Usually when a new GPU is launched by ATI or nVidia, we see a bucket load of graphics cards from different manufacturers that look almost identical- many times, its just the sticker on the HSF unit that distinguishes one manufacturers card from another. Thus, it was quite refreshing to see HIS’ x700 Pro  IceQ graphics card.

The card comes nicely packaged in a blue box to match the color of the HSF unit. The front of the box has a see through section revealing the card while the back lists the specifications and features. Inside the box, you find a component cable as well as S-Video/RCA in/out cables since the card is VIVO ready. On the software side, you get full versions of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero and Dungeon Siege while a demo of Dungeon Siege 2 is also included. For video editing, HIS provides you with Video Studio 7E while PowerDVD5 is there for viewing DVDs. All the required drivers and a user manual is also included.

For overclocking, HIS provides their iTurbo application which overclocks the card well without causing concern for instability. The default core/memory of this card is 425MHz/864MHz and the iTurbo button makes it jump to 460MHz/960MHz which is lower than the speed we were able to successfully overclock the card to with full stability- 510MHz core and 1020MHz memory.

The card itself is pretty cool with a nice big IceQ cooling system attached on the front. Since the IceQ is blue in color, we think HIS should’ve used a blue PCB for the actual card as well- but the red doesn’t look bad either. The IceQ cooling system draws cool air from inside the case and exhausts warm air outwards. This prevents the fan from recycling warm air to cool the VPU, which increases cooling performance and lower the air temperature inside the case.

Don’t let the size of the fan fool you though- its very quiet and we were quite impressed. Another thing we liked was the fact that you don’t have to connect any external power source to the card. While the x700 Pro doesn’t require external power, the iceQ system had us wondering if any additional power would be needed but this is not the case.

We tested this card using our standard testbed which is made up of the Gigabyte nForce4 SLI board along with a 3500+ Winchester Athlon64 CPU and 1GB RAM at 2.0-2-2-5 settings. For comparison, we’ve chosen the GeCube x600XT card and the Leadtek 6600 standard and 6600GT cards. Lets get started