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Today we look at the latest graphics card from ASUS, the GTX 760 MARS. This solution comprises two GTX760's in an SLi configuration, all on a single PCB. ASUS have incorporated a hefty DIGI+VRM configuration featuring 12 phase power. They are promoting this card to go head to head against the flagship GTX Titan and GTX780Ti. So today we find out if it can!
The new Asus GTX 760 MARS features a high end Direct CU II cooler (split into two heatsinks on either side) and ASUS claim that the hardware provides 7% more performance than a GTX Titan.
While we don't have two at hand today, we have also been told that ASUS have worked closely with NVIDIA to ensure that the new MARS solution will support QUAD SLi.
The ASUS GTX 760 MARS has two GTX 760's on the same board. All of the specifications are listed above. Combined CUDA Cores are 2,304, and the core clock speed of each GPU core is 1,006mhz. Memory runs at 1,500mhz (6Gbps effective). Each of the GTX760's is equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 which is connected via a 256 bit memory interface.
The Asus GTX 760 MARS ships in an instantly recognisable red Republic Of Gamers box. No images of the hardware on the front, just the product name, and an Nvidia product graphic.
The bundle includes a software disc, literature, DVI to HDMI video adapter and Republic Of Gamers limited edition metal badge. There is also a 6 pin to 8 pin power adapter in the box, although we do recommend that you use a power supply with two native 8 pin power connectors, or consider a power supply upgrade if it doesn't.
The ASUS GTX 760 MARS is a dual slot solution measuring 11 inches x 4.38 inches x 1.6 inches. There is a backplate on the rear of the card to help cool the PCB and to protect against accidental damage. The cooler is metal and comprises two dust proof fans.
It is a heavy, well built graphics card.
On the top of the cooler is a ‘MARS' logo, which lights up when the card is powered up and active (head to our testing methodology page to see it in action).
The ASUS GTX 760 MARS ships with two 8 pin PCI power connectors. Clearly there is potential for a low of power draw and we will analyse this later in the review.
There is a single SLi slot on the card and ASUS say they worked closely with Nvidia on the production of this card to ensure that Quad SLi is supported. We sadly can't test this today.
The display I/O plate has 2 DVI-I connectors, a single DVI-D connector, and 1 mini DisplayPort connector. It can also support HDMI via an adapter. It is HDCP compliant.
As we can see, the PCB is basically split into two sections. Each GTX760 core gets its own heatsink, with 8 thick direct touch copper heatpipes running directly into individual racks of aluminum fins. The large fans above directly cool the heatsinks underneath.
There is a controller on the board, and each GTX 760 has its own memory, VRM's and associated circuitry. The ASUS GTX 760 MARS is using Japanese made black metallic capacitors (Nichicon GT branded) which they claim have a 5x longer life span (10,000 hours instead of 2,000 hours) over traditional capacitors. These uprated capacitors have the added benefit of being able to deal with temperatures up to 125c under load (many are rated to only 105c).
The card also incorporates POSCAP's, which have lower power noise and enhanced stability over a traditional design.
An overview of the hardware in GPUz. Each GTX 760 on the card is running at 1,006mhz with 32 ROPs, 96 Texture units and 1,152 CUDA cores. Each GPU has 2GB of GDDR5 connected via a 256 bit memory interface. Memory speed is rated at 1,500mhz, or 6Gbps effective.
We had no problems getting The Asus GTX760 MARS to operate in SLi with the official 331.65 and 331.70 driver. Asus did supply a Forceware 331.79 beta driver just before publication, but we couldn't get it to work properly with the MARS card.
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.
This review will feature comparisons against many of the highest end graphics solutions available today. We are using the Forceware 331.70 driver and Catalyst 13.11 beta 9 drivers for Nvidia and AMD cards respectively.
We are using one of our brand new test rigs supplied by PCSPECIALIST and built to our specifications. If you want to read more about this, or are interested in buying the same Kitguru Test Rig, check out our article with links on this page.
We are featuring results today with an Apple 30 inch Cinema HD Display at 2560×1600 resolution and an Asus PQ321QE Ultra HD 4K screen running at 4K 3840 x 2160 resolution.
Room ambient was held at 23c throughout testing.
Comparison cards:
AMD R9 290X (1000mhz core / 1,250 mhz memory)
AMD R9 290 (947mhz core / 1,250 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX780 Ti (876mhz core / 1,750 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX Titan (837mhz core / 1,502 mhz memory)
Nvidia GTX780 (863mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
MSI GTX780 Lightning (980mhz core / 1,502mhz memory)
Sapphire R9 280X Toxic Edition (1,150mhz core / 1,600mhz memory)
Palit GTX770 OC (1046mhz core / 1753mhz memory)
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
3DMark
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Games:
Sleeping Dogs
Total War: Rome 2
Dirt Showdown
Tomb Raider
Metro Last Light
GRID 2
Splinter Cell Blacklist
Batman Arkham Origins
Battlefield 4
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset.
