Hightech Information System R9 270 iPower IceQ X² Turbo Boost Clock. Try saying that out loud three times quickly. Makes for quite a tongue twister. And if you’re wondering what it means, that’s just the name of HIS’s overclocked variant of the AMD Radeon R9 270 with a custom cooler.
This is a mid-range card that’s nearly pushing the boundary towards the high-end and is based on the rebranded Pitcairn (Curacao) architecture of previous generation AMD cards. The Hong Kong based HIS has been an AMD vendor for quite a while and its IceQ cooling technology has been known to be quite effective.
Specification of the HIS R9 270 iPower IceQ X² Turbo Boost Clock
The R9 270 sports the older Pitcairn architecture from AMD’s 78xx series which has been rebadged as Curacao and features some slight improvements. The stock R9 270 is clocked at 900 MHz core clock with 925 MHz Boost Clock with the memory clocked at 1400 MHz. Since this is an overclocked version of the card the core is running at 950 MHz with boost at 975 MHz. Curiously, GPU-Z reports the card to have a default clock of 925 MHz which is confirmed by Catalyst as well. We used this setting in our benchmark runs in line with our policy of not tampering with clocks out of the box.
The IceQ cooler design consists of a large copper pad with Aluminium fins cooled by twin 80mm fans. HIS has put stickers on the fans which makes them look rather cheap and ugly, and it detracts from the honeycomb pattern on the sheath surrounding the fans. The card sports a DVI-D connector, an HDMI connector and 2 mini Displayport connectors at the back. The box comes with a DVI to VGA adapter, a Crossfire Bridge and the usual manual, driver DVD and Product Sticker. You can check out our unboxing video here.
The launch price for the HIS R9 270 iPower IceQ X² Turbo Boost Clock is ₹16,000 + taxes and it’s being imported in India by Savera Marketing Agency Ltd.
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Testing Methodology
We tested the HIS R9 270 iPower IceQ X² Turbo Boost Clock not only for the average Frames per Second(FPS) but also for the 99th Percentile Frame time which tells us about the performance of the GPU within the second. Within the second testing is useful to understand micro-stutter which can render a game unplayable despite FPS being high. Fraps 3.5.99 allowed us to calculate both.
Since the card is a Mid-range GPU, we decided to use High or Very High settings in our benchmark games. We only pushed to Ultra where the game gave playable FPS. We tried to disable CPU dependent settings or minimise their impact where possible. VSync and frame buffering were disabled for testing. All tests were run at 1920×1080 on a single monitor configuration.
Test System:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE C3 @ 3.8GHz
Motherboard: ASRock 970 Extreme 3
RAM: 2x4GB G.Skill Sniper CL9 1600MHz, 2x2GB G.Skill Ripjaws CL9 1600MHz
PSU: Seasonic S12II Bronze 620W, Corsair TX650 650W
HDD: 2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB, 1xWesten Digital Red 3TB
OS: Windows 8.1 x64
NVIDIA Driver: 334.89
AMD Driver: Catalyst 14.6 (Beta)
While this system may not look like a purpose built test rig, we decided to use a normal usage PC so as to better reflect real world scores of the card. The games were also tested with a few applications like Antivirus, Browser, VOIP tool and others running in the background to get a realistic usage scenario. All HDDs were thoroughly defragmented prior to usage. Due to lack of equipment we were unable to conduct acoustic and power testing.
3DMark 11 Firestrike
3Dmark is an artificial Benchmarking tool whose Firestrike Test is very thorough on DirectX 11cards powering High-end PCs. The full test run for Firestrike includes 2 GPU only tests, a CPU dependent Physics Test and a Combined Graphics and Physics Test. The Tool is also useful for stress testing a GPU when run on loop.
Given that we are looking for the Performance of the Card itself, one should look at the Graphics score and the FPS for Graphics tests 1 and 2. Had the test utilised PhysX, the scores for the Physics and combined tests would have been much higher. Note that the GPU temps never exceeded 68°C even under full load.
Batman Arkham Origins
Batman Arkham Origins is a game that’s been supported by NVIDIA and utilises their PhysX technology to handle physics. We used DX11 Normal settings for most options with FXAA high for antialiasing. PhysX was disabled since it is an AMD card and therefore this game is not a valid candidate for performance comparison. We ran the inbuilt benchmark tool with a FRAPS timed run of 120 seconds.
Since this game is part of our benchmarks merely for showing performance with PhysX, one can ignore the fact that the card shows more than double the performance of its competitors since AMD cards have no PhysX support and software PhysX is not worth bothering with unless you have a beefy CPU.
The spikes in the frametime graph are from the game transitioning between the benchmark scenes and can be ignored. The run was quite fluid but it showed how much difference the lack of PhysX can make visually.
Battlefield 4
Battlefield 4 uses the Frostbite 3 engine to push the visual processing boundaries of current hardware. Since Mantle is only for AMD cards, we ran the DX11 version with the High setting. The game offers no benchmark tool, so we used areas from the first single player campaign mission for the FRAPS run.
