Monday, June 25th 2012
ASUS Readies ROG ARES 2 Graphics Card with Dual-HD 7870 GPUs
ASUS is working on its second Republic of Gamers (ROG) ARES graphics card, the ARES 2 dual-HD 7870. Its first ARES was dual-HD 5870. ASUS' decision to go with a pair of Radeon HD 7870 GPUs, instead of the premium HD 7970, certainly comes as a surprise. With it, one could deduce the target market-segment ASUS is aiming at: US $650-750, providing a solution that outperforms even the fastest HD 7970 GHz Edition and GTX 680 graphics cards, while being cheaper than Radeon HD 7990 (which is MIA), dual-HD 7970 X2, and of course, the GTX 690.
ASUS ARES 2 will back two 28 nm "Pitcairn" GPUs with all components unlocked; likely factory-overclocked speeds beyond those of the HD 7870 GHz Edition; and a total of 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (2 GB per GPU system). The card will draw power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and will have a TDP of around 300W. It will take advantage of AMD ZeroCore CrossFire, with which it powers down the second GPU when not gaming, or with light 3D loads that the first GPU can munch on. With the monitor idling for a set amount of time, both GPUs power down. It's likely that ASUS will use a triple-slot cooling solution, despite the fact that the HD 7870 is a generally cool GPU. Pictured below is the first-generation ROG ARES (dual-HD 5870).
Update Jun 26: We have received word from ASUS that "There is no plan to release a dual 7870 VGA".
Source:
VideoCardz
ASUS ARES 2 will back two 28 nm "Pitcairn" GPUs with all components unlocked; likely factory-overclocked speeds beyond those of the HD 7870 GHz Edition; and a total of 4 GB of GDDR5 memory (2 GB per GPU system). The card will draw power from two 8-pin PCIe power connectors, and will have a TDP of around 300W. It will take advantage of AMD ZeroCore CrossFire, with which it powers down the second GPU when not gaming, or with light 3D loads that the first GPU can munch on. With the monitor idling for a set amount of time, both GPUs power down. It's likely that ASUS will use a triple-slot cooling solution, despite the fact that the HD 7870 is a generally cool GPU. Pictured below is the first-generation ROG ARES (dual-HD 5870).
36 Comments on ASUS Readies ROG ARES 2 Graphics Card with Dual-HD 7870 GPUs
tho i must say I heard alot of good stuff about 12.7 beta
and it is what gave the ghz edition tahiti much of its lead against the 680the 7800 cannot do quad-fire, so this is as good as it gets if you gets on the 7800 series
1.) Pictarin is much more power efficient than Tahiti
2.) 7850>>7870>7950>>7970>7970 GHz>>>>>>>>>>>>7990 There is a huge hole there.
3.) Scaling is great on the HD7870 as well, if they can keep the price down, price/ perf
should be great!
4.) With a descent O/C, performance may actually be closer to the 690/7990 then the
680/7970 GHz!
Hopefully ASUS doesnt screw the pooch and put a huge premium on this.
As stated before, no quadfire so they might as well go triple slot.
We know the configuration: 256bitx2 interface and 4gb ("same old shit" we saw on some hd 5970 and 6990 the new gtx 690 and even the first "ares" witch are great cards at theyr time) so it would not be a big surprise to be faster than the former dual gpu flagships gtx 590 and hd6990 but the big answer will be how good will be against a stock gtx 690 because 7990 isnt yet launched.I quess i simply a matter of freqeuncy.We saw that asus can go over 1250MHZ oced core so it would mean 40GB pixel fill rate and 100GB texel fill rate , and maybe a oc frequency of 1650 for the memory would mean 210GB memory bandwidth ,all this for one Gpu(means 420GB memory 200GB texel and 80GB pixel). Ass for the price well it wont have any direct competitor so asus might have a big price on it .It will surelly be more powerfull than any gtx 680 and any ghz 7970 but slightly slower than gtx 690 and not yet "born" 7990 so somewhere between 700-800$. it canot pass the 1000$ barier because they are releasing Mars3 who will take that sector and will be no reason to buy a Ares 2 over a Mars 3 for another 2-300 $ . I just hope they keep then cooling design 1 maybe 2 vents and 2 cooper blocks since 7870 isnt that worm even overclocked.