HIS 7950 IceQ X² Boost Clock 3GB Review

[section_title title=”A Closer Look Continued”]

The cooler comes in two parts, the heatsink itself and the heat spreader which takes care of the VRM and VRAM heat sources. Some cards do not feature this and it makes them roast to death. I’m glad to see HIS have included this, and it goes to show that they do pay careful attention to detail. The heatsink comes off very easily as it is only held in place by four screws. You may think that this puts a lot of strain on the PCB but it doesn’t which is due to the heat spreader as it not only helps to cool the card, but it also helps to keep the PCB straight.

There are five heatpipes on this cooler which draw heat away from the core and into the dense array of fins. While it is worth noting that they are thinner than on some other cards that have say four of them, it could work out better with a bigger number as there is more surface area which it could get into contact with which should aid with cooling. The two centre ones are the fattest which seems to make sense as that is where most of the heat is going to come from – directly from the GPU core.

The PCB on this particular card is a reference design which means that water blocks should fit without any issues. The VRAM happens to be Elpida based ICs which are usually fairly good for their overclocking abilities as far as I am aware.  In the shot we can also see the power phases, which consist of six for the GPU core and one for the memory. They’re well cooled due to the design of the cooler which should mean high overclocks are going to be more stable due to the lower temperature ranges.

The VRAM happens to be Elpida based ICs which are usually fairly good for their overclocking abilities as far as I am aware. I aim to put this to the test in my overclocking to find out just how well they can do under the pressure.