HIS Radeon HD 4870 IceQ 4+ Turbo 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 Review

Entry Updated: 3/13/10 to include new games

I make no secret that I have been a fan of ATI products, leaving Nvidia a long time ago, and having no regrets for my decision. The main reason I always pick ATI over Nvidia? Price vs performance. It's pretty much that simple for me. This HIS HD 4870 is no exception. Your always going to get comparable and even better performance out of an ATI card for less cost over an Nvidia.

I have become a fan of HIS products and I must say that I am very impressed with what they did with this card. This puppy performs on par with "higher end" cards that cost much more. For being a single GPU card, this thing will rock your world, and the worlds of the games you decide to throw at it as well. More so if you decide to crossfire it.

So lets get down to it. Most people buy a video card for gaming, I am no different, and this card is damn impressive. It chews up any and all the games I play (listed below) with out even breaking a sweat. I have yet to see a single slowdown in any of the games I tested. It has played smooth as silk and delivered kick ass graphics.

Operational Temperatures

One thing I see in a lot of reviews for this card is it runs hot, and that it does, but it's also designed to take it. So it's not a real concern. However I, like many others I'm sure, still prefer to run their hardware as cool as they can. Thus extending the operational life of the hardware. Also gives you more room for overclocking if your into that.

Right out of the box this card was idle at about 71C, then again the fan was also only running at 15%, so that was to be expected. Now when I put it under load for a while, the temps never got over 75C at 15% fan speed, that just says the nice big heat-pipes and cooler are doing their job well. Still, I would prefer it to run cooler, yet I don't want to run the fan too fast under manual control and shorten its life all that much either.

To activate manual control of the fan speeds, just open up your Catalyst Control Center, then to ATI Overdrive and unlock it, then adjust the slider accordingly.

So after some tinkering with the fan speeds and testing various games. I found that a fan speed of 40% will idle the card at about 48C and under load push it up to about 59C max. At 50% the card will idle at about 42-44C and top out at about 56C under heavy load. So I run mine at 50%.

The screenshot shows the card at idle and while playing ArmA 2 on all max settings at 1600x900 for 30 minutes.

This is with an average room temperature of 20-22C (69-71F). The fan noise at those speeds is more than acceptable, for me anyway, I am used to the noise considering the number of fans in my case as it is. Though to be honest it's not that loud at all.


Overclocking

Now I really have not messed with the clocks on this card very much yet, mainly because its overclocked already, and I have yet to need to do so. However I have read many reviews that say this card overclocks very easily. Just open up ATI Overdrive and adjust the sliders and see how much you can get out of it. Just remember to adjust the fan speeds as well. If and when I ever feel the need to overclock it, I will update this entry, or make a new one.

Power Demands

The card requires at least a 500Watt Power Supply with 2 6-pin 75Watt PCIe power connectors. I am personally running a 600Watt PSU and it has no problems powering the card. However I would not recommend anything under a 550watt.

What counts, the gaming!

So how does it hold up when gaming? Lets just say I am very impressed how well this bad boy handles the games I want to play. From the Half Life 2 series, to ArmA 2, and everything in between, the stable framerates are quite high. I have not benchmarked all of my games like I would like to to get exact numbers off them all, but here it is in a nut shell.

These are the games I have played on this card at 1920x1080 on all max or very high settings and have not seen a single slowdown or hiccup. No frame lag at all.

• Half Life 2 (Also Episodes 1 and 2)
  
• ArmA Gold
  
• ArmA 2
• Bioshock 1 and2
  
• Killing Floor
• Left 4 Dead 2
• C&C Red Alert 3
• C&C 3: Tiberium Wars
• Company of Heroes Collectors Edition
• Resident Evil 4 & 5
• Battlefield 2142
• Combat Arms
• WarRock
• Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45
• Team Fortress 2
• Torchlight
• Fallout 3 GOTY Edition
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl
• Rainbow 6 Vegas 2
• Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising
• Battlefield Bad Company 2
  

Once I have more time I will go back and fire up Fraps and get some numbers to go along with the rest of that list. Though to be honest, the numbers wont matter too much, since in every game I listed, the gameplay and frames were perfectly smooth and fast. So no matter if its 60 or 300 FPS, the fact remains that stable framerates are whats important. Not a single time did I ever see a hint of frame lag.

The ArmA 2 Benchmark

The ArmA 2 game and demo both have a great benchmark tool you can use to see how the game will run on your system, similar to other games, and it's free since its included with the demo. I know a lot of people like to use Crysis as a benchmark, but ArmA 2 is more system intensive, and can provide a better overall test of your systems abilities. If it can handle ArmA 2 on all high or very high settings, games like Crysis will be a cake walk. This is why I choose ArmA 2 over Crysis as a test of a systems high-end gaming performance.

Running at 1600x900 on all "Very High" settings with a view distance of over 3000 meters, the frame rate averaged out at 76 FPS. During actual gameplay the frames would bounce around a little, in the low 90's at maximum and in the mid 60's in heavy combat. After making an adjustment and shutting off post processing effects, the frame rates went up on an average of 5-8 FPS across the board. I don't like post processing effects in games like this as it makes the entire world "glow", and to me, it just gets in the way of the gameplay.

The FPS fluctuations were completely unnoticeable in game. The gameplay experience is smooth and without any frame lag at all. It plays wonderfully! This is very impressive overall and really does show off this cards potential when it's paired with other good hardware.

Closing

So in a nut shell I have to say that this is one kick ass card that will run any game on the market today at respectable settings and with little to no problems at all. You hook this thing up in a crossfire setup and watch out. Though all on its own its not having a problems keeping this user happy. I would highly recommend this card to anyone looking for a high powered card to play their games on yet not wanting to spend a lot of money.

Rating: 10/10

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