HIS' Radeon R9 290X IceQ X2 Looks Like a Picasso

HIS has officially announced its new high-end Radeon R9 290X IceQ X2 Turbo graphics card. This graphics card is a factory overclocked R9 290X, which is only possible with a custom cooler featured by this card.

The GPU aboard is clocked at 1060 MHz out of the box. Naturally, this being an R9 290X means that the frequency is actually up to 1060 MHz, though we imagine that the cooler that HIS has equipped the card with will be capable, under almost all conditions, of keeping the card running cool enough to run at full speed. Memory is clocked at the reference 5.0 GHz.

The cooler is gold-colored with silver accents, has two 100 mm fans, as well as an aluminum fin array by which heat is fed through a handful of heatpipes. The card also carries a black backplate with white accents. These colors are combined with a blue PCB. The color combination is somewhat questionable, though. If you're going for a Picasso look inside your chassis, it might work out well with a wild assortment of other colors.

Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • burninator
    HIS cards are UGggglyyy
    Reply
  • dwatterworth
    Agree, for those blessed with the gift of vision, this card is quite bad. Maybe there was a sale on gold paint? Black or Gray might have been far more preferable. It'd be interesting to see a study on sales figures vs aesthetic.
    Reply
  • rad666
    Sadly, I have to say that is one UGLY card...but that rarely matters to me since the insides of my computer isn't on display, but those of you with clear sided cases (and a modicum of taste), should run away from this card no matter the performance.
    Reply
  • ubercake
    Let's get something straight here... You only see the circuit board side of the card. Why do companies waste money on how these things look on the side nobody sees?

    I like what Nvidia did with their 780s, Titans, 780 tis... Have the lights on the side of the card that faces the case's side door and then allow you to cycle through different light patterns.

    I think the video card manufacturers should do something more along those lines if they want things to look cool. LEDs on the side with user configurable color or lighting patterns.
    Reply
  • sosofm
    What is your problem? Anybody buy a GPU for what is capable and brand prefrerences.
    Who cares how is looking , important is how good is that GPU.
    Reply
  • dwatterworth
    I agree somewhat with all these statements again, but having a prodigy case, all I see is the cooler of my GPU, not everyone has enough space or reason for a typical tower. Also, it is nice to be proud of your rig as a whole, aesthetic and all, even if no one else sees it. The 'gamer' aesthetic is just an excuse for poor ID, put a ton of folds and bumps where you can't figure out how to make it look clean.
    Reply
  • apertotes
    That does not look like a Picasso at all
    Reply
  • Bondfc11
    I don't get the Picasso reference at all - quite a reach, but I do like that a company is thinking a bit outside the box with color/styling on computer components. Good effort, just not for me.
    Reply
  • Christopher Shaffer
    HIS' new graphics card will suite a Picasso themed PC quite well.

    Suit. (Suite = sweet).

    If by Picasso, you mean makes three-dimensional surfaces flatten together into a two-dimensional image, then I feel like they're falling short a bit on modern graphics ;)
    Reply
  • someguynamedmatt
    I always thought the IceQ coolers on the HD 6xxx and earlier 7xxx cards were quite nice, and I was a fan of their older 'budget' coolers which had a black shroud with clear blue fan.

    http://www.hisdigital.com/UserFiles/product/H787QN2G2M_all_1600.jpg
    http://dl.maximumpc.com/galleries/pennywise09/AMD_ICEQ4HIS_full.jpg

    Top is probably the last card I would've bought from them. Hell, their HD 4xxx cards were downright beautiful... I really wish people still made coolers like the used to, but I guess the need for more cooling power is beating out aesthetics at this point. That, and the worthless 'gamer' market that's being made by the advertising divisions of about every company out there. It's like we're actually trying to stop making clean, professional-looking products at his point.

    Ah well, I guess I'm just old fashioned. I'm still stuck in the days of a Core2 Duo E6600 with an HD 4870... *sigh*
    Reply