The high strength of steel structure is the main trend. At present, the high yield ratio is the problem of the high strength steel, which limits the application of high strength steel in the seismic design of structures. A new type of high strength steel with a low yield ratio Q620E has been developed in HBIS Group by improving the material properties of low alloy high strength structural steel. In order to study the seismic performance of it, box-section columns with different cross-sectional dimensions were designed according to classes width-to-thickness ratio of steel columns. Low-cycle reversal tests were performed on box-shaped columns of high strength steel with nominal axial compression ratios of 0.2 and 0.35. The seismic performance of steel columns was investigated in terms of bearing capacity, ductility, energy dissipation performance and damage index by observing the damage modes, extracting hysteresis curves and skeleton curves of the specimens and comparing the seismic performance with that of Q690D ordinary high-strength steel columns. The test results show that the designed high-strength steel columns have good hysteresis performance and plastic deformation capacity; width-to-thickness ratio has a significant effect on the bearing capacity and ductility of the members; the larger width-to-thickness ratio is, the faster the stiffness dissipation capacity of the member decreases and discontinuous damage development occurs; compared with Q690D ordinary high-strength steel, Q620E steel shows greater advantages in mechanical properties and seismic design of the member, which can be considered for high-strength steel structures.