A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.
Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:
- Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
- Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
- Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
- Multicore CPU support
- Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
- Powerful C++ API
- Comprehensive performance profiling system
- Flexible XML-based data structures
We use the settings shown above at 2560×1600.
The Nvidia GTX Titan, MSI GTX780 Lightning and Nvidia GTX780 Ti take the top positions in our performance graph, just ahead of the Asus GTX760 MARS. We also noticed a couple of areas of microstutter in this benchmark that caused the GTX760 MARS to drop below 25 frames per second.
Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.
We test with the settings above both at 2560×1600.
While the ASUS GTX 760 MARS didn't score as highly in Unigine Heaven it topped the chart in the Unigine Valley Benchmark.
Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
The ASUS GTX 760 MARS tops the performance chart with the older Direct X 10 based 3DMark Vantage.3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
3DMark 11 shows the potential of two GTX760's in SLi, outperforming even the AMD R9 290X in UBER mode. The final score of 16,270 points is around 800 points ahead of the closest challenger.
3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.
Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.
To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.”
The ASUS GTX 760 MARS takes the top spot in the latest Direct X 11 benchmark from Futuremark, scoring 11,314 points in the graphics test. The Nvidia GTX 780 Ti claims a close second, only 100 or so points behind.
Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today. To test the cards we used a 2560×1600 resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.
At 1600p, the ASUS GTX760 MARS is ahead of the GTX 780Ti, averaging 95 frames per second. Minimum frame rates on both cards are held at 51 frames per second.
Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today. To test the cards we used a ULTRA HD 4K resolution (3840×2160) with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on.
The Asus GTX 760 MARS manages to hold onto the top spot, averaging 52 frames per second. The Nvidia GTX 780 Ti is around 4 frames behind in regards to average frame rates, but holds a 1 frame deficit in the minimum frame rates.Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.
This game is still a system killer at these maximised settings. We test at 2560×1600.
The Asus GTX 760 MARS averages the highest frame rate at 1600p, although the minimum frame rate is a little lower than the Nvidia GTX 780 Ti and AMD R9 290X in Uber mode.Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights.
We used the ‘HIGH’ graphics level setting at 4K- 3840×2160. This uses a mixture of high and extreme graphics settings, detailed above.
The Nvidia GTX 780 Ti and ASUS GTX 760 MARS are very closely matched at Ultra HD 4K, although the GTX 780 Ti holds a slightly higher minimum frame rate.
Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.
Today we test the hardware at 2560×1600 with the Ultra profile and 8 x MSAA.
This is a favourite engine for AMD hardware, and the R9 290X takes the top positions in this graph. The GTX 780 Ti scores well however, averaging 72 frames per second. The Asus GTX 760 MARS suffers a little, probably due to a less than optimised SLi driver profile.
Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.
Today we test with the ULTRA profile, at 4K 3840×2160 resolution and with 8 times Anti Aliasing.
Still some way down the chart, although the frame rates are still perfectly playable, holding above 30 frames per second at all times.After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
Excellent results, just a single frame per second behind the GTX 780 Ti, averaging 54.
After a delayed release from late 2012 to March 2013, the game received much anticipation and hype.
Tomb Raider received much acclaim from critics, who praised the graphics, the gameplay and Camilla Luddington’s performance as Lara with many critics agreeing that the game is a solid and much needed reboot of the franchise. Much criticism went to the addition of the multiplayer which many felt was unnecessary. Tomb Raider went on to sell one million copies in forty-eight hours of its release, and has sold 3.4 million copies worldwide so far.
We test at 4K 3840×2160 resolution with the ULTRA profile setting enabled – details in the images above.
Again, very closely matched with the reference Nvidia GTX 780 Ti, averaging 42 frames per second. The minimum frame rates on both cards are also excellent.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We test this game with the built in benchmark with very high quality settings at 1920×1080 – details shown in the image above.
The Asus GTX 760 MARS scores just behind the GTX Titan in this benchmark, averaging 67 frames per second.
Metro: Last Light takes place one year after the events of Metro 2033, proceeding from the ending where Artyom chose to call down the missile strike on the Dark Ones. The Rangers have since occupied the D6 military facility, with Artyom having become an official member of the group. Khan, the nomad mystic, arrives at D6 to inform Artyom and the Rangers that a single Dark One survived the missile strike. 4A Games’ proprietary 4A Engine is capable of rendering breathtaking vistas, such as those showing the ruined remnants of Moscow, as well as immersive indoor areas that play with light and shadow, creating hauntingly beautiful scenes akin to those from modern-day photos of Pripyat’s abandoned factories and schools.
