ASUS ROG GeForce GTX 760 MARS review - Introduction

ASUS GeForce GTX 760 MARS - Armed with mid-range Dual GPUs 

We review, test and benchmark the new GeForce GTX 760 MARS from ASUS. Now you'd think this is a beefed up GTX 760, but the secret sauce really is that it has two 760 GPUs. Yup, the ASUS GeForce GTX 760 MARS has been locked and loaded with two GPUs on a single PCB. That also means a customized PCB and an all new cooler. We have lots to talk about and to show of course, as we'll check the card out with our regular benchmarks, Ultra HD testing, FLIR thermal imaging and a handful of FCAT frametime results as well. Bring it on - Game on !

We've seen the original brutal Mars, the exemplary ARES series but the ROG team from ASUS is at it again with the all new GTX 760 Mars, yep that's right. The x-factor products makes it prodigal son return to manage a little bump and grinding in the gaming arena. But yeah, ASUS took the GeForce GTX 690 concept and pretty much only took two GeForce GTX 760 GPUs, ASUS merged these onto a single PCB and each of them GPUs is tick-tocking away at 1006 MHz while boosting towards 1072 MHz, making the Mars perform at GeForce GTX 780 Ti and Radeon R9 290X performance levels. You are going to notice that ASUS decided to not spare any expense here, the GTX 760 Mars has a very sturdy metal shroud with two 90mm fans, and a metal back plate covers the entire rear. All that power comes at another cost though, the Mars II is a bit wider than usual, in addition to taking up two, actually almost three slots. Its dimensions are considerable. You'll need a beefy power supply as well as not one, but two 8-pin PCIe power connectors are required.

The maximum allowed board design power slash draw is 300 Watt. The GPUs are being fed by a 10-phase power system (Digi+VRM), and the memory has 2 phases, making for a total of 12-phases on a single PCB. To help cool this beast the card has a new model eight heatpipes based DirectCU II cooler with a pulsating MARS LED light sitting on the top of the card.

Interesting stuff eh ? Alright, here is a tasty photo first, and then lets startup this review.