ASUS ARES will be a graphics card extraordinaire. Even if the two Cypress GPUs, the custom PCB and 4 Gigabyte GDDR5 memory buffer is impressive by itself the cooler is what makes it really stand out. The pure weight of the cooler is striking. The card weighs nearly 3.5 kilo (7.8 lbs.) and the development of the cooler was actually the most time and resource consuming part of the making the card.
The cards we’ve seen pictured up until now have used an older cooler, but we now have exclusive pictures of the cooler that will be used by retail cards. Other pictures have been prototypes, even those shown by ASUS before Computex. This is the real deal and it has not been shown before.
The cooler covers the whole card and all heat emitting components are in direct contact with the cooler. The graphics circuits are covered by extra large copper heatsinks.
The fan is size large and measures 105mm and will according to ASUS’s own measurements offer 600% better airflow contra noise. In other words a lot more airflow and less noise than the reference cooler of Radeon HD 5970 (120 CFM at 37dB vs. 18 CFM and 44.5dB with HD 5970, ASUS’ numbers).
The fan blows air over the two copper blocks and the smaller heatsinks of the aluminum profile.The copper heatsink above is in direct contact with the power circuits to keep them cool.
The casing steers the airflow and provides aesthetics for those that care about these things.
The full cover design stretches on to the back of the card where we find a big sturdy aluminum plate.
Here too all heat emitting components, primarily the memory circuits, are in direct contact with the cooler.
The two beefy copper blocks each have four heatpipes and these are the heaviest objects of the collection. If we are to believe ASUS it improves the efficiency of the cooler.
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Price and launch date is still pending, but we will return when we know more.
