HIS HD 5850 iCooler V Turbo Review

The HIS HD5850 is supplied within a tall thin package paired with a cardboard outer shell.  The front of the box sports an image of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 – and the game is included with the bundle.

Turning the package around reveals some features offered by the HIS 5850 as well as more detailed info on the Call of Duty game.

Inside the outer shell is a sturdy Grey cardboard box that contains the Diver installation CD and a manual.  There is also a free coupon for the Steam version of Call of Duty MWF2, a Crossfire connect bridge, a DVI-VGA adapter and two Molex to 6 pin PCI-e power cables.

Next we have an overhead view of the HIS 5850 Turbo which shows off the center mounted fan. The tapered shroud that covers the heatsink is branded with an image from Call of Duty MWF2.  Looking at the back of our card we have the retention bracket that is used to support and secure the heatsink to the graphics card.  The retention bracket helps to distribute the stress caused by the weight of the cooling solution which should prevent any bending of the PCB.

This card is supplied with a center mounted fan that will distribute air across the fins of the heatsink and will also direct a percentage of the air out the rear of the chassis.  The HIS 5850 Turbo model requires 2 x 6 pin power connectors to provide the required amount of power for our card. This is the same requirement as the reference design.

As with most 5000 series cards there are 2 dual link DVI ports, 1 HDMI port as well as a single Display Port connection.  The display port is required if we want to get into an Eyefinity multiple monitor setup. There is also a small area with vents cut out of the faceplate to allow air to exhaust from the rear of the chassis.  The 2nd image above shows where we will connect our Crossfire Bridge when it comes time to do some Crossfire testing.

The reference clock speeds for an HD5850 are core clock 725 MHz and GDDR5 clocked to 1000 MHz (4000mhz effective). HIS have enhanced the core from 725 MHz to 765 MHz and the memory benefits from a tasty 125mhz clock increase to 1125mhz (4500mhz effective).

We know that reference 5850 cards overclocked quite frequently to 5870 speeds or higher using 3rd party applications to increase the voltage level of the GPU however the HIS 5850 Turbo is locked to the reference settings. This  may reduce the overclocking potential of our review sample but we will get further into that later  on.

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