HIS 5770 IceQ 5 Turbo Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and close up3. IceQ 5 Cooling Technology4. Testing Methodology5. 3DMark Vantage6. Heaven Benchmark 2.17. AVP DirectX 118. Battlefield Bad Company 2 DX 119. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 210. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat DX 1111. Left 4 Dead 212. Power Consumption13. Acoustic Performance14. Thermal Dynamics15. Manual Overclocking16. Closing Thoughts17. View All Pages

Today at KitGuru we are going to be looking at the HIS IceQ 5 Turbo 5770 I GB graphics card.  In the efforts to attract the educated enthusiast audience HIS have enhanced the reference solution and used their IceQ 5 cooling technology on this particular unit.

The 5770 has established a good hold in the budget gaming market, offering the latest DirectX 11 features, 1GB of GDDR5 and a 128bit memory controller. We are going to match this card up with suitable partnering equipment today to show just what level of gaming experience we can have with a budget system.

HIS has increased the Core clock speeds on their IceQ 5 Turbo from 850 MHz to 875 MHz and increased the memory clock from 1200 MHz to 1250 MHz which is an impressive ‘out of the box' configuration,  but since KitGuru readers tend to be obsessed with speed we hope there is significant headroom when we get around to manual overclocking later.

As a site we usually focus on UK prices and deals but this time we thought it was about time that Kitguru had some coverage with reviewer views from across the ocean in Canada.

Cooler	IceQ 5
GPU	5770
Core Clock	875 MHz
Memory Clock	5Gps /// MHz
Memory Interface	128 bit
Interface	PCI Express x16 (PCI Express 2.1)
Shaders	800 Unified
Pixel fill rate	13.6 Gigapixels/sec
Idle reference board power	18 watts
Maximum reference board power	108 watts

The HIS 5770 IceQ 5 Turbo comes packaged in a thin glossy cardboard outer shell. We quickly notice the sword covered partially in ice which to us related directly to the IceQ 5 cooling technology used by HIS on this release.

Inside the package we have the HIS driver cd and installation guide along with a free coupon for Dirt 2 which is a very impressive title to showcase DirectX 11 features. Also included is a CrossFire connection bridge, a Molex to 6 pin PCI-e adapter and a DVI to VGA adapter.

This card measures around 9 ½ inches in length. This size should make it an easy choice for system builders wanting to use a smaller chassis for their system.

The images below shows the different type of connections available. There is a Display Port and HDMI connection as well a 2 DVI-D connections, HIS has also provided a DVI-VGA adapter for those that may still require one. The second image displays the connection that the HIS 5770 uses for CrossFire configurations.

HIS is using 3 copper 6mm heatpipes to draw heat away from the GPU as quickly as possible and since the plastic shroud has the heatsink  enclosed it forces air to escape out the rear vents and out of our case.

If we flip the card upside down and zoom in close to the fan we can see the single 6 pin power input that provides all the required juice to our card. The HIS 5770 only draws 18 watts when sitting idle and has a maximum power draw of 112 watts under full load.

The memory used on the HIS 5770 is supplied from Samsung (K4G10325FE-HC-04) and is rated for 1250 MHz which in turn translates to a speed of 5 GHz. With the memory clocked to it's theoretical limit out of the box we are left to wonder if we will find any further overclocking head room later on.

IceQ 5 Cooling Technology

HIS are keen to promote their IceQ technology as the most efficient cooling technology among  current mainstream graphic cards' series. The HIS IceQ cooler uses the air inside the chassis to cool down the graphics card components and then it expels hot air out of the case, dramatically decreasing the GPU temperature together with your PC components. The HIS IceQ is also UV sensitive, enhancing the gamers' UV light case.

As many people will notice already, many of these home brewed cooler designs don't exhaust hot air out the rear of the case so this is a welcome design decision from HIS.

Heat transfers rapidly out of GPU and reduces temperature faster.

Cool down the droom to overclock and run chip faster; provides more headroom to overclock and run faster.

Operates with lower noise level than original cooler.

Efficient transfer of heat outside of computer case ensures cooling in CrossFire setup

HIS IceQ is also UV sensitive, enhancing the gamers' UV light case

• Efficient transfer of heat outside of computer case
  Cool air is drawn from both sides of the fan and hot air is forced out of the computer case. This ensures effective cooling when there is another card in front blocking the fan inlet, such as in CrossFire setup
• Dual-slot cooling design
  Ensure you can conveniently connect the CrossFire cable to run a CrossFire setup.
• Silent and durable fan
  Significantly reduce noise level and extend service life
• Isolated heatsinks
  memory and GPU heatsinks are completely separated, preventing any heat transfer from GPU to memory. Memory heatsink is actively cooled by air stream from main cooler.

