 

New Technology, New Experiences

 

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!

 

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 4 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 2 Mini-display Ports for enhanced workspace flexibility. You can easily connect to two displays, including the 27” Apple LED Cinema Displays with the two Mini DisplayPorts. 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:

 

After we have taken a look at the 300 AMD series a bit earlier we’ve got an impression that the manufacturer has left quite a bit of performance gap between the R9 380 and the R9 390 so the “missing” GPU has arrived later to our labs, just in time to be used with the latest Crimson drivers. We are talking again about a Tonga code name architecture which is fully enabled this time (32 GCN compute units) which basically translates in a total of 2048 shader processors. We would also like to take in account that this card does come with 128 texturing units and a 256-bit bus width for the memory; while the HIS R9 380 we have had in test was equipped with 2GB of GDDR5, this one comes straight off the bat with 4GB of memory, which is enough for games that require a large buffer at higher resolutions.

In terms of clock speeds, HIS made sure to increase the clocks to 1020MHz from the original 1GHz AMD spec, while the memory clocks were left at the same 1425MHz speed.

 

A quick look at the external packaging which the new HIS card employs reveals the same ice-cold graphics design which is meant to let the potential buyer the custom cooling system will perform wonderfully:

 

 

 

Via small pictograms, HIS will inform us on some main features and supported technologies:

 

 

 

 

On one of the box sides, we will be able to spot a list of box contents:

 

 

 

System Requirements can be also checked out on the opposite side:

 

 

 

If we feel that we should be better informed on the main card features, we only have to look on the back side of the packaging:

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing which surprised us with this product is the fact that it does not longer come in that black cardboard box with the white HIS logo on top:

 

 

 

The internals are split in two: the top layer is composed from a cardboard envelope-like compartment which holds the bundle, while the bottom layer holds the card:

 

 

 

As accessories, we do get the installation disk, one Multi-Language Installation Guide but also a DVI to VGA adapter for people which are using older displays:

 

 

 

The HIS R9 380X is also wrapped inside an anti-static bag for additional protection:

 

 

 

The first look at the card reminds us at the main elements we have also found with the R9 380 from HIS; we are getting two 90mm dual-axial fans while the top shroud helps with redirecting the airflow; the fans have a life span up to 50K hours and cool the large heatsink surface:

 

 

 

In the top left corner, we will get to see an IceQ X2 product logo:

 

 

 

The fans do have a Turbo sticker in the middle, signifying the fact that the card comes pre-overclocked from the factory:

 

 

 

Here are also some views from the sides of the card:

 

 

 

 

A closer look at the back side of the PCB reveals that it is considerable less longer than the shroud of the cooling system:

 

 

 

A very nice touch with this particular card is the fact that the PCB has rounded edges, a feature not seen with other manufacturers or higher-tier cards of the 300 line:

 

 

 

Let’s remove the cooling system with the help of the four spring-loaded screws and see what we’ve got in more detail:

 

 

 

The full Tonga GPU sits right in the middle and is surrounded by 8 GDDR5 chips:

 

 

 

On its left side we will get to see the VRM, which is covered by a small aluminum heatsink:

 

 

 

The ON Semiconductors NCP81022 controller was designed to handle the dynamic clock algorithm in the Tonga GPU; it does support IC monitoring along with voltage control:

 

 

 

The Elpida W4032BABG-60-F memory chips are specified to run at 1500 MHz (6000 MHz GDDR5 effective):

 

 

 

The dual fans plug in to a single 4-pin connector:

 

 

 

A closer look at the cooling system reveals the central copper plate along with the four 6mm wide heatpipes:

 

 

 

The dual 6-pin power connectors are placed in the back, which position usually helps with cable management:

 

 

 

The I/O plate reveals dual DVI connectors (DLDVI-I and DL-DVI-D), one DisplayPort 1.2 and one HDMI:

 

 

 

 

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 19.7 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 29.5 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 MSI Afterburner 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

 

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.

 

 

HIS together with AMD have hit one of the most looked after market segments with this card, mainstream and have filled the same place the gap between the R9 380 and the R9 390. We get 4GB of memory buffer right on the spot for this one so the occasional hiccups which appeared sometimes at WQHD (2560x1440) resolution are now gone. Bear in mind though that even if the card does wonders when running at Full-HD resolution, we would be forced sometimes to adjust the sliders at WQHD in order to be able to keep a smooth gameplay.

 

The cooling system is quite similar to the one we have seen with the HIS R9 380 and even spotted an interesting difference: the 380 cooling was equipped with five heatpipes while the 380X one has only four, but still manages to cool the card very well while keeping the noise levels to decent levels.

 

Regarding overclocking, despite the fact that the card features a mild overclock from the factory, we have noticed that it had quite a bit of “overclocking wonder juice” in it, so after testing the card for artifacts in 5MHz increments, we have got quite a performance increase:

 

 

 

With the card available in stores for about 279 Euros, we can clearly say that it is currently one of the best cards to get at this price point.

 

HIS R9 380X IceQ X2 Turbo 4GB Video Card is Recommended For:

 

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