ASUS Mars GPU weds twin GeForce GTX 285s, might just melt your face

You into frame rates? No, we mean are you frickin' bonkers over watching your rig hit triple digits in a Crysis timedemo? If you're still nodding "yes," have a gander at what'll absolutely have to be your next buy. The ASUS Mars 295 Limited Edition is quite the unique beast, rocking a pair of GTX 285 chips that are viewed by Windows as a GeForce GTX 295. All told, you're looking at 240 shader processors, a 512-bit GDDR3 memory interface, 32 total memory chips and 4GB of RAM. Amazingly, the card is totally compatible with existing drivers and is Quad-SLI capable, and if all goes to plan, it'll actually peek its head out at Computex next week. Rest assured, we'll do everything we can to touch it.

[TT @ May 29th 2009 11:25AM]

Yeah, saw this a while back, pretty great that ASUS is doing this!

And to everyone else, yes, obviously it will play Crysis.
(Just for reference, 3 GTX285's will play Crysis 2560x1600 at 60FPS average)

[Sisyphus @ May 29th 2009 11:48AM]

I hoped that the introduction of these new GTX XXX cards would push down the price of the GTX 280 to bargain-basement levels, but I don't think enough of them were produced.

Hell, the "egg" doesn't even have my standard eVGA GTX 280 in stock!

*a tear.

[spoonman @ May 29th 2009 11:56AM]

@ Sisyphus

That's because it's a discontinued product; they replaced it with the GTX 285. You see, what happens when something is discontinued is that you can't buy it any more, it's kind of hard to buy something if manufacturer isn't even making them. They went way down in price a while back to clear the end of line stock, now wherever you are able to find them they are more expensive because the demand is greater than the supply (which is zero). It's the same with all old tech when it is no longer being manufactured - just look at the price of DDR memory compared to DDR2!

[Kamokazi @ May 29th 2009 1:02PM]

@Sisy

A REALLY good bargain right now are the GTX 260's (Core 216). I've seen those go as cheap as $160 after a rebate. Absolutely insane performance for the price.

And like the guy above me said, you aren't going to see 280's now since the 285 replaced them.

[Phred @ May 29th 2009 3:08PM]

But will it play Doom?

[Sisyphus @ May 29th 2009 3:21PM]

"You see, what happens when something is discontinued is that you can't buy it any more, it's kind of hard to buy something if manufacturer isn't even making them."

Thanks, dipstick.

I didn't know the item was discontinued. It hasn't been THAT long since they came out (at least it didn't feel that long considering how much it hurt when I swiped my credit card).

[Wwhat @ May 31st 2009 6:43AM]

Will it play the next crysis, crysis III I think it is by now?
The past is the bit we had already, next is the future.

[Loonie @ May 29th 2009 11:27AM]

Half graphics card, half VHS video cassette!

[Devin @ May 29th 2009 11:33AM]

Is that like an eight track?

[darkmax @ May 29th 2009 11:41AM]

i thought it looks just like a V6 engine with the plastic cover on.........

[hexydes @ May 29th 2009 11:41AM]

I was just going to post this, so apparently it does indeed share some physical similarities to our favorite legacy tape-based video distribution medium. :)

[Alrey @ May 29th 2009 12:47PM]

Only one visible reel, man.

That's Betamax.

[Hotrod @ May 29th 2009 12:57PM]

Haha, nice!

[nintendo fanboy hater @ May 29th 2009 11:28AM]

consider this face melted.

[TareX @ May 29th 2009 11:29AM]

So this is the card that will power my desktop this fall...

[TKWarrior @ May 29th 2009 11:33AM]

Thinking the same thing. Building my i7 rig late July / early august. Wonder if the current 295 water blocks will be compatible?

[Richard Berkin @ May 29th 2009 11:35AM]

Assuming you can get one of the 1000 units they produce.

[Hotrod @ May 29th 2009 1:03PM]

I thought the 3 series were going to be released soon?

[whowhatme @ May 29th 2009 11:36AM]

I do everything i can to touch things, too, but the doctors say that it's not healthy for me...

[Turd @ May 29th 2009 12:09PM]

Lol, wut?

[acme @ May 29th 2009 11:37AM]

that thing needs a kickstand or its gonna snap my pci-e

[richb93 @ May 29th 2009 12:47PM]

That's what the backplate is for. And a screw. And a screwdriver.

[Savonlinna @ May 29th 2009 11:39AM]

if nothing else, it'll make buyers' wallets melt in pure despair

[strider_mt2k @ May 29th 2009 11:41AM]

I'm gonna need a tissue here.

[Temmy @ May 29th 2009 12:07PM]

That's what she said.

[strider_mt2k @ May 29th 2009 1:27PM]

No it's not. ;)

[curtisrutland @ May 29th 2009 2:04PM]

Might be what he said, though.

[Brdystyls @ May 29th 2009 11:42AM]

Face melted. So can we say recession antidote?