We test this game with the built in benchmark, with the settings detailed above. Direct X 11 mode, Quality is set at medium, 16 AF, normal Motion blur, Tessellation Normal, Advanced PhysX disabled and SSAA disabled.
At Ultra HD 4K, the Asus GTX 760 MARS scores just a single frame per second behind the GTX Titan.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.
We test at 2560×1600 with the Ultra image quality preset, as shown above. 8x MSAA was enabled to improve image quality.
The ASUS GTX760 MARS delivers the highest average frame rate in our run through, although it does suffer a little in the minimum frame rate score, dropping 3 frames behind the GTX 780 Ti. Excellent results all round however.
Grid 2 is the sequel to the racing video game Race Driver: Grid. It was developed and published by Codemasters. The game includes numerous real world locations such as Paris, numerous United States locations, and many more, and also includes motor vehicles spanning four decades. In addition, it includes a new handling system that developer Codemasters has dubbed ‘TrueFeel’, which aims to hit a sweet spot between realism and accessibility.
We select 4K 3840×2160 resolution and enabled the ULTRA profile with 8 times anti aliasing, as shown in the screenshots above.
At Ultra HD 4K the R9 290X in Uber Mode storms the top of the graph, averaging 53 frames per second and holding the highest minimum frame rate. The ASUS GTX760 Mars holds onto its position just behind the reference clocked Nvidia GTX 760 MARS, in third place.
Splinter Cell Blacklist is the sixth installment in the series. The game begins with Sam Fisher and his old friend Victor Coste who are about to depart from Andersen AFB in Guam when an unknown enemy force destroys the entire base. Assisted by hacker specialist Charlie Cole, Sam and Vic manage to escape, although Vic is injured after protecting Sam from a grenade. Soon after, a terrorist group calling itself “The Engineers” assumes responsibility for the attack and announce that it was the first of a deadly countdown of escalating attacks (called “The Blacklist”) on United States assets, declaring that they will halt the attacks only after the U.S. government accomplish the demand of calling back all American troops deployed abroad.
We test with a series of high image quality settings as shown above and with 4x MSAA and 16 x Anisotropic filtering enabled.
Top position at 1080p with ultra high image quality settings, just ahead of the Nvidia GTX780 Ti.
Splinter Cell Blacklist is the sixth installment in the series. The game begins with Sam Fisher and his old friend Victor Coste who are about to depart from Andersen AFB in Guam when an unknown enemy force destroys the entire base. Assisted by hacker specialist Charlie Cole, Sam and Vic manage to escape, although Vic is injured after protecting Sam from a grenade. Soon after, a terrorist group calling itself “The Engineers” assumes responsibility for the attack and announce that it was the first of a deadly countdown of escalating attacks (called “The Blacklist”) on United States assets, declaring that they will halt the attacks only after the U.S. government accomplish the demand of calling back all American troops deployed abroad.
We selected 4K – 3840×2160 resolution and the ‘High’ Graphics quality preset. Screenshots shown above.
The Asus GTX 760 MARS goes head to head against the Nvidia GTX780 Ti at Ultra HD 4K, although the dual GTX760 solution has the slight edge in our test environment.
Batman Arkham Origins moved development away from series creators Rocksteady Studios, and is written by Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh. The game’s main storyline is set five years before that of 2009′s Batman: Arkham Asylum and follows a younger and less refined Batman who has a bounty placed on his head by crime lord Black Mask, drawing eight of the world’s greatest assassins to Gotham City on Christmas Eve. The game is presented from the third-person perspective with a primary focus on Batman’s combat and stealth abilities, detective skills, and gadgets that can be used in both combat and exploration. Arkham Origins is the first game in the series to feature multiplayer gameplay.
We test at Ultra HD 4K with a mixture of high image quality settings and 2 MSAA, shown above.
A close matched battle at Ultra HD 4k, although the MARS manages to hold the lead, by the smallest of margins.
Battlefield 4 (also known as BF4) is a first-person shooter video game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE) and published by Electronic Arts. The game is a sequel to 2011′s Battlefield 3. Battlefield 4 is built on the new Frostbite 3 engine. The new Frostbite engine enables more realistic environments with higher resolution textures and particle effects. A new “networked water” system is also being introduced, allowing all players in the game to see the same wave at the same time.Tessellation has also been overhauled.
We test at Ultra HD 4K with the high image quality profile, shown above.
Battlefield 4 is being constantly updated so we need to retest this game every time we look at it. The Asus GTX760 MARS is knocked into third place behind the Nvidia GTX 780 Ti and AMD R9 290X in UBER mode. Still, it holds a frame rate above 25 at all times.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes.Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.
