ASUS ROG MARS
It seems the R&D department of ASUS' graphics arm is enjoying the Taiwanese outfit's financial clout. With last year's revenue in excess of $20 billion, ASUS clearly has plenty of room to manoeuvre and it can be afford to be a little outlandish when in comes to DIY products for the enthusiast.
Today, it's officially unveiling four cards that are said to "address, fulfil and exceed the demands of every DIY PC enthusiast".
First up, it's the headline-grabbing ROG MARS. The one-of-a-kind card sandwiches together two of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 285 GPUs, along with a total of 4GB of memory. It's a monster, and although you'll need a loan to buy one, there's no denying that there's nothing else as quick in today's market.
ASUS is making only 1,000 of them, and the complete specs are listed as follows:
| ASUS ROG MARS/2DI/4GD3 | |
|---|---|
| Graphics Engine | NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 285 x 2 |
| Bus Standard | PCI Express 2.0 |
| Video Memory | 4GB DDR3 (2GB x 2) |
| Engine Clock | 648MHz |
| Shader Clock | 1476MHz |
| Memory Interface | 2.304GHz (1.152GHz DDR3) |
| DVI Max. Resolution | 1024-bit (512-bit x 2) |
| D-sub Output | 2560 x 1600 |
| DVI Output | Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adapter x 1) |
| HDCP Compliant | Yes x 2 (DVI-I) |
| HDMI Output | Yes |
| Adapter Cable Bundled | Yes, Native |
| Software Bundled | 1 x DVI-to-D-Sub adapter 1 x Power cable |
It's way beyond our budget, but ASUS also has a few alternatives. Let's take a quick look at the ROG MATRIX GTX285.
