Awesome, Power Hungry,Dual 5870 Asus ARES

[busydude]

Source: LegitReview,PCper

First the packaging.

The card

Benches:

This is a limited edition card with a total of only 1000 cards available for sale.

Finally, the price: $1200

 

[SolMiester]

Nice card if you don't play Metro 2033, love the cover and carry case LOL!

 

[Kenmitch]

WTF? For $1200 they should at least give you a handcuff for the case

Kinda strange how it lagged it Metro tho....Maybe driver issue?

 

[Athadeus]

Metro probably had DoF or high tesselation on. I still think anybody with a 30" monitor should be able to budget for the vastly superior SLI 480 option.

edit: I decided it was too lazy to just guess when I could look. DoF off, tesselation on (no setting for different levels of it).

 

[Hauk]

Hungry? Take two. They're, em, small..
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/ARES_CrossFire/

Poor scaling, but who'd expect otherwise, they prolly laughed at the thought of optimizing drivers for this scenario. Massive overkill too.

 

[SolMiester]

Hungry? Take two. They're, em, small..
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/ARES_CrossFire/

Poor scaling, but who'd expect otherwise, they prolly laughed at the thought of optimizing drivers for this scenario. Massive overkill too.

Crazy scaling alright, shame they didnt include 5879 CF and 480 SLI...

 

[faxon]

if i were gonna get a setup like this, i dont think i would even bother with the card, considering its price/performance ratio. you can get 3 5870s for $1200 and get better performance, then if you want to overclock (like you no doubt would with the 5870x2 ARES), you drop on full cover blocks and water cool them. in the end you would either get significantly faster performance for the same price, or insanely faster performance for only a few hundred more. these cards definitely win the "more money than brains" award. the only way a card like this would make sense is if they tweaked the shit out of the board to allow for the types of 1GHz overclocks we see people getting on single 5870s, only on both GPUs, but even then you could get 2 5870s or 1 5970, and a water loop to cool em, for the same price if not less

ed: they need to do a comparison using a 2gb 5870 + ARES as well. if it shows a significant boost at the extreme graphics settings you would use with this setup over using a 1gb 5870 + ARES or a 5870 3x CF setup then it would be worth noting. it would of course also have an effect on pricing and my argument comparison points, since the 2gb 5870s start $100 more expensive than 1GB models

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I can't believe the number of power connectors on those cards. 2 8 pin connects and 1 6 pin connector. That is a monstrous amount of power for each card.

 

[Borealis7]

2400$ in video cards can finally play Crysis.

some benchmarks in the XFire review are CPU bottlenecked at 2560x1440!
those games should not be benched anymore for high end setups.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Metro probably had DoF or high tesselation on. I still think anybody with a 30" monitor should be able to budget for the vastly superior SLI 480 option.

edit: I decided it was too lazy to just guess when I could look. DoF off, tesselation on (no setting for different levels of it).

I guess if you like the limited edition thing it could make sense. But two 5870's cost hundreds less and should give you a nearly identical experience. Two 480's cost quite a bit less and should be faster by a decent amount. Cool card, but $1200 is crazy in my opinion.

 

[Skurge]

anyone think most of those games are CPU limited except for crysis

 

[TheUnk]

Metro probably had DoF or high tesselation on. I still think anybody with a 30" monitor should be able to budget for the vastly superior SLI 480 option.

edit: I decided it was too lazy to just guess when I could look. DoF off, tesselation on (no setting for different levels of it).

Because Metro 2033 runs better on Nvidia, it makes the 480 "vastly superior" ?

I guess if you only play Metro 2033, you may as well only consider the 480.

 

[Keysplayr]

Because Metro 2033 runs better on Nvidia, it makes the 480 "vastly superior" ?

I guess if you only play Metro 2033, you may as well only consider the 480.

I do believe he said GTX480 in SLI. And he probably meant across the board, not just Metro2033.

 

[Hauk]

For most here, the price/performance ratio is paramount. For this thing, 1000 units produced, 1000 units sold, regardless of the ratio. It's a showpiece as much as it is a working card. Throw in a locking briefcase and mouse?!? Hell yea.

