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

Name: Test System And Benchmarks - Asus Mars 760 Review: Two GPUs In SLI; One $650 Graphics Card
Author: Don Woligroski

by Don Woligroski January 31, 2014 at 1:00 AM

55 Comments

Test System And Benchmarks

Again, I didn't have access to any of Chris' GeForce GTX 780 Tis, so I tuned a GeForce GTX Titan to approximate its performance in our benchmarks. With a 384-bit memory interface, the Titan offers the same amount of bandwidth as the 780 Ti with matching clock rates. Where you'd notice a difference is overrunning the 780 Ti's 3 GB of memory. The GPU overclock is trickier since the Titan's GK110 has one of its SMX partitions disabled. I tried to compensate with an approximate clock rate increase. At any rate, the match-up isn't exact, but it's close.

Otherwise, I have a GeForce GTX 690, a Radeon R9 290X, a Radeon HD 7990, and two Radeon HD 7950 Boost cards in CrossFire to show a broad range of competition for the Mars 760.

I'm generating two sets of benchmarks. In the first one, I have a single QHD panel with a native 2560x1440 resolution. The second set employs three FHD screens at 5760x1080.

		Test System
CPU		Intel Core i5-2550K (Sandy Bridge), Overclocked to 4.2 GHz @ 1.3 V
Motherboard		Asus P8Z77-V LX. LGA 1155, Chipset: Intel Z77M
Networking	On-Board Gigabit LAN controller
Memory	Corsair Performance Memory, 4 x 4 GB, 1866 MT/s, CL 9-9-9-24-1T
Graphics	Asus Mars 760 1006 MHz GPU, 2 x 2 GB GDDR5 at 1501 MHz (6004 MT/s) GeForce GTX Titan 837 MHz GPU, 6 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s) also tested at overclock to simulate GeForce GTX 780 Ti: to 994 MHz GPU, 6 GB GDDR5 at 1750 MHz (7000 MT/s) GeForce GTX 690 915 MHz GPU, 6 GB GDDR5 at 1502 MHz (6008 MT/s) XFX Radeon R9 290X 1000 MHz Peak GPU Clock, 4 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5000 MT/s) 2 x Radeon HD 7950 Boost in CrossFire 850 MHz GPU, 2 x 3 GB GDDR5 at 1250 MHz (5000 MT/s) XFX Radeon HD 7990 950 MHz GPU, 2 x 3 GB GDDR5 at 1500 MHz (6000 MT/s)
Hard Drive	Samsung 840 Pro, 256 GB SSD, SATA 6Gb/s
Power	XFX PRO850W, ATX12V, EPS12V
Software and Drivers
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 8 Pro x64
DirectX	DirectX 11
Graphics Drivers	AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.5, Nvidia GeForce 332.21 WHQL

We've almost completely eliminated mechanical storage in the lab, and instead lean on solid-state drives to alleviate I/O-related bottlenecks. Samsung sent all of our offices 256 GB 840 Pros, so we standardize on these exceptional SSDs.

Naturally, discrete graphics cards require a substantial amount of stable power, so XFX sent along its PRO850W 80 PLUS Bronze-certified power supply. This modular PSU employs a single +12 V rail rated for 70 A. XFX claims that this unit provides 850 W of continuous power (not peak) at 50 degrees Celsius (a higher temperature than you'll find inside most enclosures).

Benchmark Configuration
3D Games
Metro: Last Light	Version 1.0.0.14, Built-in Benchmark, FCAT
Grid 2	Version 1.8.85.8679, Built-in Benchmark Scene D6, FCAT
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag	Version 1.05, Custom THG Benchmark, 40-Sec, FCAT
Battlefield 4	Version 1.0.0.1, Custom THG Benchmark, 90-Sec. Fraps
BioShock Infinite	Version 1.1.24.21018, Built-in Benchmark, FCAT

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Summary

About the author

Don Woligroski

Asus
Gaming

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55 comments

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AMD Radeon

i would like to see dual GTX 780 Ti in one card
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.
Immaculate

Why an i5-2550K?
blackmagnum

Bring on the Kepler cards already.
vertexx

I'm not sure why you would even publish this review without a 780ti in the comparison.
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.
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.
Raheel Hasan

Too high price only $30 below 780ti, it should be around $550.
Adroid

I'm confused why the 780 and 770 aren't shown here - especially since the 780 is at the same price point.
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.
cleeve

1293856 said:

I'm not sure why you would even publish this review without a 780ti in the comparison.

