Review: Asus Ares
Review of Asus Ares: A divine name, two fully flavoured Cypress GPUs and three power connections: The Asus Ares is a real 3D monster. PC Games Hardware is testing the 1.200 Euro king among the video cards.
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Video cards that are named after gods is nothing new for the portfolio of Asus. You might rememer Mars, a dual Geforce GTX 285 with a total of 4 memory GiByte. Not surprisingly Ares strikes in the same line, Ares is the son of Zeus and the god of war of the Greeks. The Ares is delivered in a nearly 7-pound package in a steel case. Besides the card itself the package contains a ROG-mouse, two power adapters, an HDMI to DVI adapter and a metal case badge.
Asus Ares (2)Quelle: PC Games HardwareAsus Ares: Specs
As previously announced, Ares combines two Cypress chips on a board - like the Radeon HD 5970. Unlike AMD's flagship the Ares relies on 850/2.400 MHz frequency and is thus theoretically a dual Radeon HD 5870 - with 2 GiByte GDDR5 per GPU. In theory, the Ares is 17-20 percent faster than a Radeon HD 5970.
Asus Ares (6)Quelle: PC Games HardwareAsus Ares: Kühlung, Platine sowie Leistungsaufnahme und Lautheit
The Ares weighs in 2,16 kg at dimensions of 29.3 x 12.0 x 5.1 cm. The board carries a heavy metal plate on both sides. The heat of the chips are transported by four massive 8mm heatpipes, a 92-mm axial fan is in the middle. The two 8-pin and the single 6-pin connector theoretically allow a power of 450 watts.
At idle, the Asus Ares is sparingly: only 40 watts correspond to a Radeon HD 5970 and is below a Geforce GTX 480. During games, the card reaches 271 watts. This is about 100 watts above a Radeon HD 5970 and about 30 watts over a Geforce GTX 480. Under full load (Ozone3D Furmark), the Ares sets a new negative record and even surpasses the Mars (474 watts): 489 watts requires a very strong power supply. The noise in 2D is acceptable with 1.3 to 2.3 sone. Race Driver: Grid gets very loud on the Ares with 9.5 Sone and Furmark is reaching 12.4 Sone. After all, Asus learned from the mistakes of the Mars , which clocked down a few minutes due to overheating.
We show you benchmarks of six games running the Ares. It is important to note that even in 2560 x 1600, CPUs can hinder the graphics performance. On the other hand, the two GiByte VRAM per GPU are very important (especially for Metro 2033 and Warhead). Bad Company 2, however, shows a typical multi GPU problem: The Ares is slightly slower than a Radeon HD 5870 - we have no idea, why. Our overclocking tests don't show any spectacular results (960/2.700 MHz at 1.30 volts - 1.175 volts is standard).
Summary: The Ares is a collector's item with exceptional cooling. The cooling is very loud, but the card achieves pleasant temperatures. The pricing prevents that standard gamers should take the Ares into consideration.
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| Loudness and power consumption | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loudness (Sone): | Geforce GTX 480 | Radeon HD 5870 | Radeon HD 5970 | Asus Ares |
| Idle | 1,1 | 0,5 | 1,1 | 2,3 |
| Race Driver Grid | 4,9 | 3,6 | 5,5 | 9,5 |
| Furmark | 10,1 | 6,4 | 10,5 | 12,4 |
| Power consumption (Watts): | ||||
| Idle | 49,3 | 25 | 45 | 40 |
| Race Driver Grid | 235 | 128 | 164 | 271 |
| Furmark | 304 | 186 | 337 | 489 |
| Temperature GPU (in Celsius) | ||||
| Idle | 60 | 38 | 51 | 42 |
| Race Driver Grid | 91 | 68 | 80 | 65 |
| Furmark | 96 | 86 | 90 | 77 |
You will find more information on the Asus Ares in the review at PCGH.de.
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