Overclocked AMD Radeon HD 6850 Duel - HIS vs. MSI
We are revisiting the Radeon HD 6850 by taking a look at two very promising customized and factory overclocked versions. HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo sports a funky new cooler and goes up against another recent addition from MSI with the R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC. Find out which of them gets our nod.
Mainstream Redux
Powered by the 960-core Barts PRO GPU, the Radeon HD 6850 is AMD’s stalwart in the mainstream segment. It greatly unsettled NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460’s stranglehold in the US$170 - US$220 price segment, and in our initial review of the Radeon HD 6850, we found it to be a decent card for mainstream users. Unfortunately, its been more than five months since the Radeon HD 6850 was launch and its position has been threatened by newer releases from NVIDIA such as the GeForce GTX 460 SE and more recently the .
To keep things fresh and interesting, vendors are coming up with customized versions of the Radeon HD 6850. Factory overclocked and sporting custom coolers, these versions of the Radeon HD 6850 promise greater all round performance and efficiency. We have already covered seven custom Radeon HD 6850 cards in our earlier roundup and today, we will be looking at an additional two cards today.
Here are the contenders for today’s roundup:
HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo
Taking a page out of MSI’s Military Class suite of components, the HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo also has solid state chokes and full solid state capacitors, for better efficiency and stability. On top of that, the card also has a custom-designed IceQ X cooler and is factory overclocked for better gaming performance. The core is clocked at 820MHz while the memory at 4400MHz DDR.
The IceQ X has a unique ice-blue translucent cooler that makes it stand out from the competition.
The card has the usual twin DVI ports, HDMI port and single DisplayPort.
The IceQ X cooler has no less than four thick heat pipes to quickly draw heat from the GPU core.
MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition
The MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition is company’s current flagship Radeon HD 6850 cards. It has the new second-generation Cyclone II custom cooler along with a host of other features. Most notably, it has the Military Class II suite components which includes Hi-C Caps, Super Ferrite Chokes and Japanese-made solid capacitors to improve the card’s efficiency and stability.
Its core has been bumped up from 775MHz to 860MHz, whereas memory clock speeds has been upped from 4000MHz DDR to 4400MHz DDR. These significant increases in clock speeds, should net the card a decent gain in performance.
The MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC looks markedly different from a reference card thanks to its unique cooler.
The MSI card has the same twin DVI ports and single HDMI and DisplayPort.
Physically, the second-generation cooler is similar to the older design, except that it is visibly bigger.
Test Setup
The cards will be tested using our usual X58 system which has the following specifications:
- Intel Core i7-975 (3.33GHz)
- Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard
- 3 x 1GB DDR3-1333 G.Skill memory in triple channel mode
- Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive
- Windows 7 Ultimate
Clock speeds are a good indication of a card’s performance and based on pure clock speeds alone, we are expecting the MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC to be the faster card. Raw graphics performance aside, we are also interested to find out how effective their custom coolers are and also how much overclocking potential they have. To keep things interesting, we have also presented results of the Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Edition, which was the winner of Best Mainstream AMD Graphics Card in our Tech Awards 2011.
If you have already forgotten, here's a summary of the cards' clock speeds.
Cards | Core Clock Speed | Memory Clock Speed |
HIS6850 IceQXTurbo | 820MHz | 4400MHz DDR |
MSIR6850 Cyclone IIPower Edition OC | 860MHz | 4400MHz DDR |
Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Edition | 820MHz | 4400MHz DDR |
Reference / Gigabyte Radeon HD 6850 1GB | 775MHz | 4000MHz DDR |
The list of cards tested and driver versions used:
- HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo (Catalyst 11.2)
- MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC (Catalyst 11.2)
- Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Edition (Catalyst 10.10)
- AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 11.2)
- AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 10.10)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB GDDR5 (ForceWare 266.58)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti (ForceWare 266.71)
The list of benchmarks used:
- Futuremark 3DMark Vantage
- Futuremark 3DMark 11
- Crysis Warhead
- Far Cry 2
- Warhammer: Dawn of War 2
- Battlefield Bad Company 2
- “Heaven" from Unigine v2.1
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
3DMark 11
3DMark Vantage
Crysis Warhead
Far Cry 2
Dawn of War 2
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Unigine "Heaven" 2.1 Results
 |  |
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat Results
 |  |
 |  |
Temperature
Power Consumption
Overclocking
A Close Call...
As we had expected, the MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC with its higher clock speeds recorded higher frame rates than the HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo. Even though the difference was slight, the fact is that the MSI card is able to distinguish itself from its competitors as one of the fastest Radeon HD 6850 cards in the market today.
When it came to overclocking, the HIS 6850 IceQ X Turbo managed to edge out the MSI card by a smidge. It managed a maximum overclocking state of 1020MHz at the core and 4800MHz DDR at the memory, achieving 7834 3DMarks, 171 3DMarks or just 2% more than the MSI card, which achieved 7663 3DMarks with 1000MHz at the core and 4800MHz DDR at the memory. Again, the difference between the two cards are not much.
The most notable distinction between the two cards is probably the effectiveness of their custom coolers. Under load, the MSI card was 5 degrees Celsius cooler than the HIS card. Even so, the two cards recorded two of the coolest temperatures we’ve ever had for a Radeon HD 6850, so even the difference in operating temperature isn't that much cause of a concern. Consider this, even the warmer HIS card was still a considerable 9 degrees Celsius cooler than the Sapphire card which won in our based on the available Radeon HD 6850 cards at the point of assessment then.
Objectively speaking, the cards are very evenly matched. So between the two, it's really a matter of personal taste.
At US$189, the two cards are similarly priced, so all things considered, the MSI R6850 Cyclone II Power Edition OC is the card we would spend our own money on because it is both faster and cooler, and it is the best all-round Radeon HD 6850 card we've tested to date based on today's round-up and the . Hence, it gets our Winner Award for best Radeon HD 6850 tested.
However, that is not to say the HIS IceQ X Turbo is not a good card because it fights back with its slightly superior overclocking performance, and besides, it is not that much slower nor warmer than the MSI card to be a cause for concern. Therefore, the two cards get an overall rating of 8.5 because despite the superior 'paper performance' of the MSI card, we do not think that it is that much better than the HIS card to warrant a better overall rating.
In the end, between the two cards, we think it really boils down to a matter of personal preference. In the grand scheme of things, the two cards are both excellent takes on the Radeon HD 6850. The MSI card might be a tad better, but you won't be missing out on too much if you pick HIS too. Also, considering that the recent launch of the Radeon HD 6790 isn't too stunning in its value proposition, it seems like the Radeon HD 6850 is the way to go.
|  |
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.