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ASUS ARES II review
Posted by: Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 01/28/2013 05:53 PM [ 42 comment(s) ]
We test and review the ASUS ARES II as single card and in Crossfire today. The ARES 2 is a dual-GPU Radeon HD 7970 graphics card. Fully customized with 3rd party Liquid cooling. We test the product one one and three monitors in Eyefinity with the hottest games like Battlefield 3, Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Hitman Absolution and many more. This product is based on two Tahiti XT2 GPUs, meaning that it’s clocked higher than one GHz with the ability to Boost the core clock frequency. ASUS unleashed a beast !
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ASUS ARES II Crossfire review
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Hilbert Hagedoorn
Administrator
Posts: 16979
Administrator
Posts: 16979
Posted on: 01/28/2013 06:37 PM
Finally a reply ! Gimme some love people, this was hard work, I need some sweet sweet LOViN!
Finally a reply ! Gimme some love people, this was hard work, I need some sweet sweet LOViN!
Plays LL cool J
yasamoka
Maha Guru
Posts: 969
Maha Guru
Posts: 969
Posted on: 01/28/2013 06:53 PM
Awesome review Hilbert! Was pretty fun to read.
@BLEH!: You do get similar (somewhat less) power consumption from two separate 7970s. Power design here is beefed up, ala 7970 Lightning.
You could see that in many cases, ARESII ~ 2x single 7970 performance. And since 690 ~2x 670/680, this goes once again to prove that CF 7970s > SLI 680s, even at 1080p, and especially @1600p.
Awesome review Hilbert! Was pretty fun to read.
@BLEH!: You do get similar (somewhat less) power consumption from two separate 7970s. Power design here is beefed up, ala 7970 Lightning.
You could see that in many cases, ARESII ~ 2x single 7970 performance. And since 690 ~2x 670/680, this goes once again to prove that CF 7970s > SLI 680s, even at 1080p, and especially @1600p.
warezme
Newbie
Posts: 24
Newbie
Posts: 24
Posted on: 01/28/2013 07:04 PM
Some cool stuff but if I were a serious buyer, my first question would be, how do you fit the cooling system of these two cards into a case? Aside from what is likely a short lived bragging period, I would be inclined to wait for the 8000 series.
Some cool stuff but if I were a serious buyer, my first question would be, how do you fit the cooling system of these two cards into a case? Aside from what is likely a short lived bragging period, I would be inclined to wait for the 8000 series.
BLEH!
Ancient Guru
Posts: 3006
Ancient Guru
Posts: 3006
Posted on: 01/28/2013 07:11 PM
Finally a reply ! Gimme some love people, this was hard work, I need some sweet sweet LOViN!
Best review I've read in a long time. Thanks boss!
@BLEH!: You do get similar (somewhat less) power consumption from two separate 7970s. Power design here is beefed up, ala 7970 Lightning.
You could see that in many cases, ARESII ~ 2x single 7970 performance. And since 690 ~2x 670/680, this goes once again to prove that CF 7970s > SLI 680s, even at 1080p, and especially @1600p.
I'm not sure how much power I draw TBH, I'm at stock volts for 1050 MHz (early reference cards), but I'm tempted to overvolt soon, see how far I can get. ASIC quality on my cards is mid 80s, whatever that equates to. CPU probably drinks as much as one 7970 does at the kinda clocks I run, I'm guessing about 800W for the whole system.
Some cool stuff but if I were a serious buyer, my first question would be, how do you fit the cooling system of these two cards into a case? Aside from what is likely a short lived bragging period, I would be inclined to wait for the 8000 series.
You'd need a case with 120 mm side fan mounts I guess, multiple ones, and be careful when taking the side off, either that or a custom case, which these things warrant.
Finally a reply ! Gimme some love people, this was hard work, I need some sweet sweet LOViN!
Plays LL cool J
Best review I've read in a long time. Thanks boss!
@BLEH!: You do get similar (somewhat less) power consumption from two separate 7970s. Power design here is beefed up, ala 7970 Lightning.
You could see that in many cases, ARESII ~ 2x single 7970 performance. And since 690 ~2x 670/680, this goes once again to prove that CF 7970s > SLI 680s, even at 1080p, and especially @1600p.
I'm not sure how much power I draw TBH, I'm at stock volts for 1050 MHz (early reference cards), but I'm tempted to overvolt soon, see how far I can get. ASIC quality on my cards is mid 80s, whatever that equates to. CPU probably drinks as much as one 7970 does at the kinda clocks I run, I'm guessing about 800W for the whole system.
Some cool stuff but if I were a serious buyer, my first question would be, how do you fit the cooling system of these two cards into a case? Aside from what is likely a short lived bragging period, I would be inclined to wait for the 8000 series.
