Asus Mars 760 Review: Two GPUs In SLI; One $650 Graphics Card

Features
By Don Woligroski
published

We like the idea of two GK104 GPUs in SLI on one graphics card. Sounds like a GeForce GTX 690, right? Except that board costs $1000 and Asus' Mars 760 sells for $650. In a world with sub-$700 GeForce GTX 780 Tis, can this dual-GPU stunner still impress?

The Mars 760 Bundle And Software

Asus keeps its bundle modest; it includes a DVI-to-HDMI adapter, a dual-six-pin-to-eight-pin power adapter, and a folder with the driver CD and manual. As a fun little extra, the company throws in a metal ROG case badge, which looks nice.

Aside from the physical accessories, Asus includes its GPU Tweak and GPU Tweak Streaming apps. 

GPU Tweak Streaming doesn't actually have anything to do with altering the performance of your GPU. Rather, you can use the software with Adobe Media Encoder to stream your game play to services like Twitch.tv with overlaid pictures and text. That's in theory, though. The software is still in early beta form, and I couldn't get it working.

With this said, Nvidia's ShadowPlay feature works fine in conjunction with the Mars 760, and I'd prefer to use that anyway. ShadowPlay hooks in to Nvidia's NVEnc encoder, which offloads the processing-heavy compute workload.

GPU Tweak, on the other hand, is a more useful addition. Its interface is similar to MSI's Afterburner with just enough differences to throw off anyone already used to navigating the competition's app. Overall, Asus' implementation gets the job done, though we'd like to see the company expose memory voltage controls for the folks interested in dialing in the most aggressive overclock possible.

Don Woligroski
55 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AMD Radeon
    i would like to see dual GTX 780 Ti in one card
    Reply
  • vinhn
    @AMD Radeon, everyone would like to see it, not everyone would buy it, the market knows that, there's a reason why they would rather release the dual 760 rather than a 1600$ dual 780 Ti.
    Reply
  • Immaculate
    Why an i5-2550K?
    Reply
  • blackmagnum
    Bring on the Kepler cards already.
    Reply
  • vertexx
    I'm not sure why you would even publish this review without a 780ti in the comparison.
    Reply
  • Shneiky
    It was actually disappointing that there was no regular 760 SLI in there. It would have helped to see if the Asus's solution gives better results then regular 2 760s.
    Reply
  • bemused_fred
    Looking at the way that various card configurations bounce around in the charts, with the ranking of cards varying from page to page, the only thing I'm taking away from this article is not to bother with dual-GPU set-ups. It seems their performance is entirely decided by how well-optimised the games are for Nvidia or AMD, and not their actual specs.
    Reply
  • Raheel Hasan
    Too high price only $30 below 780ti, it should be around $550.
    Reply
  • Adroid
    I'm confused why the 780 and 770 aren't shown here - especially since the 780 is at the same price point.
    Reply
  • Au_equus
    without the gtx 780 ti, you are missing half the article, as ASUS, according to the price, was presenting this card as an alternative to the 780 ti at its price/performance. I stopped reading after the first BM.
    Reply