The card has performs quite well in the average FPS department but curiously it suffers from the highest 99th percentile frame time. This is a DirectX 11 run to keep things fair, since a mantle run shows much different figures as we’ll see later.
There is a single prominent spike but the rest of the graph is pretty smooth. The FPS fluctuates in some parts but it remains quite concentrated in the 50-60 range. This can be seen as smooth visuals in the game.
Bioshock infinite
The Unreal Engine 3 powered Bioshock Infinite really pushed the boundaries of visual effects achievable with the ageing engine. It comes with a built in benchmark mode which runs for a lower time period than the standard 120s we used in other tests. We used Ultra Settings with DDOF off for our runs.
This game is AMD optimised, but that doesn’t stop the card from dipping lower in the minimum FPS department. Average FPS is higher as expected, but the 99th percentile frametime is really close.
The frame time graph has only one noticeable spike with smaller spikes at intervals. However the spike occurs when the benchmark transitions between scenes and can be ignored. The FPS graph shows some sharp dips as well.
Company of Heroes 2
Relic’s Company of Heroes 2 is a tough nut to crack for quite a few GPUs, though it’s dependent on CPUs to a great degree as well. We used Medium Settings with Physics turned off and Low AA for the short 45s benchmark run the game offers.
This game was the only anomaly in our tests losing out to the NVIDIA card in the average FPS and minimum FPS criteria, but surprisingly having the lowest 99th percentile frame time.
The graph looks rather rough with some large spikes but the gameplay was somewhat fluid in our run.
Crysis 3
CryEngine 3 was built to push the PC Hardware to its limits with Crysis 3 and deliver Maximum Eye Candy. We were able to run the game at SMAA x1 and Medium settings. The test run consisted of a section of the first mission for 120s as the game surprisingly offers no benchmark tool.
The card outperforms its NVIDIA rivals significantly in this game, which is an AMD optimised title, so that should be no surprise. One could push the graphics even higher but for keeping things even we used the same settings for this run.
Barring the large spike at the start where the game transitions from scripted scene to gameplay, there aren’t many noticeable spike in the frame time graph. The FPS is also quite consistent in the early part of the test but starts swinging wildly in the latter part which might have been caused by us transitioning between lightly populated and heavily populated areas on screen.
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3 is a visually impressive game that lacks a benchmark mode. We used High Settings with 2xMSAA and SSAO and the test run consisted of a 120s sample from the game’s single player campaign where we spent some time goofing off in the open world.
Another AMD optimised game which is anomalous in the greater minimum FPS dip and the higher 99th percentile frame time despite the higher average FPS.
The frame time graph is quite rough with some significant spikes but there wasn’t any noticeable stuttering in our test run. While the FPS lies steady for the most part it dips towards the end when we ran around in some foliage.
GRID 2
GRID 2 from Codemasters is one of the few games in our test suite that has no allegiance to either NVIDIA or AMD, which makes it a neutral candidate to better judge the GPU’s performance. We used Ultra Settings with 4x MSAA to run the benchmark tool offered by the game.
The card beats the others quite soundly in this vendor neutral game showing its true superiority over the other cards being compared.
The FPS graph shows peaks and valleys at uniform intervals, which is quite curious. The frame time graph is tight except for the two large spikes. The run was quite smooth without any noticeable microstuttering.
Sleeping Dogs
While the game is ageing, Sleeping Dogs is still a stunner when it comes to running benchmarks. We pushed the settings to Extreme with high AA and ran the game’s built in benchmark run.
Being an AMD optimised game, the card’s huge lead should come as no surprise. It soundly beats the other cards in all departments.
The spikes in the frame time graph occur when the game transitions between benchmark scenes and can be ignored. The FPS graph also shows dips in these transitions. The game seems to have lower FPS in indoor areas.
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider introduced us to a new Lara with fabled TressFx hair that behaves a lot more realistically than the prerendered mop we were used to. However the card does not seem to cope well with this technology and we had to drop it in our test run. We used Ultra settings with TressFX off. The Test run was shorter since the benchmark tool offered by the game runs for less than out 120s target time.
While we were tempted to turn on TressFx in this AMD optimised game, for the sake of fairness we left it off. The huge performance difference surprised us.
The graph is slightly flatter than the usual graph we are used to seeing for this game. However the consistent spiking is present in this run as well. The run did have visual fidelity to it.
Total War: Rome II
Total War: Rome II is another CPU heavy game that offers significant visual goodness. It offers a benchmark tool that focuses more on GPU power though and that is what we used for our test run of 120s. We set the game to Very High and Unit Size to Small so as to reduce the impact of the CPU. Antialiasing was off and so was Unlimited Video Memory so the game could scale down visual settings if it reached a bottleneck.
Another game with a huge performance difference, and this one’s always been slightly harder on the NVIDIA cards than the AMD cards in our experience. Curiously the 99th percentile frametime isn’t the lowest as one would expect.