You'd need a case with 120 mm side fan mounts I guess, multiple ones, and be careful when taking the side off, either that or a custom case, which these things warrant.
yasamoka
Maha Guru
Posts: 969
Maha Guru
Posts: 969
Posted on: 01/28/2013 07:28 PM
I'm not sure how much power I draw TBH, I'm at stock volts for 1050 MHz (early reference cards), but I'm tempted to overvolt soon, see how far I can get. ASIC quality on my cards is mid 80s, whatever that equates to. CPU probably drinks as much as one 7970 does at the kinda clocks I run, I'm guessing about 800W for the whole system.
Mid 80s means you'd hit your OC limits even on air cooling, but you'd get higher clocks for lower voltages. You would find that your card would probably hit a wall long before you reach high voltages like 1.25-1.3V. I'd guess 1.2V is the max voltage that will get you a reasonable clockspeed bump until you hit that wall.
As an example, my friend has a 7950 @90% ASIC. He reached 994MHz stable @stock volts (0.993V). I borrowed it and was able to reach 1000MHz@1000mV, 1050MHz@1050mV, then finally 1100MHz@1100mV. Not even 1200mV could get the card stable at 1125MHz. So this is what I mean by a wall.
I'm not sure how much power I draw TBH, I'm at stock volts for 1050 MHz (early reference cards), but I'm tempted to overvolt soon, see how far I can get. ASIC quality on my cards is mid 80s, whatever that equates to. CPU probably drinks as much as one 7970 does at the kinda clocks I run, I'm guessing about 800W for the whole system.
Mid 80s means you'd hit your OC limits even on air cooling, but you'd get higher clocks for lower voltages. You would find that your card would probably hit a wall long before you reach high voltages like 1.25-1.3V. I'd guess 1.2V is the max voltage that will get you a reasonable clockspeed bump until you hit that wall.
As an example, my friend has a 7950 @90% ASIC. He reached 994MHz stable @stock volts (0.993V). I borrowed it and was able to reach 1000MHz@1000mV, 1050MHz@1050mV, then finally 1100MHz@1100mV. Not even 1200mV could get the card stable at 1125MHz. So this is what I mean by a wall.
Ryu5uzaku
Ancient Guru
Posts: 3200
Ancient Guru
Posts: 3200
Posted on: 01/28/2013 07:40 PM
What a beast totally the king of the hill this card haha
Nice review was some really good stuff this
GJ Hilbert.
What a beast totally the king of the hill this card haha
Nice review was some really good stuff this
GJ Hilbert.
Texter
Maha Guru
Posts: 2147
Maha Guru
Posts: 2147
Posted on: 01/28/2013 07:41 PM
Wow it's getting close to those 1.21 Jiggowatts there...
Wow it's getting close to those 1.21 Jiggowatts there...
PNeV
Maha Guru
Posts: 1397
Maha Guru
Posts: 1397
Posted on: 01/28/2013 07:51 PM
In some cases it really pulls ahead in the Multi GPU games, and in others it runs not too far away from a single 7970GHZ, interesting...
In some cases it really pulls ahead in the Multi GPU games, and in others it runs not too far away from a single 7970GHZ, interesting...
Reddoguk
Master Guru
Posts: 392
Master Guru
Posts: 392
Posted on: 01/28/2013 08:03 PM
As always a nice unbiased review of an amazing product(even an Nvidia fanboy is drooling).
Now where did i put that lotto ticket............
As always a nice unbiased review of an amazing product(even an Nvidia fanboy is drooling).
Now where did i put that lotto ticket............
Taint3dBulge
Maha Guru
Posts: 871
Maha Guru
Posts: 871
Posted on: 01/28/2013 08:16 PM
Great review, but I have to say some of the results of somewhat skewed, with the CPU bottlenecks and all.. I guess just a question is to when the 965 is going to get retired.. Like i should talk since i have a cpu just as old. So I just thought i would put it out there. Kinda wonder how that thing would run with a 3770k oced to 5gzh
Since the people that would buy these things would be running something like that.
non the less thanks for your hard work and all you do man.
Great review, but I have to say some of the results of somewhat skewed, with the CPU bottlenecks and all.. I guess just a question is to when the 965 is going to get retired.. Like i should talk since i have a cpu just as old. So I just thought i would put it out there. Kinda wonder how that thing would run with a 3770k oced to 5gzh
Since the people that would buy these things would be running something like that.
non the less thanks for your hard work and all you do man.
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Administrator
Posts: 16979
Administrator
Posts: 16979
Posted on: 01/28/2013 08:39 PM
With the older games you'd be right. However it was explained many times before already, all current Core i7 Generation use the Nehalem base architecture, if you clock them all them all the same they will perform roughly the same. The biggest perf differences with Sandy and Ivy bridge have been thanks to the binned Turbo modes.
