# HIS Radeon HD 5670 IceQ 512 MB



## W1zzard (Jan 14, 2010)

Today AMD announced the availability of their Radeon HD 5670 Series. HIS has chosen to design a custom PCB and uses an Arctic Cooling thermal solution to keep their card cool. Even though it uses an active fan, the card is easily one of the quietest cards on the market, underlining its potential media PC use.

*Show full review*


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## Yukikaze (Jan 14, 2010)

Excellent review (as always), and an excellent card !


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## Mussels (Jan 14, 2010)

seems like a good card, but it wont shine until 6-12 months time when the price drops


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## tomri (Jan 14, 2010)

*Noise*

Hi,

you write "The HIS HD 5670 IceQ is the quietest graphics card with an active fan that I ever held in my hands. ". 

How about the 4670 iceq then? In your own review it is rated better in terms of noise.

Thanks

Tom


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## a_ump (Jan 14, 2010)

wow isn't this heatsink like 4 years old lol. not bad, i hoping for a lil more power, as long its 475 or cheaper it should sell good n be worth it.


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## Yukikaze (Jan 14, 2010)

tomri said:


> Hi,
> 
> you write "The HIS HD 5670 IceQ is the quietest graphics card with an active fan that I ever held in my hands. ".
> 
> ...



I believe he stated in the review that it is the same cooler as on the IceQ HD4670. If so, then this HD5670 is indeed the quietest card he's ever seen, exactly tied with the IceQ HD4670.


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## Mussels (Jan 14, 2010)

HIS have been using these fans for a looooong time.

In my experience, they are dead silent - until the bearings die, and they get an annoying-as-hell rattle.


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## SoulTribunal (Jan 14, 2010)

Those Fans the HIS use are a join venture between HIS and Arctic Cooling. They are reliable as heck , a little more efficent than Reference cooling, and very quiet. So it is no suprise that he stated they were quiet. It is more than likely the same fan.

ST


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## W1zzard (Jan 14, 2010)

tomri said:


> Hi,
> 
> you write "The HIS HD 5670 IceQ is the quietest graphics card with an active fan that I ever held in my hands. ".
> 
> ...



let me clarify. the measurements back then were with a different calibration on the sound level meter. the card tested today is considerably quieter than the 4670 iceq. on the old calibration the fan noise would be somewhere below 20.0 dbA, definitely quieter than the msi hd 4850 in idle


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## jjFarking (Jan 14, 2010)

> Today their latest part of the series, the Radeon HD 5700 is unveiled.


Isn't the 5670 a lower series, especially considering it's basically half a 5700?


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## mdm-adph (Jan 14, 2010)

jjFarking said:


> Isn't the 5670 a lower series, especially considering it's basically half a 5700?



Aye, just came in here to say this.


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## Semi-Lobster (Jan 14, 2010)

What a quiet and well cooled card! Too bad about the price though, I would probably spend the extra $30 and get a 5750 given the choice though.


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## mdm-adph (Jan 14, 2010)

Aye -- I gotta admit, I had never seen the specs before, but I expected more out of this card.  The performance isn't _that_ much better than a 4670.

And wtf, no crossfire connectors?  Does crossfire over the PCI-E bus work pretty well?


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## DaC (Jan 14, 2010)

I'm really disappointed, big time.... I was expecting really much more in terms of power draw... it seems that they went cheaper also on power management and components...


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## jjFarking (Jan 14, 2010)

DaC said:


> I'm really disappointed, big time.... I was expecting really much more in terms of power draw... it seems that they went cheaper also on power management and components...



It's a budget-version. It's not meant to compete in the high-end class, which means that certain other attributes aren't required, which also help in keeping the price down. It does, however, give you a bit extra in some of the features that it retains, compared to its bigger brethren 
These are the two main areas in which it does rather well, compared to others in a similar class.


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## Soylent Joe (Jan 14, 2010)

I'd like to see $70 for the 512MB and $85 for the 1GB, then it'd be perfect to put into a poopy retail PC when you want a little graphics boost, or even better for a HTPC.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 14, 2010)

Seems like a nice budget card for a HTPC, but since I already have a 9600GT I'll stick with that for a while longer.



W1zzard said:


> let me clarify. the measurements back then were with a different calibration on the sound level meter. the card tested today is considerably quieter than the 4670 iceq. on the old calibration the fan noise would be somewhere below 20.0 dbA, definitely quieter than the msi hd 4850 in idle



Not to mention that the you rated the HD4670 at 29dbA under load, and this only rated in at 25dbA.

