Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

HIS has a pretty nice deal going on here with the 290X Hybrid IceQ. Though the temperatures on the GPU could have been a notch better we must admit that we need to factor in that this card is overclocked towards 1100 MHz on the GPU, and 6 Gbps on the memory. And that shows as performance wise this is among the fastest graphics cards your money can get you. The Hawaii XT based GPU is a tough GPU to deal with. It is grand in performance, but complicated to cool down. Thus far only a few names in the industry have been able to tame the beast. The sheer looks are interesting but not everybody will like the design. The cooling is sufficient (not excellent though) and the noise levels remain absolutely  acceptable. All things combined, HIS have created a serious Radeon R9-290X alright. In the end the performance the HIS Hybrid IceQ is able to deliver is exceptionally good.

Cooling & Noise Levels

So if we think back and picture the reference cooled 290X products, then we can only conclude that they show pretty average to poor temperatures at 95 Degrees C under load. HIS was able to get the temps at roughly 80 Degrees C under long term load. We actually measured 82 Degrees C as maximum at one point. This is a bit higher then the competition to be honest, then again .. the card hardly makes noise/sounds and the is a huge benefactor. Please do factor in a grand factory overclock on this product as well. It runs at least 10% faster opposed to the reference product while being better cooled and more silent. Though sufficient, I would have liked to see a bigger size radiator and two fans at default for the LCS unit.

Aesthetics

The looks, this might be the biggest challenge. I get that Asia based countries like this look as they tend to like a little more bling / colors etc, the rest of the world however might feel that the design of the cooler makes it look like a toy. Personally it's an OK design, but from an aesthetically point of view, sure it could have been better looking. The PCB is customized and I can only spot quality components ensuring a longer lifespan of this product, lovely. What we keep telling HIS though is to step away from the baby blue PCB. Seriously HIS, people are ignoring your product just based on that color. HIS needs to revert the all black PCBs, fast. Also present is a full cover back-plate. Though a little small in size and busy to look at we do like the inclusion. Good to see is that HIS uses a back-plate with meshes and/or gaps at the backside plate GPU location so heat will not get trapped.

Power Consumption

Power consumption is spicy, the card is rated by us having a 275 to 300 Watt TDP. That is high but could have been worse, it is the nature of high-end gaming. Plus you need to factor in the factory overclock (higher GPU voltage) and the liquid cooling kit likely uses another 10 Watts as well. I think enthusiast consumers at this performance level will not mind that much about the power draw and be forgiving. That TDP also will make running multi-GPU solutions a bit more complicated. With two card we think an 800~900 Watt PSU would be sufficient. So yeah, it's not great to have a GPU consuming that much power, but it could have been a lot worse.

Game Performance

Any AMD R9 290X in most scenarios (depending on the game) will be performing roughly at Titan or GeForce GTX 780 Ti like performance, that it pretty kick ass for just one GPU with a nicer price-tag. Performance wise really there's not one game that won't run seriously good at either of the cards, and that is at the very best image quality settings. And you do it all with a nice 30" monitor of course, at 2560x1440/1600. I mean BioShock infinite at Ultra quality levels is still oozing out 60+ FPS there. Or what about Hitman Absolution with 67+ FPS at 2560x1600 High quality and 2xMSAA? It's really nice performance. And especially for those with Ultra High Definition gaming in mind, the 290/290X will make sense setup in Crossfire. That would be a sweet spot and you'd have 4 GB of graphics memory per GPU.

Overclocking

Overclocking then. The card already is factory overclocked for you by a big margin, the reference GPU core clock is 1000 MHz on the reference cards, HIS runs this card at an impressive 1100 MHz for you. There is room for a little more tweaking but the product remains hard to be overclocked. You'll achieve roughly 1150 MHz with 1.3 Volts, after which the card will get unstable or start to downclock. Memory wise you'll likely end in the 7000 MHz range (effective data-rate) which remains impressive to see.  As always overclock result can vary per production batch and your PC infrastructure and cooling. 

Concluding

The Hybrid IceQ edition of this 290X is superb in performance and low noise levels. We like the factory overclock, as that 1100 MHz on the GPU with 6 Gbps on the memory simply is a first (as far as I have seen) in terms of a R9 290X being clocked this high. And that shows in game performance alright. Cooling wise we measure give or take 80 Degrees C which was a little higher then I had hoped for. But coming from the reference card with its 95 Degrees C it surely is a massive improvement. And combined with that factory tweak its pretty okay. A thicker or bigger radiator with two fans probably would have kicked ass. 

Fluid like game-play is what you get back in return whilst you enable the most intensive image quality settings. And isn't that what it is all about with PC gaming? We can most certainly recommend the HIS R9 290X Hybrid IceQ edition if you have the money to spare, it is a terrific product with a high factory overclock and nice low noise levels. We are still awaiting a final MSRP pricing of this product so that makes this conclusion a bit of a tough nut to crack, but we think this product will sell for just under 500 EURO. Whether or not the price is fair in your eyes will obviously be your choice. The one gripe of this product are its looks. It is not a sexy looking cooler and again that blue PCB. But for those that want a little more boom-boom-pow inside the non-windowed / panel PC, this could be a golden deal. You'll receive a free mouse-mat and probably some free games from AMDs reloaded program as well. So you may argue the looks, but this card is the fastest 290X on the block with good cooling temperatures on the GPU and thanks to its Hybrid design also good temps on the VRM area and PCB. Combined that with low noise levels and some serious gaming performance under 500 EURO and realize that this is a pretty terrific deal. As such the HIS Radeon R9 290X Hybrid IceQ comes recommended by Guru3D.com 

To those interested, Newegg is selling the product for 679 ISD including a free copy of Sniper Elite, Thief, Murdered Soul Suspect games, right here.

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