KitGuru believes that people looking to purchase the 5770 as a graphics card will not be using them with 30″ monitors. We are also confident that owners of 30″ monitors would more often then not go with a high end card like the GTX 480 or the HD 5870/5970 cards. That is why the system we are using today would classify as main stream making a similar system both a logical and affordable choice for  our readers.

None of the parts are top of the line and obviously would not touch a system with an overclocked 4 GHz 6 core processor and a couple HD5870's.  It is however more then capable of gaming comfortably at resolutions of 1680×1050 or 1920×1080 on a LCD display between 20″ to 24″  as we will demonstrate here today.

Test System

HIS 5770 IceQ 5 Turbo 1 GB PCI Express 2.1

AMD Athlon II 255 3.1 GHz AM3 CPU
Samsung 245BW 24″ LCD
4GB G-Skill DDR III 1600 MHz
WD Black 640 GB Sata II 32MB cache
Corsair HX850 watt modular PSU
LG 16x DVDRW

Software

Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Edition
Everest Ultimate
Catalyst 10.7
FRAPS Professional
3DMark Vantage
Ungine Heaven 2.1 (DX 11)
Battlefield Bad Company 2
Alien V Predator
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Left 4 Dead 2

All the latest bios updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru test all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.

Our minimum frame rate game graphs have three main zones. These are sampled over a specific 30 interval period of time and then mapped into a chart. These are handy reference guides to detail worst case performance of the product being reviewed. When we test video cards we try to find the best combination of resolution and image quality settings while still maintaining playable frame rates.

Over 30fps is the zone most people want at all times, this means perfectly smooth frame rates with no hitching.

Between 30fps and 25fps is the KitGuru ‘Playable’ zone, although some people might notice occasional stuttering in specific scenes.

Under 25fps is classed as the KitGuru ‘Danger Zone’ which means that the game experience will be less than impressive. Settings and/or resolution would need lowered to help smooth out the frame rate.

Before we get into the gaming portion of our review we opted to look briefly at 2 synthetic benchmarks. We are going to use 3DMark Vantage as a DX 10 reference and Heaven Benchmark 2.1 as a reference for DX 11. After that we will be able to get onto the fun stuff and concentrate on some games.

3DMark Vantage is the first on our test bench today. It is a benchmark designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. Running this application, which is based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests, generates a 3DMark score that is an overall reflection of your system’s ability to handle 3D gaming. When we usually look at 3DMark Vantage we us the Extreme setting but keep in mind we are using a mainstream system not some killer machine. For this particular benchmark we will be running the test at the Performance settings (1280×1024) which happens to be the default.

This HIS IceQ 5 5770 Turbo produced consistent numbers very close to 30 FPS across all of our tests as did the reference 5770. The Turbo model is clocked to 875/1250 while the reference speeds are 800/1200 and we did see marked performance gains throughout. These results are fairly strong considering its price point and reinforces the fact that the HD5770 is a good value for money card while still delivering decent levels of performance.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

Direct X 11 introduced a feature called Tessellation, while this is a great feature for very powerful systems, the mainstream systems often  have a hard time digesting tessellation. For today we will be looking at what impact the various levels of Tessellation have on our IceQ 5770 Turbo at 1680×1050 and 1920×1080.

Our results show  that Tessellation had a  noticable  effect on our overall level of performance. With “Normal” selected as the tessellation level our minimum FPS dropped to as low as 15.3 frames per second but turning tessellation off increased our minimum FPS  to 22.3. Next we increased the resolution to HD 1080p (1920×1080).  Once again we see similar performance scaling depending on what tessellation level is used for testing.

The numbers that the HIS IceQ 5770 was able to generate are quite impressive when we take into consideration the components used in our system build. This should help reinforce  the value we get when purchasing a budget card like the 5770.

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments, the team behind the 1999 original PC game and was released to the public in February, 2010 .

AVP is another DX 11 title that we will take a look at today.  This game is obviously based on the series of Alien movies and incorporates many of those nasty looking creatures we all know and love from the movies. One of the DX 11 features used in AVP is Advanced Shadows.  This feature allows the rendering of high quality shadows with larger, smoother and artifact free rendering when enabled.