Hey, *W1zzard*, just wondering if you have any thoughts about adding in 1920x1080 tests?  It seems to be a very popular resolution these days, with a lot of people using HDTVs as monitors, and a lot of bigger format LCDs using it instead of 1920x1200.


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## W1zzard (Jan 14, 2010)

1920x1080 is equal to 1920x1200


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## inferKNOX (Jan 14, 2010)

I was recommending the 9600GT at that power/price-point, but that ends today now that this guys is here. Move over 9600, you just got served!
If I can I'm gonna go for a HIS IceQ series card on my next purchase! lol *drools*


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## newtekie1 (Jan 14, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> 1920x1080 is equal to 1920x1200



Their close, but wouldn't 1920x1080 give better framerates considering there is less to render?  

Probably close enough to not warrant the time for another round of benchmarking though.


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## jjFarking (Jan 14, 2010)

Maybe not. At 230,400 pixels more in a seriously heavy game it might make a few FPS difference though..


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## newtekie1 (Jan 14, 2010)

jjFarking said:


> Maybe not. At 230,400 pixels more in a seriously heavy game it might make a few FPS difference though..



Now that I go back through and pay a little closer attention to the individual game benchmarks, the jump from 1680x1050 to 1920x1200 is usually less than 10FPS.  So I'm not sure 1920x1080 would be a big enough gap from 1920x1200 to warrant its own testing.  Forget I mentioned it.


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## HalfAHertz (Jan 14, 2010)

mdm-adph said:


> Aye -- I gotta admit, I had never seen the specs before, but I expected more out of this card.  The performance isn't _that_ much better than a 4670.
> 
> And wtf, no crossfire connectors?  Does crossfire over the PCI-E bus work pretty well?



They tested CFX at G3D and it scaled between 65 and 90%


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## IceQ¿5? (Jan 14, 2010)

Thank you for the review
Could you review the* HIS 5750 Ice Q+*????????
please


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## Fourstaff (Jan 14, 2010)

Excellent review as always, but I think we need to wait a bit for the price to drop before it becomes the king of HTPC.


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## WarEagleAU (Jan 14, 2010)

Awesome review and an awesome card. I like how it does crossfire through the pci express connectors. Is this something new or has it been out for a minute now?


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## mechtech (Jan 14, 2010)

100 bucks isnt too bad, considering a 4670 is about 105 bucks here in canada due to the short supply.

It is bad considering when I can find a 4850 in sotck, they are about 130 $cnd


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## saltyf (Jan 14, 2010)

*1GB or 512MB tested*

First page of the review says "Memory Size: 1024 MB" everywhere else it is refered to as a 512MB card. Seems like a simple typo, but the reason I'm asking is the idle power consumption figure seems wrong for a 512MB card and is around what I'd expect from a 1GB version.

Other 4 reviews I've read were testing 512MB version and idle power consumption was on par or slightly lower than of HD 4670, and 1-5W higher than of 512MB GDDR5 GT240 cards.
So I'm guessing there must be a mistake somewhere.

I'm looking for a card to put into an HTPC that runs 24/7 and has a smallish case with inadequate ventilation. I had a HIS IceQ HD 4670 in it before, but was not satisfied with idle power consumption and temperature, hence was waiting for HD 5670 to come out. Looks like GT240 might be a better card for what I need, especially with more video codecs supporting CUDA nowadays.


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## W1zzard (Jan 14, 2010)

it is a typo .. the correct memory size is 512 MB. did other reviewers test a card from his ? did they measure gpu power only ?


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## saltyf (Jan 14, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> it is a typo .. the correct memory size is 512 MB. did other reviewers test a card from his ? did they measure gpu power only ?



Others had "reference" cards from ATI. Tom's Hardware's approach is probably the closest, gpu power only. Others had total system power, but a lot of cards to compare to. One review tested a crossfire setup 1 vs. 2 cards total power.


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## suraswami (Jan 14, 2010)

Very good review.

Now I am more confused to get the NV240 card or wait for this to come down in price.


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## W1zzard (Jan 14, 2010)

could be that his changed something in their reference design then


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## saltyf (Jan 14, 2010)

W1zzard said:


> could be that his changed something in their reference design then



And if that is true, that would be the most disappointing thing of all.


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## MadMan007 (Jan 14, 2010)

W1zzard - is the line that says '9800GT results are higher than they should be' on the results summary page a copy&paste from previous articles, and if so does it still belong? Looking back through the individual tests this card does occasionally best the 9800GT but more often is a little bit behind so I wonder if that sentence is still accurate.


