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

[tristangl]

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.

Make sense yeah

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?

I am not an AMD fanboy... I own a 660ti and I would never buy a 7990 either

Just saying I prefer a 2cards setup for less over a dual GPU one and pay more for it... I dont know who would buy this setup over a 780ti or 2*760. Is there really a niche for those kind of cards?

And stability has always been an issue on dual GPU card

The only way I could see myself considering this setup, is if the price was lower than 2 of those cards

 

[Mousemonkey]

I am not an AMD fanboy... I own a 660ti and I would never buy a 7990 either

I never said you were.

Just saying I prefer a 2cards setup for less over a dual GPU one and pay more for it... I dont know who would buy this setup over a 780ti or 2*760. Is there really a niche for those kind of cards?

And stability has always been an issue on dual GPU card

The only way I could see myself considering this setup, is if the price was lower than 2 of those cards

Anyone who really knows me would know how I feel about dual GPU cards. :lol:

 

[blacklex]

"i would like to see dual GTX 780 Ti in one card" Not gonna happen, sorry buddy

 

[Xavier Corraya]

A good card for Multi-monitor setup, right?

 

[festerovic]

I can't figure out why this card exists.

 

[Adroid]

I can't figure out why this card exists.

Looks to me its for people who are either infatuated with chocolate or from a neighboring planet.

 

[vmem]

my general problem with ASUS ROG GPUs is this:While innovative and interesting, they almost always take too long to develop and tend to be 'overpriced' by the time the product is launched. not to mention they're often surpassed by new GPU launching shortly after one of these hits market. I get that innovative and cool products take time to make and perfect, but the current timeline just does not work for ROG

 

[maddogfargo]

I got my Radeon HD 7950's with the new Boost BIOS 900(1000)/1250 on sale for $299 each. One of the rare times I could buy something while the price was low. Been very happy with them.This dual 760 card is a beast too. Nicely done, Asus.

 

[damianrobertjones]

This is all getting a bit sad! PLEASE, people, try not to fall for the sparkly marketing and colouring of the latest little item. I've 2x670 in SLI and, although I would like to change, when I look at the fps charts for the cards above the 670 I have a REALLY hard time justifying the change. Each new release basically pushes the frames per second by a stupidly small margin.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

cant see a single person buying this card for any reason, unless they are ill informed. better single gpu is always going to get a vote above this.

 

[Deuce65]

What a worthless article. The only single GPU card that it is comparable to is the 780ti, which you didn't do. Yea sure you guess, but wtf *WE* can guess, the point of a hardware review is to actually take the hardware and test it!And of course you missed the obvious comparison. How does it rate against two 760s in sli, since this is basically the same thing but 150 dollars more? Thats the most important comparison to make since anyone buying this card would also be considering two 760s. I would guess there would be no difference worth 150 dollars more since they are basically the same thing but again, the point of a hardware review is to actually review not guess! What happened, did ASUS tell you not to match it up against two 760s? Or was that just implied when they gave you the hardware?

 

[Raheel Hasan]

lol 7950

 

[InvalidError]

How much less material?

You still need to scale up the VRM to twice the total combined output that a single GPU would require, you still need to double the power decoupling capacitor count since each GPU and GDDR chip requires its own local power decoupling, with twice as much power going around the board, you need twice as many power/ground planes or planes twice as thick which means a much more expensive PCB, cramming all that extra stuff on a single standard-size PCB may require additional signal layers, etc. So the material cost does not really go down that much since you are basically cramming two boards' BoM on a single more expensive PCB.

Also, dual-GPU boards usually have a PLX or other PCIe switch chip to share the PCIe bus between GPUs - this would be required to enable crossfiring a pair of these since the card would need to be able to work with only one x8 interface for both GPUs. The PLX or equivalent chip in 48x PCIe 3.0 configuration (configured as x16 host interface + 2x x16 GPU interfaces) adds ~$80 to the BoM.Another problem is R&D costs amortization: the dual-760 is probably not going to sell anywhere near the volume single-760 boards will so Asus has to recover their R&D costs across that many fewer units.

I'm sure there are more reasons why prices do not scale the way you expected them to but the PLX or equivalent chip alone easily blows any costs savings from cramming two PCBs into one if the more complex PCB was not already enough to accomplish that.

Edit: added paragraphs breaks back in since the non-forum comment box dumbly strips them on post. I wish THG would kill off the broken comment preview/post page and simply use the normal forum for article comments.

