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Asus Mars II

pibrahim

pibrahim

pibrahim

Associate
Joined
4 Oct 2010
Posts
8
It's been a few months since there were those leaked photos of the Asus Mars II - anyone heard anything further about this card or think it's still likely to come out? Surely Asus can't sit on it too much longer otherwise it's lifespan (as being the single fastest card out there) will be pretty limited?

I was in the market for an Asus Ares but tempted to hold off for the Mars II if the performance is better - but just don't know if its even definitely coming out...
 
Is the 6000 series likely to offer a significant performance jump though? According to the various information that's doing the rounds, isn't it also a few months until the top end 6000 series cards launch (and they presumably wouldn't trump the Mars II)? I'd originally been looking to buy the Ares but the last few cards at a reasonable(ish) price sold out and I don't want to chuck another $150 at it, especially if the Mars II might actually get released...
 
pibrahim said:
Is the 6000 series likely to offer a significant performance jump though? According to the various information that's doing the rounds, isn't it also a few months until the top end 6000 series cards launch (and they presumably wouldn't trump the Mars II)? I'd originally been looking to buy the Ares but the last few cards at a reasonable(ish) price sold out and I don't want to chuck another $150 at it, especially if the Mars II might actually get released...
Click to expand...

I would be pleasantly surprised if we ever saw the Mars II get released, given the heat and power issues surrounding the GTX480 it will take an engineering marvel to get two GTX480 chips running without falling over (and bear in mind these cards have high clock rates then the standard reference chips). Also how many 8 pin connections will it need? How do you cool it? The only way I can see this getting cooled effectively is selling such a card with a water block as standard and that’s not a controversial statement either, such a card will cost well over a £1K and if you can afford to spend that on a video card then you will mostly likely already have a water cooling setup already.

You can't compare the Radeon 6000 or the current GTX400 cards to the Mars II. The Mars II is a novelty card not a mainstream production card for the masses and it's also priced accordingly to its novelty status, if you buy it you buy for status and nothing else. If it’s just the performance you want get two GTX480’s put them in SLI and overclock them and save yourself a load of money on the way.
 
Agreed - the thing is I'm somewhat taken in by the novelty - I know these cards aren't "worth it", I know it's always cheaper to SLI/XFire the regular cards, but somehow there's some appeal to going for these cards (at least for me and I guess 999 other punters).

I can get the Asus Ares for £800 - if the Mars II is actually likely to be well over £1k then that might seal the decision really. Will it be that difficult to cool the two GTX480s - the Zotac 480 Amp seems to bring really effective cooling to the table (http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Zotac-GTX-480-Amp-Edition/?page=14 - 27 degrees cooler under load, and http://www.(hex).net/content/item.php?item=24925&page=9 - 10 degrees cooler under load) - maybe Asus could employ something similar without relying upon water cooling? Or is the price likely to still be sky-high in any event?
 
pibrahim said:
Agreed - the thing is I'm somewhat taken in by the novelty - I know these cards aren't "worth it", I know it's always cheaper to SLI/XFire the regular cards, but somehow there's some appeal to going for these cards (at least for me and I guess 999 other punters).

I can get the Asus Ares for £800 - if the Mars II is actually likely to be well over £1k then that might seal the decision really. Will it be that difficult to cool the two GTX480s - the Zotac 480 Amp seems to bring really effective cooling to the table (http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Zotac-GTX-480-Amp-Edition/?page=14 - 27 degrees cooler under load, and http://www.(hex).net/content/item.php?item=24925&page=9 - 10 degrees cooler under load) - maybe Asus could employ something similar without relying upon water cooling? Or is the price likely to still be sky-high in any event?
Click to expand...

There is certainly the novelty value from the Mars-type cards; particularly since there is a limited supply. For me, this is the only reason to buy such a card - the price to performance ratio is always going to be sub-par when compared to regular multi-GPU setups.


Regarding the cooling: In principle it will certainly be possible to cool the cards effectively using large-diameter fans (in similar style to the Zotec Amp GTX480). The increase in airflow and cooling capacity for such a design is dramatically better than the stock fan design. However, you have to remember that these fans dump the hot air back into the case. When you have over 600W of GPU power going into the case, the effectiveness of the cooling relies largely on your case ventilation.

Remember; the on-board cooling system (i.e. heatsink and fan) can ONLY maintain a temperature delta over the temperature of the inflow air (and the delta will change based on fanspeed and GPU load). So, if you have "good" case ventilation, you can expect reasonable inflow air temps (maybe around 30-35C at best with 600W being dumped into the case), but with poor case ventilation you will rapidly accumulate heat energy within the case, and inflow air temperatures could be well above 50C. This increase in air temperature will be reflected in GPU core temps, and can be the difference between an effective cooling system, and an ineffective one.

So; unless Asus are willing to specify explicitly that the card can ONLY be used with a "good" case cooling system, they have to engineer it for the worst-case (poor ventilation), which puts further constraints on the design. Not to mention that they would need to be explicit about what constitues "good" case ventilation. Asus will not want many cards to be returned for RMA due to thermal failure, because the cards are very limited edition and cannot be easily replaced.

In short - it's going to be a challenge to design a good cooling system for a 600W+ part without placing constraints on the type of case that it can be used in.
 
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