HIS HD 7970 IceQ X² & HD 7950 IceQ X² Review Comment Thread
 

HIS's IceQ X² heatsink design is billed as one of the best around and it has now been paired up with AMD's HD 7970 GHz Edition and HD 7950 Boost. They've done this without adding a huge premium onto these cards which results in an excellent price / performance ratio, particularly when overclocking is involved.

Read more here: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...-x-review.html

Awesome review.. new drivers working a treat too?

It's a pity about the coil whine. I assume it wasn't isolated to just one card, but rather present on both.l

Good to see HIS represented. Seems to me that they were one of the first to offer something other than reference design cooling out of the box.

It was due to the design of the PWM so yeah, it was present on both. However, when actually playing a game rather than sitting back and using a decibel meter, it rarely (if ever) presented a problem.

Still, if it's something that's present on HIS cards, and all other things being equal, it could count as a reason not to buy HIS over X-brand.

The heatsink shrouds look fantastic though. Very nice. Are they plastic, or aluminum?

It certainly could depending on the way you look at things. Some people play games with the sound quite low. Alternately, I wouldn't recommend using these cards in an open case system for obvious reasons.

As for the shrouds, I can't remember. I'll check when I get home.

It's really strange. My card is quiet until I am in a menu or something. That's when I hear the coil(s) buzz. But playing a game seems fine.

Is vsync off? That's typical for coil whine as the menus often mean excessive frame rates.

Bingo.

Enabling V-Sync all but eliminates the buzz.