Now we use overclocked Core i7 965 Extreme CPUs, I've demonstrated in the past already that they perform roughly similar to Core i7 2600 and Core i7 3770. Now agreed a 3770K overclocked at 4600+ MHz could make a bit of a difference in FPS up-to 1920x1200, but nothing massive or extremely significant.
Next to that you will have noticed that we updated our test suite with new and thus GPU stringent games. All facts combined, CPU changes just wouldn't make a lot of difference unless you stay at lower resolutions or are very 3DMark savvy, which calculates a CPU score and uses that CPU score into the overall P score.
With the older games you'd be right. However it was explained many times before already, all current Core i7 Generation use the Nehalem base architecture, if you clock them all them all the same they will perform roughly the same. The biggest perf differences with Sandy and Ivy bridge have been thanks to the binned Turbo modes.
Now we use overclocked Core i7 965 Extreme CPUs, I've demonstrated in the past already that they perform roughly similar to Core i7 2600 and Core i7 3770. Now agreed a 3770K overclocked at 4600+ MHz could make a bit of a difference in FPS up-to 1920x1200, but nothing massive or extremely significant.
Next to that you will have noticed that we updated our test suite with new and thus GPU stringent games. All facts combined, CPU changes just wouldn't make a lot of difference unless you stay at lower resolutions or are very 3DMark savvy, which calculates a CPU score and uses that CPU score into the overall P score.
Taint3dBulge
Maha Guru
Posts: 871
Maha Guru
Posts: 871
Posted on: 01/28/2013 08:49 PM
With the older games you'd be right. However it was explained many times before already, all current Core i7 Generation use the Nehalem base architecture, if you clock them all them all the same they will perform roughly the same. The biggest perf differences with Sandy and Ivy bridge have been thanks to the binned Turbo modes.
Now we use overclocked Core i7 965 Extreme CPUs, I've demonstrated in the past already that they perform roughly similar to Core i7 2600 and Core i7 3770. Now agreed a 3770K overclocked at 4600+ MHz could make a bit of a difference in FPS up-to 1920x1200, but nothing massive or extremely significant.
Next to that you will have noticed that we updated our test suite with new and thus GPU stringent games. All facts combined, CPU changes just wouldn't make a lot of difference unless you stay at lower resolutions or are very 3DMark savvy, which calculates a CPU score and uses that CPU score into the overall P score.
Ah yes, i remember when you did that article.. Just thought Id mention it though.. So will Haswell have any benefits to cpu bottelnecking like that?
With the older games you'd be right. However it was explained many times before already, all current Core i7 Generation use the Nehalem base architecture, if you clock them all them all the same they will perform roughly the same. The biggest perf differences with Sandy and Ivy bridge have been thanks to the binned Turbo modes.
Now we use overclocked Core i7 965 Extreme CPUs, I've demonstrated in the past already that they perform roughly similar to Core i7 2600 and Core i7 3770. Now agreed a 3770K overclocked at 4600+ MHz could make a bit of a difference in FPS up-to 1920x1200, but nothing massive or extremely significant.
Next to that you will have noticed that we updated our test suite with new and thus GPU stringent games. All facts combined, CPU changes just wouldn't make a lot of difference unless you stay at lower resolutions or are very 3DMark savvy, which calculates a CPU score and uses that CPU score into the overall P score.
Ah yes, i remember when you did that article.. Just thought Id mention it though.. So will Haswell have any benefits to cpu bottelnecking like that?
Denial
Ancient Guru
Posts: 6350
Ancient Guru
Posts: 6350
Posted on: 01/28/2013 09:02 PM
Haswell is once again focusing mainly on integrated GPU performance and power savings through some of the voltage regulators being integrated onto the CPU. You'll probably see some general performance gains but limited to the 10-15% we've been seeing from Nehalem on. And those gains generally don't translate over to the same percentages when running at extremely high resolutions, like Hilbert stated.
I also kinda think that with the eventual move towards 4K displays on the PC it's going to set things back more onto the GPU. Right now even clocking my 3770K at 4.5 barely shows gains in anything on my 690 @ 1920x1200. Put the 690 at 4K and even those gains evaporate, with the exception of maybe some very intense CPU areas or titles.
Ah yes, i remember when you did that article.. Just thought Id mention it though.. So will Haswell have any benefits to cpu bottelnecking like that?
Haswell is once again focusing mainly on integrated GPU performance and power savings through some of the voltage regulators being integrated onto the CPU. You'll probably see some general performance gains but limited to the 10-15% we've been seeing from Nehalem on. And those gains generally don't translate over to the same percentages when running at extremely high resolutions, like Hilbert stated.