[Prokanda @ May 29th 2009 2:06PM]

Sadly, you can, you sorry bastard.

[ultimatepwnage @ May 29th 2009 11:44AM]

4 of those in sli O.O.... what are you going to use all that power for? play crysis cod and gta iv at the same time?

[Wes @ May 29th 2009 11:47AM]

nope, true multi tasking. Crysis AND baking cookies.

[Ignatius @ May 29th 2009 12:03PM]

Baking cookies? You could clean your oven with four of these things under load.

[Freddie @ May 29th 2009 11:48AM]

GPUs are a tech that I just see little use in being on the cutting edge of....

[Dave @ May 29th 2009 1:38PM]

That's the convenience of this one... they put such a big cover on it, hence no cutting edges. You could, however, bludgeon the crap out of something with it... which is something that I'm not sure could be said about other GPUs.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ May 29th 2009 4:54PM]

Or anything computer-related, for that matter. I always buy one step down from cutting edge and pay half the cost for 98% the performance.

Except in video cards, where I don't care. My XBox 360 weeps because all I do with it most of the time is stream movies.

But, can't say the arms race in video cards isn't entertaining.

[XIYL @ May 29th 2009 11:04PM]

That's all my 360 did till it committed suicide (E74).

[spoonman @ May 29th 2009 11:49AM]

Only 512-bit memory interface compared to the GTX 295's 896-bit? Hmm, bottleneck much?

How much will this cost? Surely it's gotta be less than 2 single GTX 285's (can't be that hard, considering you can build a decent gaming rig for that cost). Otherwise it would just be pointless.

[MK @ May 29th 2009 12:48PM]

@spoonman

"Only 512-bit memory interface compared to the GTX 295's 896-bit? Hmm, bottleneck much?"

Fool, the 295 is 2x gtx260s which have an individual 448 bits per gpu. When added together make 896

Therefore, 1024 bits is the total memory of both gpus added up.

The key to this card is the 55nm manufacturing process, which cuts down on heat and power. Compared to the previous 65nm process they were able to drop to 183 watts(GTX 285), from 236 (GTX 280).

[spoonman @ May 29th 2009 12:54PM]

Yeah, I realised my mistake shortly after I posted it

*facepalm*

[Vince @ May 29th 2009 11:56AM]

These in Quad-SLI *faint*....

[Freddie @ May 29th 2009 11:57AM]

How many games utilize 4 GPUs right now?

[Vince @ May 29th 2009 12:02PM]

Isn't it 8 GPU's?

And I meant at the price...

[sip @ May 29th 2009 12:03PM]

@ freddie

all the games, all the time

[spoonman @ May 29th 2009 12:22PM]

@ Vince

No, Quad SLI = 4 GPUs = 2 GTX 295s. Quad SLI is the maximum possible number of GPUs supported by SLI (4), and is only possible using 2 dual GPU cards. You can use 3 single GPU cards in Tri-SLI, however.

So you either meant two of these cards in SLI (i.e. quad SLI), or you are mistaken in thinking that you are actually able to use 4 of these cards in SLI (8 GPUs).

[Richard @ May 29th 2009 12:25PM]

"How many games utilize 4 GPUs right now?"

That's not the point at all. This setup will make my wang HUGE.

[Vince @ May 29th 2009 12:28PM]

@ spoonman (great name XD)

but that asus mars has 2 GTX285's in each card, and so put four of them together, 4x2=8 GPU's
I know its 4 cards, but each one of those cards has 2 GPUs....

[Htr-Labs @ May 29th 2009 12:28PM]

Actually that technically isn't possible. Electrically the bandwidth is only 16x, therefore the bandwidth required to run a total of 4 of these cards making 8 GPUs would need to be doubled. Meaning you would need four 32x electrical slots which if I'm correct that standard (PCIe 3.0) will not be released until late 2012 at best. By then we will have GPUs that will easily do what 8 of today's GPUs can do. Not to mention you would need at least 1800w of PSU with not less than 32A per 12V rail, making this type of system only feasible with a Dual Socket Lynnhaven setup requiring not less than 24GB of memory and an SSD that could push beyond the 6 GB/s barrier. I can only imagine that this would even require a subset of Memory addressing for I/O mapping at the electrical level even on a 64-bit OS such as Windows Vienna or even System 8.

The point is....don't get your panties in a wad just yet, this will come eventually but you will never probably never see a system with 4 of these running, let alone even just 2 of them.

[Vince @ May 29th 2009 12:31PM]

*sigh*

I can dream....

[Forcewinder @ May 29th 2009 12:51PM]

you mean 8 GPUs?

[Kamokazi @ May 29th 2009 1:10PM]

@sip

That's not exactly accurate. Any game that supports SLI supports any number of GPUs that nVidia currently supports in SLI configuration.

The inaccuracy is that not all games support SLI. Most do, but there are some notable exceptions. And some games actually run *worse* with it enabled...a key example I can think of being Flight Sim X.