Our card was able to maintain average frame rates right around the 30 frames per second level at 1080p resolutions with maximum rates of 50+ frames per second. Once again this is pleasing for a card in this price range considering the fact that the game makes use of the DX 11 feature set.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 brings the spectacular Battlefield gameplay to the forefront of next-gen consoles and PC, featuring best-in-class vehicular combat set across a wide range of huge sandbox maps each with a different tactical focus. New vehicles like the All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) and the UH-60 transport helicopter allow for all-new multiplayer tactics in the warzone. Extensive fine-tuning ensures that this will be the most realistic vehicle combat experience to date. Tactical destruction is taken to new heights with the updated DICE Frostbite engine. Players can now take down entire buildings or create their own vantage points by blasting holes through cover, thereby delivering a unique dynamic experience in every match.

Once again we will test both 1680×1050 and 1920×1080 resolutions.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 released in March of 2010 and is one of the more popular games of this particular genre. It offers DirectX 11 support to go with Single player campaigns and of course online multi-player action.  The IceQ 5 5770 once again performed quite admirably during our testing.

As with CODMW 2 we experienced a few random drops in FPS taking our minimum frames per second just into the danger zone.  These drops were very minimal and while they look bad on the graph did not actually effect our overall gaming experience with this title.

The multiple Game of the Year award-winner Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has taken the world by storm. Experience gripping and heart-racing action as you face off against a new threat dedicated to bringing the world the brink of collapse. Modern Warfare 2 picks up immediately following the historic events of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the blockbuster title that earned worldwide critical acclaim.

We will be testing at resolutions of 1680×1050 and  with 2XAA, 16XAF, v-sync off and all other features maxed out.  While this game is not using all of the features that DX 11 titles use they are still able to produce some excellent in game visual effects. Personally I had not looked at CODMW 2 but now that I have I would recommend this title to anyone that has followed this franchise over the years.

The HIS IceQ 5 5770 provided exceptional performance at both resolutions tested today.  Even when playing at 1080p resolutions our average frame rates were 50+ which was very pleasing.  We did experience a few irregular drops in FPS but they were few and far between and caused  little to no interruption during our testing.

The events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat unfold shortly after the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered about the open path to the Zone center, the government decides to hold a large-scale military “Fairway” operation aimed to take the CNPP under control.

According to the operation's plan, the first military group is to conduct an air scouting of the territory to map out the detailed layouts of anomalous fields location. Thereafter, making use of the maps, the main military forces are to be dispatched.

Despite thorough preparations, the operation fails. Most of the avant-garde helicopters crash. In order to collect information on reasons behind the operation failure, Ukraine's Security Service send their agent into the Zone center.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat makes use of some of the newest DX 11 features like Tessellation and Contact Hardening Shadows, once again these features are a major player when it comes to performance levels playing this game.  For our best experience we have made sure to set all in games settings to the maximum possible.

The HIS 5770 maintained very consistent and playable frame rates.  Our minimum FPS with settings maxed out were 24 frames per second but we averaged 40+ frames per second throughout. We feel that this level of performance is very respectable for a card of this price.

Left4Dead2 takes you and your friends through the cities, swamps and cemeteries of the Deep South, from Savannah to New Orleans across five expansive campaigns. You'll play as one of four new survivors armed with a wide and devastating array of classic and upgraded weapons. In addition to firearms, take out some aggression on the infected with a variety of melee weapons, from chainsaws to axes to the deadly cast-iron frying pan.

This game makes use of the Source game engine and is probably the least demanding of all the titles we are looking at today.  We are testing 1680×1050 and 1920×1080 resolutions with 8XAA and 16XAF enabled v-sync off and all other settings maxed out. KitGuru's still enjoy blasting away hoards of on rushing Zombies even if it's not the newest and greatest technology today

The results we recorded playing Left 4 Dead 2 were pretty much what we expected. The HIS IceQ 5 5770 Turbo easily handled this one with minimum frames per seconds of 40+ and average frames per second in the 70's running at 1080p resolution.  This game is another example where using a budget priced card is an excellent choice.

To test our power draw we will be using the P3 Kill A Watt.  This handy little utility will show tell us how much power we are pulling directly from the wall socket.  The Athlon II 255 CPU draws 65 watts maximum so we should get a good idea of just what kind of power usage the HIS IceQ 5 5770 needs to do it's thing.

Update: People have asked about the power numbers. If you look at the series of 3 images below the first image shows the power draw of our test system while it is in an idle state which is 101 watts.  The second image that reads 173 watts is the total power draw while playing AVP at 1080p resolution.  The final image shows how much power our system was pulling from the wall socket while running the Furmark benchmark. The total amount of power being used to run our entire test system minus the monitor was 204 watts.

