HIS’ HD 7950 "V2"
Shortly before this review was supposed to go live, a nondescript UPS shipment held a bit of a surprise: what looked to be a custom cooled HD 7950 from HIS. We just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to include it so fast forward to the Temperature Testing section where we run its unique heatsink through our usual battery of tests.
It should also be noted that this design may very well become the de facto standard for less expensive “Version B” HD 7950 cards. We’ve already seen some preliminary designs from other board partners with very similar –if not identical- layouts. So get used to this design because there may be quite a few cards with this same unique cooling solution.
Speaking of unique, this is one of the first times we have seen a somewhat custom cooler that so closely reflects the reference card's design. The similarity really is remarkable which is why we believe this is actually a version that AMD's board partners will be using in place of the higher end heatsink. The rest of the card –from its length to component layout- is a spitting image of the original version though due to HIS’ move away from a vapor chamber-equipped cooler, the entire affair is a good bit lighter. We should also mention that the VRM components have been slightly changed but still consist of a fairly robust 6+1 layout.
HIS has decided to use a custom blue PCB for this card which has the ability to use a 6-pin / 8-pin power layout so we’d hazard a guess that its used for their HD 7970 as well. The colour choice may turn some people off since a black PCB coupled with a black and red heatsink shroud does look great but for most the change won’t make a difference. Otherwise, all of the usual HD 7950 features like dual 6-pin power connectors, a BIOS switch and two Crossfire interconnects are present and accounted for.
The backplate also uses the reference layout with a pair of mini DisplayPort connectors along with outputs for HDMI 1.4 and DVI. Unfortunately, HIS DOES NOT include any adaptors so if you want to run more than two monitors from their HD 7950, additional cables will need to be purchased.
HIS’ HD 7950 "v2"
Shortly before this review was supposed to go live, a nondescript UPS shipment held a bit of a surprise: what looked to be a custom cooled HD 7950 from HIS. We just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to include it so fast forward to the Temperature Testing section where we run its unique heatsink through our usual battery of tests.
It should also be noted that this design may very well become the de facto standard for less expensive “Version B” HD 7950 cards. We’ve already seen some preliminary designs from other board partners with very similar –if not identical- layouts. So get used to this design because there may be quite a few cards with this same unique cooling solution.
Speaking of unique, this is one of the first times we have seen a somewhat custom cooler that so closely reflects the reference card's design. The similarity really is remarkable which is why we believe this is actually a version that AMD's board partners will be using in place of the higher end heatsink. The rest of the card –from its length to component layout- is a spitting image of the original version though due to HIS’ move away from a vapor chamber-equipped cooler, the entire affair is a good bit lighter. We should also mention that the VRM components have been slightly changed but still consist of a fairly robust 6+1 layout.
HIS has decided to use a custom blue PCB for this card which has the ability to use a 6-pin / 8-pin power layout so we’d hazard a guess that its used for their HD 7970 as well. The colour choice may turn some people off since a black PCB coupled with a black and red heatsink shroud does look great but for most the change won’t make a difference. Otherwise, all of the usual HD 7950 features like dual 6-pin power connectors, a BIOS switch and two Crossfire interconnects are present and accounted for.
The backplate also uses the reference layout with a pair of mini DisplayPort connectors along with outputs for HDMI 1.4 and DVI. Unfortunately, HIS DOES NOT include any adaptors so if you want to run more than two monitors from their HD 7950, additional cables will need to be purchased.
