To review the Asus ROG Mars II we have built a system around an overclocked 6 core Intel processor – liquid cooled to 4.33ghz. We only had a very limited time with the ASUS ROG MARS II, so we didn't get time to perform all the testing we wanted. We had to omit multiple screen testing due to time constraints.
We will be splitting the review up into several sections, first showing the Mars against leading solutions available on the market, then later focusing on the Mars II with ultra high image quality settings.
Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.33ghz
Graphics: Asus ROG Mars II
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10
Power Supply: Corsair Ax1200
Memory: 6GB GSkill Performance Gaming ram @ 902.9 MHz (2:10) @ 7-8-7-24
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Monitors: Dell U2410 UltraSharp, LaCie 730.
Validation is available over here
Other graphics cards for comparisons:
Nvidia GTX590
Nvidia GTX580
AMD HD6990
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
HQV 2.0 Software
Nvidia Driver: 280.26
AMD Driver: 11.8
Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Games:
Resident Evil 5
Far Cry 2
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Dirt 3
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
Total War: Shogun 2
Tom Clancy HAWX 2
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests all games across five closely matched runs and average out the results to get an accurate median figure.