Running AVP at 1080p resolutions and all in game settings maxed our our entire system is pulling 173 watts from the wall socket and when we are running Furmark it increased by an additional 31 watts. Pretty impressive only taking 204 watts to run our entire rig with Furmark stressing the card.

Power usage with the IceQ 5 5770 is outstanding.  Our card only used 72 watts of power while we were playing AVP and 103 watts to power Furmark.

It's hard to find fault when our entire rig is only sucking 204 watts of power while it deals with Furmark.

Recently we changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The noise levels of the HIS board are reasonably good, its barely audible at idle, and then clearly audible under load with our stress testing. This wouldn't be our first choice for a media center system, but the results are decent regardless.

The room we use here for testing is the basement and maintains a consistent temperature of 20 to 21 degrees Celsius.  This is probably cooler then most people would like but our test systems like it; besides it sure makes things comfortable during times like this when it's warm as blazes outside with high humidity.  We have our system built in the NZXT Vulcan which we are currently in the process of reviewing, and decided to stick with Crysis for our game testing and Furmark to exaggerate things beyond the normal level our card would have to deal with.

Our numbers are very respectable which tells us that HIS is on the ball with this release.  While our environment is a few degrees Celsius cooler then the average, these numbers should give you an idea plus or minus a few degrees what to expect.

When AMD released the 5770 it had default clock speeds of 800 MHz for the core and the GDDR5 memory was clocked to 1200 MHz/4.8 GHz.  HIS improved on those speeds when they released the factory overclocked IceQ 5 model. They bumped the core speed up  75 MHz beyond reference speed.  As we mentioned earlier the Samsung GDDR5 chips are rated or theoretically capable of operating at 1250 MHz. HIS has increased the speed to the maximum rated 1250 MHz.

We used the Catalyst Control Center Overdrive feature to manually push the card even further.  We managed another 75MHz on the core topping out at 950 MHz and we managed to gain an additional 80 MHz over and above the rated specs on the GDDR5 which is actually quite impressive.  The temperatures of our review sample only increased slightly after increasing the factory overclocking to our maximum stable levels which once again shows that the cooler is doing a decent job.

HIS have done some homework and increased performance across the board.  Thanks to their engineering skills and excellent cooling provided by the IceQ 5 cooler they have released a quiet yet powerful graphics card at a reasonable price.

Prior to this review I was convinced that the HD5850 was the best graphic card deal on the planet but I may well have been wrong.  While reviewing the HD 5770 IceQ 5 Turbo I have been extremely impressed.  I admit I was one of those people who always wanted the biggest, baddest, and fastest video card I could afford, often overlooking the much more modest priced cards on the market.

As a PC gamer there is nothing more frustrating then wanting to play that cool looking new game at home only to realize that old clunker of a graphics card does not have the power to play it properly.  The original Unreal Tournament release caused me to draw the line.  I had to have that game and be able to play it with all the bells and whistles offered at the time. From that day forward I have been locked into thinking I always needed more. I'm not even sure I knew what more really was, but I knew when it related to graphics I wanted it.

After several days with the HIS IceQ 5 5770 Turbo; playing many games, new and old, reality for me has been slightly altered. I usually game on a 6 core 3.5 GHz system with the HD 5850 as my graphics card of choice.  For this review I was totally focused on gaming with a budget priced system.  I decided to match the HIS 5770 Turbo with an inexpensive dual core AMD Athlon II processor. When I factored in that certain HD 5770 1 GB cards here in Canada were priced as low as $159 with free shipping it certainly opened my eyes.  It made me realize that for roughly $600 we can build a good AMD gaming machine without a monitor OR for roughly the same amount we could go buy a pair of 5850's on sale, an overclocked 5870 2 GB, or even a GTX 480 and dinner for 4 at McDonald's.

Here is a breakdown on what it would cost to assemble an adequate machine today. (ED: we often get complaints about lack of stateside info, so here you go!)

• AMD Athlon II 255 CPU $69
• Entry level AM3 MB $65
• WD 640 GB HD 32 MB cache $55
• HD 5770 1GB $160
• NZXT Vulcan $70
• 4 GB DDR III $100
• DVDRW $30
• OCZ StealthXStream 500 watt PSU  $45

Total cost $594

The HIS IceQ 5 5770 Turbo has changed my perspective of PC gaming with a strict budget.  The HIS IceQ 5 5770 Turbo may cost you $25 more then the least expensive 5770's , but you also get a coupon for Dirt 2, a factory overclocked card and improved cooling capabilities that wont cause tinnitus even at full speed.

KitGuru says: We feel that this card easily qualifies for our Must Have product award.

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