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

[cleeve]

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?

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

 

[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]

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]

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]

Bring on the Kepler cards already.

Really? :lol:

 

[Adroid]

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]

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]

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]

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).