Asus 680 Mars III + 7970 Matrix + Republic of Gamers ZEUS MB

[tommybhoy]

Asus has been busy!:

First up is the 680 Mars III for team green:

'The MARS III into the third generation, will use the introduction of dual Kepler GK104!

Of ROG for ASUS graphics cards, this addition to the display Radeon HD7970 Matrix, synchronization exhibited Kepler, GK104 of MARS III graphics card.
The official launch is always some surprises, ASUS booth finally the MARS III of made public.
New of MARS III graphics card in the housing part of the metal material, with red and black in color part, but the site PM mentioned that this card is not the final version, perhaps the future will be slightly different from that in appearance.
8 + 8 + 8 power supply design, provides 8GB of GDDR5 high-capacity memory, the output terminal 3 DVI and mini DisplayPort, but a pity that when the core clock part is not currently published.
Further information if so, we will be the first time.'

(^Google translation)

http://chinese.vr-zone.com/20073/asus-mars-iii-dual-kepler-gk104-hand-on-06052012/


For the red team-7970 Matrix:

'ASUS showed off its newest high-end single-GPU graphics card, the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Matrix 7970. The card will be ASUS' addition to a new wave of highly-overclocked Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards (we're talking ≥25% factory-OC), by AMD AIB partners, to compete with GeForce GTX 680. ASUS did not disclose the clock speeds the Matrix 7970 ships with, but listed out its exclusive features, such as VGA Hotwire (read and control voltages at a hardware level), TweakIT (hardware voltage-speed control using buttons, one-push fan override), ProbeIT (voltage fan-speed monitoring points), a 20-phase Digi+ VRM with software control using GPUTweak software, and the software itself, which comes with a plethora of tweaking options.'

http://www.techpowerup.com/167184/ASUS-Shows-off-ROG-Matrix-7970-Graphics-Card.html



Last but not least is the Republic of Gamers ZEUS with hybrid onboard dual 7970's:

'ASUS displayed a nerdtastic motherboard design concept, at Computex. Called the Republic of Gamers ZEUS, ASUS' creation is a socket LGA2011 motherboard with a dual-GPU graphics hardware soldered onto the board, in the place otherwise assigned for expansion slots. The top half of the ZEUS resembles that of a conventional LGA2011 motherboard, with the processor being powered by a 10-phase Digi+ VRM, and eight DDR3 DIMM slots. ASUS somehow made the platform support up to 128 GB of unregistered DIMM DDR3 memory (double the 64 GB limit of the Sandy Bridge-E HEDT platform).

The second half of the motherboard has the X79 PCH, and two PCI-Express 3.0 GPUs in dual-GPU configuration. ASUS hasn't revealed which GPUs these are, but sources predict it's a pair of AMD Radeon HD 7970 (Tahiti XT) or HD 7870 (Pitcairn XT). Each GPU system has its own set of memory, and a set of 8-pin + 6-pin PCIe power connectors. The display outputs of this dual-GPU setup are given out on the rear panel, as two mini-DP + Thunderbolt ports, and one each of HDMI and standard DP. The ZEUS even has as many as 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four SATA 3 Gb/s ports, and 12 USB 3.0 ports, besides two Thunderbolt 10 Gb/s ports. For now, ASUS' monstrosity is a design concept, and the company is undecided about launching it to the market. If nothing, the ZEUS serves as a testament of ASUS' mammoth engineering potential.'

http://www.techpowerup.com/167172/A...A2011-Motherboard-with-Dual-GPU-Graphics.html

They techs certainly have been busy over@Asus!

 

[ilovetechno]

very nice!

 

[MAK360]

Think VRZone was the source and TPU just linked them (Hope they did). Do like TPU reviews though

 

[Sharplucas]

Those Look absolutely amazing

 

[Cleeecooo]

On board Xfire 7970

 

[mattjd]

On board Xfire 7970? How is that going to work in heat terms?

The heatsink looks puny for 2 7970's and it also doesn't have any fans. Surely the clock speeds would be really low because of this?

 

[Cleeecooo]

On board Xfire 7970? How is that going to work in heat terms?

The heatsink looks puny for 2 7970's and it also doesn't have any fans. Surely the clock speeds would be really low because of this?

It does have a massive passive cooler, so it should be fine. I presume ASUS have taken everything into account

Shame ou can't expand :/

 

[Martini1991]

That won't be two 7970's.
7870's at the very most.

 

[MAK360]

Water-cooling on that MB would do wonders, higher end cards are a possibility then. A nice clean setup either-way (Hoping something comes of this - seeing the interest from the market)

 

[Gregster]

They all look sweet. The Mars will be amazing if they can pull it off.

 

[Yaayuh!]

ASUS never fail to amaze me. Brilliant and a little eccentric.

 

[Kurisu Makise]

good stuff again from asus

 

[Orcvader]

8gb of vRAM, glad they didn't do 4gb. 3gb on the MARS II was very limiting (1.5gb per GPU).

 

[Yaayuh!]

8gb of vRAM, glad they didn't do 4gb. 3gb on the MARS II was very limiting (1.5gb per GPU).

Amen to that!

 

[bru]

look at the passive cooler for something like the Sapphire 7770 passive

notice just how big the cooler has to be to keep the thing cool, twice as long as the pcie slot and nearly an inch thick.
Then consider the normal heat sink needed on a x79 motherboard to cool the chipset.

So bearing that in mind have a look at the heat sink on this new motherboard

taking into account the chipset heat sink, the heat sink on this board doesn't even look capable of cooling a single 7770 let alone two.
So even with fancy vapour chamber technology which it doesn't seem to have but if it did it might cool a pair of down clocked 7770's but certainly not two 7970's