I also kinda think that with the eventual move towards 4K displays on the PC it's going to set things back more onto the GPU. Right now even clocking my 3770K at 4.5 barely shows gains in anything on my 690 @ 1920x1200. Put the 690 at 4K and even those gains evaporate, with the exception of maybe some very intense CPU areas or titles.
swISS
Master Guru
Posts: 370
Master Guru
Posts: 370
Posted on: 01/28/2013 09:07 PM
That is pretty ****ing awesome. I cant wait to see the MARS version..
That is pretty ****ing awesome. I cant wait to see the MARS version..
zer0_c0ol
Maha Guru
Posts: 1843
Maha Guru
Posts: 1843
Posted on: 01/28/2013 09:28 PM
hardware of the year...purely for the build
damn asus the things u make
hardware of the year...purely for the build
damn asus the things u make
PhazeDelta1
Ancient Guru
Posts: 9338
Ancient Guru
Posts: 9338
Posted on: 01/28/2013 09:31 PM
Awesome review.
Awesome review.
hallryu
Posts: 10846
Posts: 10846
Posted on: 01/28/2013 09:34 PM
The looks just don't do it for me but it is a beast, pure and simple.
The looks just don't do it for me but it is a beast, pure and simple.
StewieTech
Chuck Norris
Posts: 656
Chuck Norris
Posts: 656
Posted on: 01/28/2013 09:38 PM
I want three! Oh...
What a monster.
I want three! Oh...
What a monster.
Fox2232
Master Guru
Posts: 369
Master Guru
Posts: 369
Posted on: 01/28/2013 10:05 PM
Two of them are just starting to show Teeth at 3x 1080p displays.
I would like to see results and comparison for 3x 1600p displays or 6x 1080p which would be 12.288M and 12.4416M pixels.
And I would like to see AvP 2010 Benchmark, since that game do not get CPU bottlenecked even on lowly i3's.
btw. totally delicious with exception of Power Draw.
Two of them are just starting to show Teeth at 3x 1080p displays.
I would like to see results and comparison for 3x 1600p displays or 6x 1080p which would be 12.288M and 12.4416M pixels.
And I would like to see AvP 2010 Benchmark, since that game do not get CPU bottlenecked even on lowly i3's.
btw. totally delicious with exception of Power Draw.
Koniakki
Master Guru
Posts: 685
Master Guru
Posts: 685
Posted on: 01/29/2013 12:13 AM
OK boys.. Spill it.. Who's getting the card?
Send me your address and I will come and celebrate with you...
P.S: Hilbert, you have done it again! For once again, you have provided me with about +/-20min of unadulterated reading pleasure.. If I could I would shake your hand and give you a big hug. You deserve some love for this!
We appreciate your hard work. Thank you!
OK boys.. Spill it.. Who's getting the card?
Send me your address and I will come and celebrate with you... P.S: Hilbert, you have done it again! For once again, you have provided me with about +/-20min of unadulterated reading pleasure.. If I could I would shake your hand and give you a big hug. You deserve some love for this!
We appreciate your hard work. Thank you!
Uncle Dude
Maha Guru
Posts: 2080
Maha Guru
Posts: 2080
Posted on: 01/29/2013 12:31 AM
There is very limited availability and these are custom made, only a thousand pieces!
The very next sentence was omitted in an effort to quell the jealous rage of a thousand gurus:
And this is why I have to make do with only two.
Good stuff, Hilbert.
There is very limited availability and these are custom made, only a thousand pieces!
The very next sentence was omitted in an effort to quell the jealous rage of a thousand gurus:
And this is why I have to make do with only two.
Good stuff, Hilbert.
NAMEk
Master Guru
Posts: 183
Master Guru
Posts: 183
Posted on: 01/29/2013 12:59 AM
Awesome review.
Awesome review.
Illnino
Master Guru
Posts: 412
Master Guru
Posts: 412
Posted on: 01/29/2013 01:20 AM
Not bad at all, temps are crazy for a single 120mm rad quite decent, not sure id fork out for it though this close to a refresh of GCN. Although for just having 1/1000 id have one.
Not bad at all, temps are crazy for a single 120mm rad quite decent, not sure id fork out for it though this close to a refresh of GCN. Although for just having 1/1000 id have one.
The Postman
Maha Guru
Posts: 1461
Maha Guru
Posts: 1461
Posted on: 01/29/2013 02:59 AM
Awesome review !! Thank you boss !!
Awesome review !! Thank you boss !!
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Ancient Guru
Posts: 3006
Hilbert you crazy, crazy, totally awesome man!
What a review. Good to see something destroying the 690 at last, even if it will melt your electricity meter with it's enormous power draw.