Considering there are two fast GPU cores on this card, the Direct CU II cooler delivers great results. Gaming load peaks at 77c, which is 2c better than the reference cooled Nvidia GTX780Ti.
We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.
We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 28dBa.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
When idle, the Asus GTX760 MARS is basically inaudible. When loaded however, the fans quickly spin up, and it is clearly audible, although not close to the same level as the reference cooled AMD R9 290/X. The fans spin between 1,200 rpm when idle and 2,800 rpm fully loaded in Furmark.
To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and the synthetic stress test Furmark and record both results.
The card takes 255 watts under load, dropping to 14 watts when idle. Under Furmark load this rises to 339 watts.
To overclock the Asus GTX 760 MARS we used ASUS GPU Tweak.
The GPU Tweak software supplied on the disc overclocks both GTX 760's simultaneously and worked flawlessly throughout testing.
We were surprised to see 16 percent overclocking headroom on the GTX760 cores, especially as both are sharing the same PCB. The high grade capacitors and quality components used on MARS really do help this card remain stable at higher clock speeds.
The substantial manual overclock helps push the GTX 760 MARS into a higher performance level.
Nvidia's GTX 760 has been a very popular card since it launched, and rightly so. It has proven capable of powering many of the latest Direct X 11 games at 1080p, and is competitively priced to suit a wide audience of enthusiast user. The prices of the GTX 760 have also dropped in recent months, hovering around the £200 mark today. It may be facing stiff challenges from AMD hardware in recent months, but it is still a very tempting proposition.
When we share system builds on our Facebook page, we have seen many instances that our readers are using GTX 760's in Sli. Buying a GPU now, and adding another later when funds permit suits many gamers and as we know, SLi'd GTX 760's is a lethal pairing.
As we have seen today, the Asus GTX 760 MARS is more than capable of ousting the last generation GTX780, and is often able to outperform the legendary GTX Titan. It can even keep up with the GTX 780 Ti, although the latest Nvidia flagship puts up a mighty battle, losing some tests, and winning others.
We do admire Asus standards of engineering, and the GTX 760 MARS is not only built to perform at the highest levels, but to last. Asus are using a hefty 12 phase super alloy power configuration, with highest grade Japanese Nichicon GT Series black metallic capacitors adopted throughout. While quite often these may sound like buzzwords to many readers – we managed to overclock both GTX 760 cores to a staggering 1,167 mhz. This is a very stable video card even when pushed to the limits.
At these manually enhanced clock speeds, the Asus GTX 760 MARS scored much higher than the Nvidia GTX 780 Ti, even when it was also overclocked to 1,122mhz. Asus have also worked closely with Nvidia during the development of the GTX 760 MARS to achieve Quad Sli support and certification, although unfortunately we were unable to test this today.
The Direct CU II cooler does an admirable job of keeping both GTX760's in check, holding at under 80c when gaming. It isn't the quietest cooler by a long shot, but the fans don't emit a harsh, high pitched sound while pushing a massive amount of air across both heatsinks underneath.
Any downsides?
Well, we do need to point out that if a particular game is released before Nvidia manage to code an SLI profile, then the frame rates will be literally halved. To be fair, Nvidia are very active in releasing driver updates so this is unlikely to happen on a regular basis. Still, if you are contemplating a purchase of the ASUS GTX760 MARS card then we highly recommend you update beta ForceWare drivers at every release.
ASUS informed us before going to press that the GTX 760 MARS will be priced at £519.99 inc vat, which places it around £30-£50 less than competing GTX 780 Ti solutions. Of course you could buy two GTX 760's for less than this ASUS MARS solution, but that is somewhat missing the point, and you would lose another PCI e slot. Performance fanatics will also already be budgeting for two of these cards for a Quad SLi setup.
Discuss on our Facebook page, here.
Pros:
- Built to the highest standards with high grade Japanese components.
- its a looker.
- not triple slot!
- outperforms the GTX Titan, often matching the GTX 780 Ti.
- massive overclocking headroom with ASUS GPU Tweak.
Cons:
- A little noisy under load.
- regular driver updates will be needed to get the latest SLI profiles.
Kitguru says: Another superb showcase of ASUS engineering standards. A killer gaming card.
This is very impressive. always liked the GTX760 for the power to performance ratio. nice job.
Very interesting, I always thought MARS cards were priced intentionally well outside the realms of normal solutions, but ASUS are making this one practical as well.
Its a good idea, but it should maybe have a different name, not MARS.
Very nice idea, I see a lot of people complaining that it is no longer a ‘MARS’ card, but they weren’t practical at all for anyone, over the top pricing etc. Maybe asus want this one to sell well, and it should actually as its a decent saving over the 780 TI, and closely matched.
Why there is no comparison of gtx690, amd7990, or some SLI/crossfire?
The Chart is not complete without these comparison….