The graph is very rough with lots of peaks and valleys, but their variance range isn’t so significant as to be noticeable ingame as microstutter. The FPS graph has some sharp swings as well but seems concentrated in the 50-60 range for the most part.
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Mantle Performance
We tested the card for performance with AMD’s Mantle API with Battlefield 4, Star swarm Benchmark and Thief. Mantle improves game performance significantly by being a lower level API. This allows one to extract more performance out of their GPU and increases the value for money of the card. The problem with benchmarking Mantle is that one must be dependent on inbuilt benchmarks which may not necessarily be impartial since no third party benchmarking tools like FRAPS support it yet.
Battlefield 4 has a built in function to record frametime under Mantle which we then used to calculate average FPS. We compared them with our DirectX 11 run with the same High Settings.
While Mantle does have a smoother graph on average, there are a lot of intermittent spikes which suggest that Mantle seems to cause greater microstuttering and frame pacing issues than DirectX.
Star Swarm is a benchmark design to showcase Mantle’s parallel processing capabilities. It is based on a Space RTS which boasts concurrent onscreen unit counts of 5000-6000! If these were to use the CPU as with the DirectX run, they result in huge slowdowns in rendering. The Mantle version harnesses parallel processing on the GPU to give a much more consistent fps. Star Swarm outputs both frametime and average fps. We used the High preset for our 120s run.
As with the Battlefield 4 run, there is a lot of intermittent spiking in the frametime graph which confirms our suspicions about mantle’s frame pacing issues. The spiking is not severe enough to be noticeable in-game except in a few cases though. On the other hand the DirectX frametime seems to shoot up with unit count increase on screen.
Thief is unreliable as a benchmark since different runs on the same configuration and set up fail to show consistency in the results. That being said, it has its own built in benchmark tool that shows average, minimum and maximum fps.
Mantle doesn’t seem to make quite as much difference in this game as it did in the other two, but then again, the Thief benchmark is not very consistent in its own results.
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Acoustics
While we were unable to conduct detailed acoustics testing on the card due to lack of equipment, we were able to get a rough idea of how quiet the card is even at full load. The 80mm fans are quite noisy when running at 100% but the effectiveness of the underlying cooling solution rarely requires them to do that. At full load the card usually ran at 50-60% fan speed which is barely audible over the other pc fans. The case was kept at 1m distance from the observer and the side panel was open.
Temperatures
The card runs quite cool with temperatures failing to breach even 80°C under stress. The idle temperatures lie around 38°C with a 30°C ambient temperature.
Power
The card has a TDP of 175W and is fed by a 6 pin connector in addition to the PCI-E slot. We didn’t measure detailed power consumption due to lack of equipment.
Overclocking
While this is a factory overclocked card with a claimed core speed of 950 MHz, we found GPU-Z and Catalyst to both report it as 925 MHz. While HIS does have its own iTurbo overclocking utility, it was too barebones for our use and we decided to use the AMD Overdrive feature in Catalyst. This lets us push the card to 120% power target, 1050 MHz core clock and 1500 MHz memory clock. Our Overclocking attempts however ended in failure with the card showing reduced performance at anything but the stock clocks. It might be a quirk of the sample we received however, since there are reports of performance gains from overclocking of up to 12%.
Feature Set
HIS bundles its own overclocking utility called iPower which is rather barebones. AMD also touts the card as being capable of using Mantle in supported games. However, this card does not support AMD’s TrueAudio technology. AMD’s Gaming Evolved App is also available with the driver for this card and this app optimises games automatically. This card is part of AMD’s Never Settle Forever programme with the Silver Reward level offering 2 free games.
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Conclusion
HIS has certainly built a wonderful card with a very sweet price for the performance it offers. However, the discrepancy with the clock speeds soured our experience. We were also not impressed by the overall finish of the card, but that’s just us nit-picking. The card may not have as much performance per watt efficiency as NVIDIA’s new Maxwell architecture, but one must remember that the refreshed Pitcairn (Curacao) architecture is older than Maxwell and it’s quite efficient when compared with Kepler.
The card’s pricing and performance slots it into a niche where it’s not as powerful as lower High end cards like the GTX 760 and the R9 280, but it’s more powerful than the mid-range cards like the GTX 750 Ti and the R7 260X. Thus its real competition comes from older NVIDIA cards like the GTX 660 Ti or the GTX 670.
The promise of Mantle and the temptation of free games work well in this card’s favour. It may not jazz up the inside of your rig, but it sure packs a punch when it comes to jazzing up your games. For this we award it the iLL Gaming Bronze Award.
We are extremely grateful to HIS for providing us with a review sample.
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What’s iLL
+Great Value for Money
+Good for Mid-Range 1080p gaming
+Notable cooler design which keeps temperatures in check
What’s not
-Discrepancy in advertised and actual clock speeds
-The finish of the cooler looks a little cheap because of the fan stickers
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