ASUS Ares is a custom version of AMD Radeon HD 5970, the world’s fastest graphics card. ASUS disassembled the reference card from AMD and rebuilt it in a new shape, much like it did with ASUS Mars, to make it even faster. We have covered the card on numerous occasions, revealing detailed specifications and some more odd information like the weight of the card, 3-4kg, and that it will cost around $1000.
ASUS Ares sports dual Cypress XT GPUs and 850MHz GPU clock frequency, the same as the single-GPU Radeon HD 5870 and a lot higher than HD 5970 with its 725MHz GPU clock frequency. Add to that 4GB GDDR5 RAM that operates at the same frequency as HD 5870, namely 1200MHz (4800MHz effectively).
ASUS Ares vs. ASUS Matrix 5870
We haven’t been able to share the level of performance this card will offer, but we can today. ASUS Ares looks to live up to its God-given name as we see how the card plows through Futuremark’s 3DMark Vantage suite.
We have some early benchmarks from an ASUS Ares CrossFireX setup where two of these cards have been connected. Together with Intel’s hexa-core Core i7 980X CPU the result is very impressive, especially considering the cards are running at stock frequencies (850/1200) and the processor is only overclocked on air.
System specifications:
- Intel Core i7 980X @ 4,5GHz (air cooled)
- ASUS Rampage III Extreme
- 2 x ASUS Ares Radeon HD 5970 4GB
- Corsair Dominator GTX2 Triple channel
- 2 x Corsair TX950 950W
With these prerequisites ASUS Ares manages a Vantage score of X27321, which would be fifth overall on Futuremark’s ORB.
First tests with ASUS Ares CrossFireX
This is with an air-cooled system where the graphics cards aren’t even overclocked, which makes us wonder what they can do with some liquid nitrogen action.
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ASUS Ares is really something out of the ordinary, but with limited supply and sky-high price few will get the chance to play with one, but we hope to do so in a not too distant future.
