ASUS ROG ARES II 6144 MB

W1zzard · Jan 21, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

"Low noise during gaming"

Music to my ears.

All high end graphics cards should aspire to this.

dj-electric · Jan 28, 2013

Should they all also use AIO Watercooling solutions?

iO · Jan 28, 2013

What a sick beast...

HammerON · Jan 28, 2013

Amazing GPU :toast:

Thanks W1z for the review!!!

Frick · Jan 28, 2013

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

2. Performance is kinda all over the place. Sometimes it's just weird (WoW :laugh:

), and sometimes it actually does twice as many FPSs as the 7970.

BTW, any chance of a Crossfire review?

radrok · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

radrok said:
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. :laugh:

Norton · Jan 28, 2013

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

badtaylorx · Jan 28, 2013

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

W1zzard · Jan 28, 2013

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

in the end they didnt change it

Darkleoco · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

sweet

n0tiert · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

ArchStupid said:
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 · Jan 28, 2013

Curiosity...

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

natr0n · Jan 28, 2013

Monster card is monstrously monstrous.

Sasqui · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

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 · Jan 28, 2013

ArchStupid said:
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 ?:

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 · Jan 28, 2013

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

cadaveca · Jan 28, 2013

NdMk2o1o said:
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.

W1zz said:
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 · Jan 28, 2013

NdMk2o1o said:
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:

Only 3% ? the gap looks bigger to me.

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ASUS ROG ARES II 6144 MB

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