Asus shows off mammoth dual GTX 285 graphics card4GB of RAM and Quad SLI compatibleBy Ben HardwidgeThursday, 28 May 2009, 16:27PROVING THAT it has never been a company to stick to toeing the tedious line of conformity with reference designs, Asus has just shown us a new monster graphics card that it calls the Mars. It features two GeForce GTX 285 GPUs in SLI configuration, and it also looks like it could double-up as a blunt weapon in Cluedo.In terms of design, it’s not dissimilar to a GeForce GTX 295. There are two PCBs sandwiched together inside one package, although each of these features 16 memory chips making for a total of 4GB of 1.2GHz (2.4GHz effective) GDDR3 memory. In short, this isn’t a card for anyone running a 32-bit operating system. Asus has also designed its own dual-slot cooler for the card, although it works in a similar way to the reference Nvidia GTX 295 cooler, with a single fan cooling both PCBs.Interestingly, Asus has decided to spurn Nvidia’s own nForce 200 bridge chip to enable the two PCBs to talk to each other in SLI mode, and has instead used an anonymous third-party chip. One of the interesting innovations here is that, despite the new design, the card will still work with standard Nvidia drivers. The card will be recognised as a GeForce GTX 295, but will still be able to access the features of the GTX 285 GPUs.As a point of comparison, the GTX 285 GPU has the same tally of 240 stream processors as the GTX 295, but it also has much higher clock speeds, which should make the Mars significantly quicker. The Mars’ core is clocked at 648MHz, with 1,476MHz stream processors, compared with 576MHz core and 1,242MHz stream processors in a standard GTX 295.As well as this, the GeForce GXT 285 has a wider 512-bit memory interface, compared with the 448-bit interface on the GTX 295 GPUs. Plus, the GTX 285 has 32 render outputs (ROPs), compared with 28 on the GTX 295 GPUs.Despite these differences, though, the compatibility with standard Nvidia drivers means that the card can be set up in Quad SLI configuration with a second Mars card. In fact, to demonstrate the point, Asus sent us this photo of two cards running in Quad SLI mode on a pretty extreme looking test rig in their lab.Asus couldn’t confirm whether the Mars is going to reach retailers, or how much it might cost, although the “Limited Edition 1/1000” badge on the top corner leads us to believe that the card will at least make it out in a limited run. Plus, Asus also told us that the colour scheme for the card was decided last month, so it looks as though some serious design decisions are being made.If you want to see the card in more detail, Techpowerup has also published some under-the-hood shots of the Mars today. µ
only $699.99
Asus graphics reach QuadHDComputex 09 High-end video resolutionBy Nebojsa NovakovicMonday, 8 June 2009, 01:42HOW TO SELL the highest end - and correspondingly highest price - graphics cards in today's market?Well, antialiasing, textures and effects might not be enough to justify spending the extra dosh. How about the real thing, many more pixels to load those GPUs further? After all, much higher resolution not only enables you to watch the upcoming "beyond HD" video content, but also better fonts in your documents, larger spreadsheets and multiple web pages open at the same time.So the Asus graphics girl, Michelle Chen, put together a lovely display where twin Asus Mars dual-GTX285 cards - yes, the grand total of quad-SLI GTX285, a four GPU combo in two slots - drove a biiiig 56-inch ChiMei 3840x2160, 16:9 aspect ratio QuadHD display. The eight megapixel (or as Jen-Hsun at Nvidia would call it, XHD2) resolution is still a bit less than the six-year old 22-inch IBM T221 3840x2400 16:10 Golden Ratio monitor, which is ideal for any kind of usage, but it's a big step forward, especially as games can now make more use of such high resolutions.As you can see, it's a perfect graphics and monitor match. With MARS, Asus managed to do its own version of a "beyond GTX295" dual GPU card. It has two full-speed GTX285 cards per slot, a total of 2GB RAM, a full complement of 240 shaders and 512-bit buses per GPU. (I also hope it gets the 670MHz GPU OC speed factory preset.) Asus matched the dual MARS setup with a good monitor able to actually use the twin dual-GPU quad-SLI setup to the fullest.If you're not in the mood to spend thousands for the whole outfit, dual ROG Matrix GTX285 OC cards can provide much of the same pleasure at lower cost.Now, I wouldn't mind a 26-inch or 32-inch 4096x2400 monitor here. With it, I can watch high end 4K pixel screen width digital video camera recordings native, and also handle all the older PC resolutions without interpolation at or near full screen. Asus monitor division, where art thou?
