Asus MARS Quad SLI - Extreme Gaming

Zardon

Read The Review Here
________________

Asus have just rewritten the Nvidia rulebook with the release of their 1 grand video card - the Asus MARS. Its basically two 285's on one board with 4GB of high performance ram. Asus sent us TWO of these limited edition boards and we put them in a watercooled system to see just how many frames they can deliver with all the modern gaming titles.

clanman

Absolutely freakin' mental !!!

Jac

Absolutely freakin pointless - IMO

All the major developers are developing for consoles now and if were lucky they may release a console port to play on our PCs. How are people gonna utilise all the massive power of this card? You can't play Crysis for the rest of your life

brutusmaximus

Thank god this went up- just read another review of this on one of your competitors sites a day ago and the testing was shockingly bad. This is much better.

Also in regards to the last comment, I think people need to look at this card more as a showcase for ASUS's engineering ability rather than something we all just run out and buy. Lets be honest its not a mainstream or even a high end card, its something for rich people to play with and post benchmark figures on forums.

Doesn't make it any less impressive however as a technical showpiece.

__________________

humonous

Yeah I think I could have done a better job of the hexus review myself Brutus. outdated drivers, Vista SP1. old game patches. absolutely terrible - but I stopped going there last year.

Nice review stuart - insane performance, but its a little overkill, I cant see anyone needing more than 2x285 GTXs in SLI.

Asus need a little cheer for having the balls to do it though, I love this extreme engineering.

comp_ali

1000 euros , they must be joking
It just for teasing .

__________________

Cow_160483

Holly hell in a hand basket that's one heck of a card grate review DH

__________________

Decode!
Muhahahahah!

blibbax

Wow. Getting a couple of these for the Nehalem EP rig Zardon? :P

I do agree that this is as much a PR excercise from Asus as a saleable product, but what a PR excercise. It's impressive how substansial the performance increase is over a GTX295. Has anyone done a 3.5GB GTX295 yet?

__________________

OmegaRED

Why was Left4Dead chosen over GTAIV? That's a missed opportunity since this is one of the few cards out there with 2gig memory per card. As if this Quad SLI beast wouldn't rape the Source engine

I like the MARS the same way I like a Porsche, however, like the review mentions it really makes little sense to go with this over a couple of 285's.

__________________

LukeK

wouldnt GTA4 be a bit of a waste though? once you hit 1600 meg of ram its maxed out. I think it would be limited to the CPU with that game and im not sure the SLI profiles even work with it ?

Interesting article, good talking point but utterly unpractical ! anyone on DH buying one? Veridian3 ?

sammorris

A better test than at the 5 letter site beginning with H, but still missing any comparisons to anything but a single GTX295 - how about comparing MARS Quad SLI vs Quad 295s, or MARS SLI vs two HD4870X2s, or even three/four HD4890s? There are plenty of options to explore, but nobody seems to give a damn, presumably because nobody will actually be buying these effectively infinitely priced cards.

__________________
Speakers: Logitech Z-2300 & Philips MC-70 [homebrew surround via ATEN CS1782 KVAM] for HTPC.
Logitech Z-5500 for gaming PC.
I/O: Razer Diamondback Magma, MS Intellimouse Optical, MS Sidewinder X6, Saitek Eclipse II, Pertelian X2040 USB Display
DVD: As little as Possible (LG GH20NS15)
Networking: Netgear GS105, GS605, GS608, WRN2000, Linksys WRT54GL [Tomato], DrayTek Vigor 120, yards of CAT6

Zardon

A little harsh man, we only had a couple of days with the cards, only so much we can test on them. I think what we published gives a good representation of how they perform. We have tested quite a lot of 4870x2 and 295 gtx configs in the past its not that difficult to fill in the blanks going on the 295 GTX in this particular review.

IvanV

It looked impressive right until the "Temperatures and Overclocking" page. The performance of the single card is class leading and the scaling efficiency of quad-SLI in some cases, as well as overall level of achieved performance were almost fantastic.

But the thermal performance was a real let-down. It'd imagine that it would be rather disappointing to pay a thousand pounds (or two for a pair) and then find out that the chips were melting (particularly in Quad-SLI) to the sound of a dust-buster, especially after that water-cooled Zotac which easily operated at the same clocks at far more agreeable temperatures and half the price. Yes, it's got 32 instead of 28 ROPs and 512 instead of 448 bits wide memory controller (per chip) making it truly unique, but comparing the single reference 295 and Mars, regardless of the undeniable prowess displayed by engineers of ASUS, I'd say that most of the performance gain comes from the overclock and any manufacturer willing to release a card that runs as noisy and as hot as Mars does could do that.

If Zotac decided to preoverclock their water-cooled card (which, I repeat, comes at half the price), and maybe make one with double the amount of memory (potentially beneficial for 2560*1600 in Quad-SLI, which is where MARS shines with performance, but unfortunately also with the 77C idle and 95C load temperature), in my opinion they'd have a clear winner. MARS on the other hand cannot be denied the speed and uniqueness, but it's also inadequately cooled and too little ahead of a regular equally overclocked 295 to be anything more than a curiosity, even regardless of it's preposterous price.

