Remember the graphics monstrosity from ASUS that we mentioned at the tail end of last month? Known back then as the ASUS MARS 295 Limited Edition, the graphics oddity squeezes a pair of GeForce GTX 285 PCBs side-by-side in a single enclosure to create a graphics card that's effectively quicker than Usain Bolt.
It's immensely impressive, and benchmarks begin to quiver when two are put together for some quad-SLI action.
The theoretical performance can't be denied, but perhaps the best summary of the card came from HEXUS.community member Format who in no uncertain words said "Bloody hell. I wonder how much that will cost? £650 at launch?"
A logical guess, considering that a single 2GB GeForce GTX 285 can be had for around £330, but we're afraid you're a little off the mark. The card, now known simply as the ASUS ROG MARS and given the model number MARS/2DI/4GD3, is available to pre-order from SCAN.co.uk for a tidy sum of £1,030.98.
We're talking a whole lot of money, but then again, this is NVIDIA's fastest single-GPU, doubled, and connected invisibly via internal SLI. ASUS is said to be producing only 1000 of them, and they'll each provide the following:
- Two 55nm GPUs clocked at 648MHz each
- A total of 480 stream processors, clocked at 1,476MHz
- 4,096MB of GDDR3 memory, clocked at an effective 2,484MHz and accessed via dual 512-bit interfaces
- 2,125 peak GFLOPS
- A peak fillrate of 41.47 Gpixel/s
- Bragging rights until the next big thing comes along
Any takers?
