Hardware HIS Radeon HD 3850 IceQ 3 TurboX 512MB

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/03/08/his_radeon_hd_3850_iceq_3_turbox_512mb/1

HIS is a company that is renowned for its innovative take on ATI's graphics cards - the company has often taken an average card and made it into a good card. Today we have a look at its Radeon HD 3850 IceQ 3 TurboX 512MB to see if it can turn a great card into a must-buy.

 

i dont like it ! nvidia fan !

 

Nice constructive criticism there

 

nice review. thanks. wondering about temp difference this cooler makes. really like how quiet it is and how excess heat is exhausted out of the back of the case. Looking at the EVGA 8800GT Akimbo and hoping that this new 2-slot cooler has a quiet fan. Early forum blogs by users that just bought the upgrade Akimbo cooler say very good things about temp reduction, but mixed reports on fan noise (better than stock, but not clear how much better---of course much depends on OC and how fast you have to run it, but I've read that it's quite audible over 60%)

 

I'll try and get some GPU temperatures in comparison to the Powercolor - I forgot about that when I was doing the review, apologies

 

Great review! I totally agree with the "sea of grey" -- it makes it very difficult to find something that's more innovative than the next card. I'm glad I've decided to wait a few more months until I build my desktop, and by that time I'll have time to really use it too. Should be really interesting to see where things are then, given that almost every week is a completely new scene.

 

HIS 3870 can overclock to 860MHz/2748MHz DDR.

 

I think what he's meaning is that it's not a single slot solution? I don't know for sure, though. I remember some talk of the dual-slot cooler being called the "Black and Decker solution."

 

Speaking of, when you reviewed the powercolor, did the fan actually change speed, mine is stuck at 100% and is the only thing in my case thats making a ton of noise, without it its silent bliss.

Rivatuner doesnt work to change it.

 

Sorry Matticus the fan on the powercolor card is two pin only, so there's no way of controlling it with software.

I've only just bought mine and have yet to build the system around it, but I'm sorry to hear that they're noisy.

Other reviews that have posted temperatures suggest that the cooler isn't struggling to cool this chip. There should be some room to slow down the fan.

Your best bet is a simple hardware hack. You could modify one of the fan's wires with an inline variable resistor to drop the voltage, this will probably affect the LED too but that's hardly a big deal. You can then tweak the resistor to give yourself the desired balance between noise, cooling and tangerine glow.

Beefcake.

 

I've noticed that the fan isn't as quiet as it first seemed - I've updated the PowerColor review to reflect that fact.

Anyway, as for the temperatures - the following were taken in a 22°C ambient temperature with 15 minutes of Crysis used as the load:

HIS 735/1960:
idle - 34°C
load - 69°C

PowerColor 720/1800 (full fan):
idle - 27°C
load - 43°C

I reckon that even with the PowerColor running at around 60 percent fan, it should deliver good cooling performance and it'll take the edge off the noise. The problem for the HIS card though is that it's 30 percent more expensive than the PowerColor, yet doesn't deliver anywhere near 30 percent more performance. The reference cooler isn't that bad on the 3850 either - it's relatively quiet (definitely quieter than the PowerColor, but not as quiet as the HIS cooler), and performance isn't too bad on the standard clocked 256MB reference card I've got.

 

the biggest problem for the his 3850 turbo is that you can get a stock 3870 for less if you shop around....

 

Yep... and if you're content with a 3850, there are much cheaper alternatives.

 

Yesh. Mine is sitting at 49 c now. One of the screws broke aswell for no reason, so its being held on by 2 screws (3 was pulling it funny). I cant believe how hot mine is running, the contact must be terrible. And I have had 1 or 2 crashes.

But surely 2 screws will hold it on reasonably well, as many coolers have only 2 screws.

I have contacted powercolor, but they have never been good at getting back to me.

I contacted overclockers but I doubt they will allow my RMA because I had to modify the card to sort out the fact it was being pulled down in one corner, but only because the other screw had snapped.