HIS also recently unveiled their gold edition graphics cards which includes the R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo. Apart from the change in color from black to gold for the fan shroud, the card uses the same IceQ X² cooler.
However the R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo is the most aggressively factory overclocked HIS R9 280X graphics card yet. HIS has increased the core clock speed to 1050MHz with a memory clock of 6000MHz.
The HIS R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo measures 311mm long, which is considerably longer than a standard 280X. The fan shroud is the primary culprit for the excessive length and it’s our biggest gripe with this HIS graphics card, as it limits compatibility for no real reason.
As the name suggests the HIS R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo features the IceQ X² cooling solution. Designed with two super large 89mm dual axial fans this dual-slot cooler features a massive heatsink.
Helping to improve the efficiency of the massive heatsink are three 6mm and two 8mm heatpipes. These heatpipes are directly linked to an extra-large 40 x 47.5mm copper base where they help to improve heat extraction from the GPU.
Connected to the large copper base of the heatsink is a unique RAM heat spreader which is designed to cool the GDDR5 modules. HIS claims that this cooler is much quieter and more efficient than AMD’s reference design.
To feed the card enough juice, HIS has upgraded the 6-pin/8-pin PCI Express power connector configuration with a pair of 8-pin connectors. This will help improve overclocking and HIS claims that the HIS R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo with its 6+1+1+1 power phase can deliver more core voltage.
Naturally, the R9 280X supports Crossfire so there are a pair of connectors for bridging two or more cards together. The only other connectors are on the I/O panel which includes a dual DL-DVI connector, a single HDMI 1.4a port and two mini-DisplayPort 1.2 sockets.
Pricing on the HIS R9 280X iPower IceQ X² Turbo varies online and the best price we were able to find at the time of writing this article was $330. This is surprising as HIS is very competitive with their R9 280 IceQ X² OC model, which only costs $290.
