Asus' ROG Ares II: Four Dual-GPU Graphics Cards, Compared

Features
By Igor Wallossek
published

Earlier this year, Asus joined the extreme high-end graphics club with its own dual-Tahiti-based card, liquid-cooled and overclocked. You can't buy it anymore, but we got our hands on one and are adding it to our database of performance data.

Power Consumption

Power Consumption

And here's where pushing two power-hungry Tahiti GPUs as far as they'll go comes back to bite you. If our power consumption benchmarks were Star Wars, then Asus' Ares II is the evil Emperor. We're not sure if the company's engineers were paying attention to the PCI Express electromechanical specification or what. But the card goes well over the 525 W that one 16-lane slot and three eight-pin connectors are rated for. It comes close to doubling what a GeForce GTX 690 uses, and exceeds HIS' worst-case measurement by more than 50 W. 

Bear in mind that those are card-only numbers; they aren't representative of the entire system. While we'll acknowledge that Asus built-in some headroom for overclocking, and suggest that you can bring power consumption down a bit by undervolting the Ares' GPUs, these are the numbers you'll see out of the box. Brutal.

Igor Wallossek
63 Comments Comment from the forums
  • acasel
    nice video card.

    hope it doesnt cost a kidney :)
    Reply
  • Ceee9
    last picture on the last page seem..., i think it oversize
    Reply
  • JJ1217
    ermagherd gerfics cerd yey i r so herpy
    Reply
  • UltimateDeep
    I think you can get 2 690s or least 3 680s for the price of an ARES 2. The benchmarkers didn't evaluate Performance per watt, or Performance per dollar and the flipping size and length of each card which is the reason why I still stand by the GTX 690 in this article... For all these cards, all of that personally needs to be taken into consideration.

    I've nothing against the Dual 7970s but just want to let consumers be aware of the pros and cons especially the cards are not for the meek of wallet.
    Reply
  • killerchickens
    So about that FCAT ........... sigh
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    Wonder if Asus will re-release this card into the US market as the 7990.
    Reply
  • ASHISH65
    WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Reply
  • dkcomputer
    Classic statement whenever you talk about AMD - "If only the software were better" or "When the software catches up" - how about "If only this component would be relevant when the software its made for exists"
    Reply
  • PadaV4
    So is the fps for radeon dual cards already divided by 2 or must the reader do it by himself?
    Reply
  • ShadyHamster
    You can't buy it anymore, but we got our hands on one and are adding it to our database of performance data.

    If you live in Australia and have a spare $1900 you can still get your hands on one.
    Reply