Congrats Asus on this baby. It's not for everyone, but you knew that..

 

[3DVagabond]

anyone think most of those games are CPU limited except for crysis

That's what I saw as well. :thumbsup:

 

[Will Robinson]

Because Metro 2033 runs better on Nvidia, it makes the 480 "vastly superior" ?

I guess if you only play Metro 2033, you may as well only consider the 480.

Well,SLI GTX480 would have vastly superior power usage....800W+ I suppose...there's something^_^

 

[Keysplayr]

Well,SLI GTX480 would have vastly superior power usage....800W+ I suppose...there's something^_^

And performance. So I guess it goes hand in hand.

 

[v8envy]

$1200 will get you *3* 470s with money left over. Heck, it's close to 4 AR/abing 470s and 3 AR/abing 480s. Considering NV's scaling this card is... for people with far more money than sense, a desire to suffer from multi-GPU yet limited to a single PCIe slot.

In other words, the no-limit gaming SFF set, I guess.

 

[busydude]

I am not sure if anyone observed in the Pcper's review, but there is huge improvement in the minimum FPS when compared to a 5970, and sometimes 480.

I wonder what the reason might be?

 

[cbn]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1357/2/

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=953&type=expert&pid=2

I think this cooler is awesome, but why does ARES use so much more power than HD5970?

P.S. That heatsink on the back of the PCB is pretty neat too. I wonder how much difference it is making?

 

[cbn]

http://www.legitreviews.com/images/reviews/1357/ASUS_ARES-image_H.jpg

Speaking of airflow, ASUS designed the ARES to be easily taken apart. This is ideal for enthusiasts as you can easily clean out the cooling fins or change the heat sinks to another type if needed.

Change the heatsinks to another type if needed?

 

[manimal]

I still think anybody with a 30" monitor should be able to budget for the vastly superior SLI 480 option.

.

While having a 30 does make one need more power than most the above comment is far too generalized to have any merit. Most people that buy 30s know they will last them barring failure 5-10 years. How long will those 480s last you? Just because someone buys a luxury item does it mean they buy all of them?


OP wonder what the voltage on these cards is set at?

 

[Keysplayr]

While having a 30 does make one need more power than most the above comment is far too generalized to have any merit. Most people that buy 30s know they will last them barring failure 5-10 years. How long will those 480s last you? Just because someone buys a luxury item does it mean they buy all of them?


OP wonder what the voltage on these cards is set at?

This doesn't make any sense. This also applies to any monitor. Not just 30's. And people will still have SLI'd 480's on a 24" monitor. But if you're willing to shell out some serious coin for a 30" screen, I don't think a top end video solution is out of the question. Even if it is for 1 or two years until they replace it with then current models.

 

[busydude]

OP wonder what the voltage on these cards is set at?

Its 1.175v.

Here I was able to push the core speed up to 950 MHz without a single hiccup and I increased the GPU voltage from 1.175v to 1.25v to keep it nice and stable. You'll notice that even after playing some Metro 2033, the GPU temperatures were just over 50C (about 55C when I first exited the game) thanks to the airflow of the ARES card. Yes, it can get very loud if you want it to.

ASUS did demonstrate the card getting as high as 980 MHz with a bit higher voltages but due to limited time this is where we had stop our experimenting. More soon!
​

 

[manimal]

This doesn't make any sense. This also applies to any monitor. Not just 30's. And people will still have SLI'd 480's on a 24" monitor. But if you're willing to shell out some serious coin for a 30" screen, I don't think a top end video solution is out of the question. Even if it is for 1 or two years until they replace it with then current models.

Makes perfect sense. I paid 400 used for my 3007 and about 500 used for three 24s for my eyefinity setup. Your assumption made more sense three years ago when 30s were 2k. Now that they can be had for alot less than 1k used or refurb via ebay or other sources it makes less sense. One can get very respectable performance for 95 percent of the titles with xfire 5770s or Mid range SLI...
Way too many assumptions and generalizations on AT...