That's why we included an OC'd titan to represent 780 Ti performance.

Read the article. The memory was clocked identical to 780 Ti, and the core overclock was even calculated to simulate it as closely as possible.

It's a valid representation. I see some of you don't agree and you certainly reserve the right to do that, but I'm quite satisfied with the results.
bloodroses75

At least it's under $1000... these video card companies lately seem to think that people are made out of gold.
cleeve

261161 said:

I'm confused why the 780 and 770 aren't shown here - especially since the 780 is at the same price point.

780 is not the same price point. The 780 Ti is, and we overclocked a Titan to simulate as per above.
Mousemonkey

749236 said:

Bring on the Kepler cards already.

Really?
Adroid

21257 said:

261161 said:

I'm confused why the 780 and 770 aren't shown here - especially since the 780 is at the same price point.

780 is not the same price point. The 780 Ti is, and we overclocked a Titan to simulate as per above.

Thanks, I stand corrected, and the 770, 780, and 780ti is what I would like to see compared to the Mars.

My qualm with using a Titan for comparison is 1) The titan costs $300 more than the 780ti, and 2) The titan is slower.

I usually read these type of articles from a perspective of "if I was going to purchase this Mars 760 or a comparitive other card at the $700 price point, what would I buy?"

So I wouldn't buy a Titan for 300$ more and overclock it to try to get 780ti performance out of it. I would want to see how a 780ti overclocked compares to an overclocked Mars 760 - then make a choice from that.

But, from strictly a performance consideration, I understand where you are coming from.

Those of us who don't get the Nvidia sample cards to play with have to consider the price/performance factor
cleeve

261161 said:

My qualm with using a Titan for comparison is 1) The titan costs $300 more than the 780ti, and 2) The titan is slower.

The point is, is overclocked to *match* the 780 Ti.

We tested it at stock, ***and then again overclocked to represent the 780 Ti***.

It goes over this in detail in the article. Check the test system page
tristangl

I dont understand how can 1 card with 2 GPU can cost more than 2 760It needs half the material... this shoul dbe selling for 450-500$
toddybody

Yawn...not a great value when SC GTX 780's are at USD 499.99. Now, the GTX 790 will be something drool worthy
Mousemonkey

302584 said:

I dont understand how can 1 card with 2 GPU can cost more than 2 760It needs half the material... this shoul dbe selling for 450-500$

You are paying for the complexities of sticking two GPU's and the SLi bridge on one card together with the larger HSF this requires, it shouldn't be that difficult to work that out surely?
tristangl

You are still using less material, and buying 2 core on 1 card... this should be lower than 2 cards IMO
Plus stability is always worst on dual GPU card

Not my thing
clonazepam

There's more R&D to make the PCB, the more advanced circuitry, the chip that bridges the two GPUs, custom cooler, power delivery... all that is done by Asus. For a couple 760s, all they do is use nvidia's reference design for the card, and the cooler may be reference or only a slight variation of something already gone through the design phase.It's just far more involved designing something like the MARS from the ground up.
Mousemonkey

302584 said:

You are still using less material, and buying 2 core on 1 card... this should be lower than 2 cards IMO Plus stability is always worst on dual GPU card Not my thing

So why don't I see you ranting about the 7990?
CaptainTom

Cool card. I wouldn't mind more double cards to add variety to the market...
Au_equus

but when you buy gpus >$500 you waste money by not OC'ing. IMHO, a side by side comparison to a gtx 780 ti not OC'd and OC'd would be more relevant to justify the dual gtx 760's price point. Yeah, you can OC a titan to match a 780 ti's performance, but then you're looking at higher power consumption than a stock 780ti and 6GB of vram as opposed to 3GB of the gtx 780 ti (FYI @3x 1080p ultra/2xmsaa BF4 saturates 3GB on my 2x780ti setup).