__________________
Our Folding@home stats:

Alex

Yeah, glad it wasnt just me who saw that review on Hexus: Absolute mess - DDR3 1333mhz, outdated graphics card drivers, outdated bios, outdated chipset drivers and they tested it on Vista SP1 with outdated game patches! My jaw was sinking further to the floor as I was reading it. Tarrinder needs to give up his day job.

The review on DH is significantly better and I can ascertain the performance with the single 295 GTX. The Mars cards are impressive and class leading but the issue for me would be the noise and the temperatures - I know the PCB on GFX cards are stronger than CPU cores but 95c over extended load is not particularly healthy IMO.

Nice showcase from Asus but the price is silly, I dont think they want to sell them ! I took something from this review however, it tempted me into thinking of getting a 295 GTX at some stage.

sterilegiblets

I want two, I just don't want to pay for them ! Very nice scaling

flamingturds

GRID is my favourite game, I almost wet myself when I read the Quad SLI figures. must be smooth as butter.

I really notice the frame rate at 60+ I know some people say they don't.

Awesome cards, noise doesnt bother me, I normally have speakers on loud when im gaming.

Not sure my credit card would handle two, but id seriously consider one.

highnightfive

My mate has pre ordered one, I think he is mental - probably wont get one though.

You think all 1000 will sell out? I bet they do, then end up on ebay for 1300 quid!

seanmclagerty

2 x 285 GTXS in SLI is enough for anyone. right? lol.

Chaos

Asus really showed their capabilities with this card but I also feel it is far to expensive. Would I refuse one if it came my way, well no of course not but my 4870X2 all ready heats my basement so I can just imagine what that card would do. Overall good job with time restrictions in place.

__________________

DJ BIG T

very good review z!!! im like wow i wish i had the money for one...

__________________

craig5320

Excellent work Stu and Allan, thanks

__________________

Tyrsonswood

Great review, must be nice to play with such high end toys.

__________________

IvanV

Oops, I forgot my manners. Congrats on getting your hands on two of these beasts and thanks for the customarily well done review, I did want to see this particular hardware tested by you.

__________________
Our Folding@home stats:

Xenozx

Im not all that impressed. Alot of the performance difference could very well be based on the clocks. I wish it was an equally clocked 295 GTX so I could see what difference if any there was. I scored 40,000 w/ my 2 295 GTX's in Vantage, and this scored a 32,000, so not impressive. I know its synthetic benchmark, but thats the only thing I can compare directly.

I dont know the pricing of these, but if they are more then 100 dollars more then a regular 295, its not worth it honestly. I picked up my 295's from dell w/ 30% off, so it was like 350 for each card. How much do 2 of those Mars cost?

Zardon

They cost just over £1,000 each. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1324

Falstaff

I can hear Leonard Nimoy now...
"fascinating captain"

I love the review and I am not a hater...or a debater, just a rater...
I rate this review and hardware increment eleven on the ten dial...
of course the card is unique and limited edition so the context of the review is not lost on me.
Would I use it?
BYFA I would...
anyone that would turn this down is a tosser and a puller.

__________________

IvanV

Well, I doubt that many would turn it down, but, if I were given the 1030 pounds to spend on graphics hardware instead of the card itself, I'd go with the pair of those watercooled Zotacs I already mentioned that DH also reviewed recently and invest the remaining thirty-odd quid in a respectable drinking establishment (that also counts as video hardware, 30 quid should buy me a good pair of beer goggles ).

__________________
Our Folding@home stats:

clanman

Yeah, I get the point for sure.

I would rather get 2 x 285 GTXs (2gb versions) and put the rest of the money saved from the 1000 cost into perhaps a 920 intel CPU and some ram.

I do really want to say however that if Asus are reading this, that I don't want them to stop pushing the envelope with these engineering exercises,. its massively entertaining to read about even if I would never buy them.

i would still love to know if anyone had a few grand spare in their pocket would they buy one?

Zardon

I am pretty sure all 1000 will sell (minus the 15 or so press samples). To be honest from what I have heard Asus will be breaking even with the sales of this card as the research and development time was quite extended - therefore costly. People do need to realise that this was never an official Nvidia design - Asus did it on their own.

Falstaff

Bingo, thus the novelty and attraction is rather intoxicating for anyone with the money to enjoy it.
Why must people defend their economics and rationalize why they would or wouldnt buy or use something, its more like art to me, and beautiful, albiet purely for enjoyment and entertainment, I hope it would not be the last of its kind.
Thanx for the outstanding work DH, you have informed, entertained and sustained my interest in the industry, now that I can afford it, I am really watching my pocketbook too.
In the past these reviews have saved me some scratch but they have enriched my knowlege and allowed me to pimp the site out to all the "know it alls" that preach a comprehesive knowlege of hardware and software.
I look forward to more Frankenstien Nvidia cards in the future and a DH review for each one.

__________________