HIS R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock 1GB Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

HIS Digital’s R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock sticks to reference pricing of $90 in the USA. In the UK availability is quite sparse at the moment but it seems to be going for about £65-75 for the GDDR5 version and £55-65 for the DDR3 version depending on which retailer you go with. HIS Digital offer a 2 year warranty on this product.

Overview

HIS Digital’s R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock graphics card is a solid performer for the money. You get a graphics card that runs very cool for an Oland XT based R7 250 and it also runs incredibly quiet making it almost rival passive solutions – this is thanks to the 80mm fan which is larger than we’d expect to see for a graphics card of this price point. On our sample we saw masses of overclocking headroom and this is something HIS Digital graphics cards have demonstrated time and time again in the past so if you’re into overclocking this is definitely a reason you may want to pick this up over other R7 250 graphics cards. Other aspects of this card are relatively mundane – there is a run-of-the-mill 2 year warranty, reference clock speeds out of the box and an uninspiring display output array that is standard for R7 250s. For picky users the blue PCB may be a negative but for the price point you’re unlikely to have a windowed side panel and you’re also unlikely to care – plus I think the blue PCB matches well with the blue fan.

The biggest down side with this card is an AMD-created problem. It costs just $10 more to upgrade to an R7 250X, such as HIS Digital’s iCooler R7 250X, and that performs around 40% better yet is just 11% more expensive! However, this really isn’t something I can mark HIS Digital down on as it is not their fault AMD set pricing in such a way. HIS Digital have already done a lot with this card and still managed to keep it at reference pricing and for that reason I think it deserves credit. The only things I think can be criticised are the decision to not factory overclock this when it clearly has a lot of overclocking potential, and the decision to use only an Oland XT R7 250 GPU when the Cape Verde Pro R7 250 offers more performance potential especially when you factor in overclocking. As a result, I’d strongly encourage anyone who can spare another $10 to go for the HIS Digital iCooler R7 250X because it offers so much more performance for just a fraction less. If $90 is your maximum budget then this is definitely a card to consider strongly, it beats Nvidia’s similarly priced GT 640 hands down. AMD wins at every price point under $100. The only other alternative I’d consider at $90 is a Cape Verde Pro based R7 250 if you can find one for $90 or less, if it costs more then you might as well just jump up to the R7 250X.

Pros

• Keeps to reference pricing
• Runs stupidly cool and quiet due to the surprising inclusion of an 80mm fan on such a budget unit
• Overclocks like a dream 
• Low power consumption

Cons

• $10 more gets you an R7 250X
• R7 250 has a mediocre selection of display outputs
• HIS Digital only make an Oland XT version of the R7 250, they do not make a Cape Verde Pro version which would perform better#
• Not overclocked out of the box

“The HIS Digital R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock graphics card is a tempting option for any gamer on a strict budget. Coming in at bang on reference pricing of $90 it makes for a much more attractive option than Nvidia’s GT 640 offerings. However, HIS Digital’s R7 250 would have benefited from an out-of-the-box overclock and use of the Cape Verde Pro GPU instead of Oland XT. For those reasons we still think you’re better off going for the HIS Digital iCooler R7 250X as it offers up 40% more performance for just 11% more cost.“

Thank you to HIS Digital for providing this review sample.