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HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X & Radeon HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo Crossfire Graphics Cards Reviewed

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On April 26, 2011, 2:50 AM

Looking at the market today, the Radeon HD 6850 remains one of the best options available to gamers shopping for a sub-$200 GPU, while the Radeon HD 6870 still commands the sub-$250 bracket with its only real competition coming from the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. It's not very often that we see mainstream-level GPUs settle down for long, in this case it appears there's nothing too big on the horizon and thus we were pleased to hear that HIS was preparing an update for all card versions this year.


The factory-overclocked 6870 IceQ X Turbo X and HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X Turbo have upgraded coolers and are meant to be the fastest 6850 and 6870 graphics cards available out of the box -- albeit at a premium price. The 6870 IceQ X Turbo X is currently retailing for $250, while the 6850 IceQ X Turbo costs $190. Being the inquisitive type, we're determined to see if the extra fee is worthwhile.

Read the complete review.

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User Comments: 5

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  1. Great read! I'm surprised though as It is quite a late appearance for these cards to rear their heads. In saying that however, they have great cooling and the market currently allows for these to still sell (possibly very) well!

  2. Nice review, as always. Much appreciated.

    A congested marketplace- although I can't help but think that a (or couple of) Sapphire's re-released 5850's at $140 per offer probably the best bang for the buck at the present time.

  3. As DBZ has said, good review. Very nice set of info for those looking for new gfx solution for a system.

    But as he also said 5850s in crossfire (yes, I'm biased due to running this myself ) are still a very good solution and best bang for buck. I'd have liked to have seen 5850s in the benchmarks considering they are the previous generation to the 6850s. Other than that great review.

  4. Based on previous reviews the 5850 should be comparable to the 6870 in all but the dx11 games and power consumption, so yeah the 5850 is still a great card, especially at that price!

  5. Nice read!

    Last week I ordered 2 x Asus 6850 Direct Cu for 118 euros each...on sale (stock cleanup)...

    Today I got the message that the cards are in the shop, so this night I'll be messing with my PC...

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