Conclusions

If there are two things guaranteed to make any graphics board faster, it's the use of the word "Turbo" or the addition of an "X" or three to the product's name, which thus makes HIS' Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX a work of perfection.

Joking aside, the IceQ 4 TurboX does impress on the performance front, ramping up performance nicely from the already fast reference Radeon HD 4850 to make for an even more tempting offering which can hold its own in the vast majority of modern titles at 1920x1200, even with some level of multi-sample anti-aliasing enabled.  We already know very well what the Radeon HD 4850 is capable of in every discipline from gaming through to video playback, and this SKU shines as much as ever with the crank speeds clocked up almost literally as far as they will go.

On top of that, gone is the frankly sub-par reference cooler, replaced instead with a custom built dual-slot solution. It may not be any quieter than what AMD could offer, but it makes up for that in spades when it actually comes to cooling the GPU, proving itself to be leaps and bounds better at alleviating RV770's high temperatures while also ensuring that any hot air produced is dumped outside of your chassis rather than hanging around inside it.  It's the kind of cooler the Radeon HD 4850 should probably have had in the first place, and I for one am glad to see it here.

Of course, higher clock speeds and a better cooler also means a higher price compared to a reference board, meaning that possibly the biggest competition to HIS' offering here is the 512MB variant of the Radeon HD 4870 which it begins to skirt a little close to in terms of cost.  Certainly, if you can afford a little extra then the Radeon HD 4870 would get the nod from me every time, but thankfully if you shop around for the best deal then the Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX moves into its own price range and thus starts to become a far more tempting offer.

At the end of the day, if you're looking to buy a Radeon HD 4850 part and have a little extra cash to splash, then the HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ 4 TurboX just about squeezes in as the fastest board using this SKU that we've seen, although in practical terms it's level with Sapphire's Radeon HD 4850 TOXIC in terms of both price and performance.  With equal levels of GPU cooling offered by both these parts, the lower noise footprint and exhausting of hot air out of the chassis by this HIS board gives it a slight edge in my personal opinion, but either way the IceQ 4 TurboX is an excellent example of the Radeon HD 4850 in action.

Product information

HIS Radeon HD 4850 IceQ TurboX

- Vendor web site
- Vendor product information

Recommended retail pricing (at time of going to press):

eBuyer - £162.99 including VAT
Scan - £149.26 including VAT

Many thanks to HIS for providing the sample for this review

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