ASUS ROG ARES II 6144 MB

[W1zzard]

ASUS releases their ARES II dual-GPU HD 7990 today. Using two full Tahiti GPUs with clock speeds beyond the HD 7970 GHz Edition, it provides plenty of performance for even the most demanding titles at their highest settings. But does it provide enough to warrant a price of $1599?

Show full review

 

[qubit]

"Low noise during gaming"

Music to my ears. All high end graphics cards should aspire to this.

 

[dj-electric]

Should they all also use AIO Watercooling solutions?

 

[iO]

What a sick beast...

 

[HammerON]

Amazing GPU
Thanks W1z for the review!!!

 

[Frick]

1. It's about three times more than my car!

2. Performance is kinda all over the place. Sometimes it's just weird (WoW ), and sometimes it actually does twice as many FPSs as the 7970.

BTW, any chance of a Crossfire review?

 

[radrok]

This is such an engineering marvel, I mean that kind of performance on such a small package makes it a win.

Too bad the price is so steep that you could buy a quad 7970 for the price.

Awesome review W1zzard, ty

Also INB4 omgwtf over 500w power consumption, unacceptable, etc etc.

 

[Frick]

Also INB4 omgwtf over 500w power consumption, unacceptable, etc etc.

For this it's not that bad. Now we might actually use those 1400W Platinum units in a single rig.

 

[Norton]

I want to see that card break the single card record for WCG gpu crunching

 

[badtaylorx]

hey, i thought they changed the nda date.....you sure this is ok???

 

[W1zzard]

hey, i thought they changed the nda date.....you sure this is ok???

in the end they didnt change it

 

[Darkleoco]

My only question is why would anyone besides collectors and the exceptionally rich purchase this card? There are many other possibilities if anyone actually NEEDS that much power you could get amazing quad-fire/quad-sli performance that I am sure exceeds what this card is capable of and could likely do it for less money as well.....

 

[badtaylorx]

sweet

 

[n0tiert]

this is betta than sex , mhhhhhmmmmmmooooaaaarr
grrrr i need to get this card......

@W1zzard any clue on known plans about different coolers by EK & co?

 

[ArchStupid]

How the hell did this get an 8.9..?

It's weaker than the 690GTX yet costs 60%(!!!) more.
By far the lowest performance per dollar of any card.
Almost double the power consumption of the GTX 690.
It takes three slots + space for the block.

I mean come on, how can anyone take that score seriously?

 

[Darkleoco]

How the hell did this get an 8.9..?

It's weaker than the 690GTX yet costs 60%(!!!) more.
By far the lowest performance per dollar of any card.
Almost double the power consumption of the GTX 690.
It takes three slots + space for the block.

I mean come on, how can anyone take that score seriously?

It beats the 690 in nearly every game that has decent crossfire scaling, it is also a limited edition and watercooled card, what kind of troll are you exactly?

 

[the54thvoid]

Curiosity...

Anyone else use crossfire 7970's? I had crossfire working in Far Cry 3 but it was micro stuttery occasionally.

 

[natr0n]

Monster card is monstrously monstrous.

 

[Sasqui]

I'm not impressed with the price/performance at all. But that's apparently not the point.

Nice review and wise to break out the performance results.

 

[cadaveca]

What impresses me the most is the card getting cooled by a single 120mm rad. Those are very decent temperatures for 600W or so going through a single rad.


I'd love to have one, could never afford it though. I wonder if the case is big enough to mod into a full PC case with the ARES II installed...

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Defo gonna need one of these for that beast, heck most screwless cases even struggle with high end GPU's (my CM Storm Sniper and VaporX 7950 being a prime example)

 

[leopr]

How the hell did this get an 8.9..?

It's weaker than the 690GTX yet costs 60%(!!!) more.
By far the lowest performance per dollar of any card.
Almost double the power consumption of the GTX 690.
It takes three slots + space for the block.

I mean come on, how can anyone take that score seriously?

This is weaker for you ?:

Spoiler

It's a limited edition, they've always been expensive but you can get the same performance with two 7970 clocked to 1100/1500.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

On average it is slower than the 690 in all resolutions bar 2560x1600 and only edges it by 3% then.

 

[cadaveca]

On average it is slower than the 690 in all resolutions bar 2560x1600 and only edges it by 3% then.

Again, drivers affecting overall outcome.

The ARES II's lack of CrossFire support affected the performance summary on the previous page a lot.

I removed Assassin's Creed 3, Batman Arkham City, F1 2012, StarCraft II, Skyrim, and World of Warcraft and created the graphs below.

And then, it takes the top spot, in nearly every resolution, except 1200x800.


Also, several titles show better performance with 5760x1080 than in 2560x1600, again...driver issues. That's not ASUS's fault.

If you have the money to spend on such a card then you MUST be smart enough to know that dual-GPU cards are always prone to multi-GPU rendering issues. This has been the case, FOREVER. As such, any such issues are not important, or you'd not consider the card anyway.

 

[leopr]

On average it is slower than the 690 in all resolutions bar 2560x1600 and only edges it by 3% then.

Besides AC3 and a few games where the CF profiles are clearly not working the ARES is faster.

2560x1600:

Spoiler

Only 3% ? the gap looks bigger to me.