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## Polarman (Jan 14, 2010)

Not that shabby for a low end card. Pretty good card for those casual gamers.


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Jan 14, 2010)

Great review, but I would like to have seen a review of a card from a better manufacturer.


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## W1zzard (Jan 14, 2010)

MadMan007 said:


> W1zzard - is the line that says '9800GT results are higher than they should be' on the results summary page a copy&paste from previous articles, and if so does it still belong? Looking back through the individual tests this card does occasionally best the 9800GT but more often is a little bit behind so I wonder if that sentence is still accurate.



and fixed that too


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## a_ump (Jan 14, 2010)

there really anything wrong with MSI? i mean i've bought 2 8800GT's from XFX and they both failed on me but i don't shun them. I find nothing wrong with MSI personally.


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## angelkiller (Jan 15, 2010)

WarEagleAU said:


> Awesome review and an awesome card. I like how it does crossfire through the pci express connectors. Is this something new or has it been out for a minute now?


CF through the PCI-E bus has been around for several generations. Most low end cards had this, which is why you didn't know. 

I'm not very impressed. I like that it can bitstream audio and power is where it should be. But I really was expecting more performance. Especially for $100. I would want this thing to outperform a 4850 or at the least be equal to it. This card needs to sell for $75 or get a 20% performance boost imo. For $130, you can pick up a 5750, which costs 30% more but gives 50% more performance....


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## Jstn7477 (Jan 15, 2010)

A performance discrepancy that I noticed in one of the charts on the BattleForge test:


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## Mussels (Jan 15, 2010)

Jstn7477 said:


> A performance discrepancy that I noticed in one of the charts on the BattleForge test:
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/100115/battleforge_2560_1600.gif



looks like 9600 and 9800 got swapped. good catch.


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## W1zzard (Jan 15, 2010)

fixed the 9800 gt in battleforge 2560


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## saltyf (Jan 15, 2010)

angelkiller said:


> I'm not very impressed. I like that it can bitstream audio and power is where it should be. But I really was expecting more performance. Especially for $100. I would want this thing to outperform a 4850 or at the least be equal to it. This card needs to sell for $75 or get a 20% performance boost imo. For $130, you can pick up a 5750, which costs 30% more but gives 50% more performance....



Agree. A "green" version of 5750 might be even more interesting.


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## swaaye (Jan 16, 2010)

The card sure looks a lot like my HIS 4670. Even the MOSFETs are in similar places.

Performance disappoints though considering it has 2x the memory bandwidth, more shaders, higher clocks and a design that ought to be superior overall.


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## DaC (Jan 16, 2010)

swaaye said:


> The card sure looks a lot like my HIS 4670. Even the MOSFETs are in similar places.
> 
> Performance disappoints though considering it has 2x the memory bandwidth, more shaders, higher clocks and a design that ought to be superior overall.



+1 as I already said before.

I think in the end beside the 5850 / 5750 the big one on this series will be 5570....


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## HalfAHertz (Jan 16, 2010)

I think the reason here is that because they have tothing to compete against. This card was positioned against the Gt240(Gt9600) and it beats it soundly. The  idea was never to even be in the gt9800/hd4830's price range. I think what we need here is a bit more innovation from both sides...

I really hope the 5570 will be with 200 shaders and not some anemic igp half-breed with just 80 shaders like the prev generation.


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## andy o (Feb 17, 2010)

W1zzard, hope you're still around. I just wanted to say that the high power draw is because this HIS card idles at 600 MHz/900 MHz memory and not at 157/300 like it should. (Sorry to link to a competitor's reviews, but in any case they didn't notice that either.) The graphics show mem clocks at half what they are, but CCC shows them correctly.

A couple of guys at avsforum noted this here and here first. There's also this Newegg review in which the manufacturer seems to imply that it's by design.


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## Yukikaze (Feb 17, 2010)

HalfAHertz said:


> I think the reason here is that because they have tothing to compete against. This card was positioned against the Gt240(Gt9600) and it beats it soundly. The  idea was never to even be in the gt9800/hd4830's price range. I think what we need here is a bit more innovation from both sides...
> 
> I really hope the 5570 will be with 200 shaders and not some anemic igp half-breed with just 80 shaders like the prev generation.



The HD5570 has 400 shaders. Just like the HD5670. It just uses GDDR3 for its memory.


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