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

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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?

Results: Assassin's Creed IV, 5760x1080

Assassin's Creed IV is a challenging game to run at 5760x1080 (even if it looks great). So, we turned off 2x MSAA in favor of post-process SMAA. We also disabled soft shadows.

Once we factor out dropped and runt frames using FCAT, the outcome looks a lot different than what we saw in Battlefield 4 using Fraps, doesn't it? Suddenly, the Radeon HD 7990 and twin Radeon HD 7950s are unplayable.

The rest of the high-end graphics nobility float around 30 to 45 FPS, delivering playable performance.

The GeForce GTX 690 surprises us with the icky frame time variance line. But Asus' Mars 760, which is what we're here to test, fares much better.

55 Comments Comment from the forums
  • AMD Radeon 31 January 2014 08:40
    i would like to see dual GTX 780 Ti in one card
    Reply
  • vinhn 31 January 2014 09:27
    @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 31 January 2014 09:30
    Why an i5-2550K?
    Reply
  • blackmagnum 31 January 2014 09:37
    Bring on the Kepler cards already.
    Reply
  • vertexx 31 January 2014 10:08
    I'm not sure why you would even publish this review without a 780ti in the comparison.
    Reply
  • Shneiky 31 January 2014 10:37
    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 31 January 2014 10:52
    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 31 January 2014 12:25
    Too high price only $30 below 780ti, it should be around $550.
    Reply
  • Adroid 31 January 2014 13:25
    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 31 January 2014 13:40
    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