ASUS MARS II Review: GTX 580 SLI On One PCB
Our Summary and Conclusion
Performance Summary: Asus made summarizing the MARS II’s performance easy for us. The Asus MARS II is quite simply the fastest single graphics card we have ever tested, bar none. With the exception of Metro 2033 when run at 2560x1600, where the Radeon HD 6990 AUSUM (overclocked mode) finished less than 1 FPS ahead of the Asus MARS II, the MARS II finished ahead of every other card we tested in every benchmark. And in many cases the MARS II is upwards of 20% faster than its nearest competition.
Like Baby, the Asus MARS II Has Back
The Asus MARS II is a lot of things. It’s the fastest, single graphics card money can buy right now. It’s a limited edition product that’s going to cost a serious chunk of change, and it’s a physically imposing beast that uses a lot of power. From a technical standpoint, the Asus MARS II is arguably the most complex graphics card ever released and its specifications put it in a class all its own. The Asus MARS II is extreme in every sense of the word.
The Asus MARS II isn’t for everyone (obviously) though, and it's difficult to justify it's high price. The card’s physical dimensions and power requirements alone will also significantly limit its audience. Couple those factors with the MARS II’s $1499 price tag and you’ll get an idea as to why Asus is only making 999 of these babies. At that price the MARS II is about $750 more expensive than a GeForce GTX 590 and about $600-$660 more expensive than a pair of GeForce GTX 580 cards, which would offer nearly identical performance. Heck, three GTX 580s would be cheaper, use the same number of slot locations, and offer more performance.
If you’re the type of user that would consider the Asus MARS II, however, you probably don’t care about any of those things. If you’ve got the coin and want the fastest graphics card available—no matter the price—the Asus MARS II is it. It may not be a good value and it consumes more power than a truckload of netbooks, but the Asus MARS II is as hot as geek porn can get. Gigity.
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