 

[marc79]

It looks cool.

 

[SessouXFX]

I wonder how four of these would perform in SLi, if that's even possible...?

 

[Adroid]

I wonder how four of these would perform in SLi, if that's even possible...?

Yes, if you want to waste 650$ x 2

 

[Deuce65]

How much less material?

You still need to scale up the VRM to twice the total combined output that a single GPU would require, you still need to double the power decoupling capacitor count since each GPU and GDDR chip requires its own local power decoupling, with twice as much power going around the board, you need twice as many power/ground planes or planes twice as thick which means a much more expensive PCB, cramming all that extra stuff on a single standard-size PCB may require additional signal layers, etc. So the material cost does not really go down that much since you are basically cramming two boards' BoM on a single more expensive PCB.

Also, dual-GPU boards usually have a PLX or other PCIe switch chip to share the PCIe bus between GPUs - this would be required to enable crossfiring a pair of these since the card would need to be able to work with only one x8 interface for both GPUs. The PLX or equivalent chip in 48x PCIe 3.0 configuration (configured as x16 host interface + 2x x16 GPU interfaces) adds ~$80 to the BoM.Another problem is R&D costs amortization: the dual-760 is probably not going to sell anywhere near the volume single-760 boards will so Asus has to recover their R&D costs across that many fewer units.

I'm sure there are more reasons why prices do not scale the way you expected them to but the PLX or equivalent chip alone easily blows any costs savings from cramming two PCBs into one if the more complex PCB was not already enough to accomplish that.

Edit: added paragraphs breaks back in since the non-forum comment box dumbly strips them on post. I wish THG would kill off the broken comment preview/post page and simply use the normal forum for article comments.

I wonder how four of these would perform in SLi, if that's even possible...?

They already are in SLI. So two would be the max.

 

[Toa]

Can this graphics card fit on a Maximus VI Hero motherboard?

 

[Mousemonkey]

Can this graphics card fit on a Maximus VI Hero motherboard?

Sure, why wouldn't it?

 

[wtfxxxgp]

I have to agree with someone who said that you really should have included 2 GTX760's in an actual SLI configuration. There would really have been merit in that as theoretically, that should be the MOST DIRECT comparison of this solution (in o/clocked flavor in any event). Please tell us why you didn't include that as a comparison? I think this is slightly over-priced because of the competition and I agree with the author's conclusion that they may just have missed the bus - timing is almost everything in business, and had this been released a month to 6 weeks ago they would have sold out almost immediately. Now... maybe not as quickly. Still, it's an interesting card and a solid performer. Well done to Asus. I just hope that they didn't send the pick of the bunch but a pure reference card that anyone could go and buy. If every one of their cards is able to get close to your o/clock then it may just be worth a price tag of ~600 - not more than that though.

 

[jenniferrhicks]

m­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­y­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ n­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­i­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­g­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­h­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­b­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­o­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­r’­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­i­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­s­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­t­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­r­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­in-­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­law ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­makes ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­$76 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­hourly ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­on ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­the ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­computer. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­She ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­has ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­been ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­without ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­work ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­for ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­six ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­months ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­but ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­last ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­month ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­her ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­income ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­was ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­$14418 ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­just ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­working ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­on ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­the ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­computer ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­for ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­a ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­fe­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­w ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ho­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­urs. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­vi­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­sit ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­t­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­h­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­e ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­si­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­te­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­………….. ..www.J­­o­­­b­s­wo.C­­??

 

[Toa]

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm new to all this... But can you run 2 Mars 760s in SLI? To make a total of four GTX 760s?

 

[Adroid]

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm new to all this... But can you run 2 Mars 760s in SLI? To make a total of four GTX 760s?

Yes. You can quad-sli, in which dual 760s would qualify.

Two 780tis would be exponentially faster though.

 

[InvalidError]

Two 780tis would be exponentially faster though.

Exponentially? GPU processing power is one of those things that scale almost perfectly linearly with shader count provided there is no RAM, PCIe or driver bottleneck. The 780s may be significantly faster but not "exponentially" so.

 

[n00dl3]

I do not understand why all testers do comparisons in 1440p? Almost none of us in the gaming world play on 1440p. We all(95% of us) play on single 1920x 1080 monitors. This guide is less useful because I don't know how this card will run BF4 on a single 1080p monitor. time and time again I see bench markers make this error.