Asus Mars GTX 295 benchmark review
The Asus Mars is said to be the world's fastest graphics card. PC Games Hardware did the test and checked the performance of the 1000 Euros device.
It is common practice that the partners of AMD and Nvidia stick to the default design when a new graphics card generation is introduced, but usually the first custom layouts follow soon after that. The situation that graphics card manufacturers deliver a completely new creation which doesn't stick to any specifications from Ati or Nvidia is rather rare though. Asus is one of the companies that take the risk from time to time and delivers an extreme custom design. Today Pc Games Hardware takes a look at the latest creation: the Asus Mars.
Asus Mars versus Geforce GTX 295 
Asus Mars GTX 295 benchmark review (19)Quelle: PC Games HardwareThe Mars is an enhanced offspring of Nvidia's Geforce GTX 295. The latter one, flagship among the Nvidia cards since January 2009, utilizes two SLIed GT200b chips to beat the common single-GPU devices. Each GPU on the GTX 295 has access to 896 MiByte GDDR3 VRAM which is linked with a 448 Bit interface. Since SLI all necessary information has to be available in both memory blocks, one can't really say that the card has effective 1,792 MiByte. The "odd” amount of VRAM is related to the retrenchments of the GPUs: Instead of eight ROP partitions with 64 bit each (=512 Bit) and 128 MiByte there are only seven active. This is where Asus comes in.
On the Asus Mars two full GT200b chips with GTX 285 frequencies are used. This would actually result in 2x 1,024 MiByte VRAM, but Asus also used memory chips with twice the size resulting in impressive 4 GiByte (2 GiByte per GPU). So the Mars could be described as a Geforce GTX 285/2G setup on one single card - with one drawback: The memory is running at 1,152 MHz while the default value for the GTX 285/2G is 1,242 MHz. Both graphics chips are set to 648/1,476 MHz (GPU/ALU).
The table below shows the specifications of the Asus Mars and other relevant graphics cards:
| Nvidia Geforce | Ati Radeon | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GTX 260-216 | GTX 275 | GTX 285 | GTX 295 2.0* | Asus Mars* | HD 4770 | HD 4850 | HD 4870 | HD 4890 | HD 4870 X2* | |
| Chip | GT200 | GT200b | GT200b | 2 x GT200b | 2 x GT200b | RV740 | RV770 | RV770 | RV790 | 2 x RV770 |
| Architecture (Nanometer) | 65 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 40 | 55 | 55 | 55 | 55 |
| Transistors (Mio.) | 1.400 | 1,400 | 1,400 | 2 x 1,400 | 2 x 1,400 | 826 | 965 | 965 | 965 | 2 x 965 |
| Core frequency (MHz) | 576 | 633 | 648 | 576 | 648 | 750 | 625 | 750 | 850 | 750 |
| Shader ALU frequency (MHz) | 1,242 | 1,404 | 1,476 | 1,242 | 1,476 | 750 | 625 | 750 | 850 | 750 |
| VRAM frequency (MHz) | 999 | 1,134 | 1,242 | 1,008 | 1,152 | 800 | 993 | 900 | 975 | 900 |
| Shader version | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.1 |
| Shader ALUs | 216 | 240 | 240 | 2 x 240 | 2 x 240 | 640 | 800 | 800 | 800 | 2 x 800 |
| Memory size (MiByte) | 896 | 896/1,792 | 1024/2,048 | 2 x 896 | 2 x 2,048 | 512 | 512/1,024 | 512/1,024 | 1,024 | 2 x 1,024 |
| Memory bus (Bit) | 448 | 448 | 512 | 2 x 448 | 2 x 512 | 128 | 256 | 256 | 256 | 256 |
| type of memory | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR3 | GDDR5 | GDDR3 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| MAD-Leistung (GFLOP/s) | 536.5 | 673.9 | 708.5 | 2 x 596.2 | 2 x 708.5 | 960 | 1,000 | 1,200 | 1,360 | 2 x 1,200 |
| MAD+MUL/ADD (GFLOP/s) | 804.8** | 1010.9** | 1062.7** | 2 x 894.2 | 2 x 1062.7** | 960 | 1,000 | 1,200 | 1,360 | 2 x 1,200 |
| Texture fillrate (MTex/s) | 41,472 | 50,640 | 51,840 | 2 x 46,080 | 2 x 51,840 | 24,000 | 25,000 | 30,000 | 34,000 | 2 x 30,000 |
| Memory bandwith (MiByte/s) | 111,888 | 127,008 | 158,976 | 112,896 | 147,456 | 51,200 | 63,552 | 115,200 | 124,800 | 2 x 115,200 |
| Multi GPU | SLI | SLI | SLI, 3-W.-SLI | Quad-SLI | Quad-SLI | Crossfire X | Crossfire X | Crossfire X | Crossfire X | Crossfire X |
| PCI-E. Con. (6-Pin/8-Pin) | 2x/0x | 2x/0x | 2x/0x | 1x/1x | 0x/2x | 1x/0x | 2x/0x | 2x/0x | 2x/0x od. 1x/1x | 1x/1x |
[futuremark]
- 1Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Introduction and Specs
- 2Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Board, Cooler, Voltage and Problems
- 3Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Power consumption, Loudness and Cooling
- 4Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Overclocking
- 5Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Test system and Benchmark selection
- 6Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Call of Duty: World at War (dt., DX9)
- 7Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Crysis Warhead (DX10/64 Bit)
- 8Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Far Cry 2 (DX10)
- 9Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Fallout 3 + HD-Pack (DX9)
- 10Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Grand Theft Auto 4
- 11Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Half Life 2 Episode 2 + CM 9.51
- 12Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Race Driver GRID (DX9)
- 13Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Benchmark Stalker: Clear Sky (DX10/DX10.1)
- 14Asus Mars GTX 295 Benchmark Test - Conclusion
- 15Bildergalerie zu "Asus Mars GTX 295 benchmark review"
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