First Look: ASUS MARS III

[X-ROG]

If you were lucky enough to get to the ASUS booth at Computex this year, in the ROG area you’d have find this. It’s another epic: MARS III.

Beyond the fact it’s labelled as having 8GB of GDDR5 memory and two GTX 680 GPUs, the details are not available yet. Furthermore the graphics team strongly express it’s not yet final design, but they still had one running to show off the anticipated performance. Check the pics below for a first look at this next generation beast.

[Riddlemethisj]

The wait is killing me has anyone heard any new news about the Mars iii I hope they don't wait to long to launch this card with the 700 series supposedly coming early next year this card may be irrelevant on launch.

[TWP-WOLF]

Myk SilentShadow wrote:
Sorry but you're not gonna be able to achieve Quad SLI with 2 mis-matched VGA Cards, from what I have been reading is that NVIDIA aren't so nice about mismatching their GTX cards for SLI, unlike ATI/AMD where you can do something like that.

Nvidia GTX 680 & GTX 580 not working together in quad SLI? I have hard to believe why they shouldn't! If they didn't, it would be so good business for Asus and Nvidia in the long run.

[X-ROG]

TWP-WOLF wrote:
Dear Asus!

I'm sitting on 1500+ USD as a starter for the upcoming ASUS MARS III to pair up with my ASUS MARS II for Quad SLI 😄

Sincerely, Bengt "WOLF" Johansson.

That won't work I'm afraid.

[TWP-WOLF]

MarshallR@ASUS wrote:
That won't work I'm afraid.

Why doesn't it work? So you mean that Nvidia GTX 680 and GTX 580 GPU don't work together. Sad for Asus since they don't be able to sell me a Mars III card.

Would be good if you kindly try that out and report back to me if possible.

[Kishshey]

8 gigs you say? =O man thats overkill.
Any clue about the price range and release dates? :confused:

[jamd315]

Think is runs Crossfire/SLI? How about 4-way.

[Myk_SilentShado]

jamd315 wrote:
Think is runs Crossfire/SLI? How about 4-way.

I don't think 4-way dual GPU cards is possible, but I could be wrong...and this card isn't being released, since Nvidia are a pack of butthurts

[jonzjitsu]

look at those power pins... congrats asus for the worlds smallest motherboard lol!

[claydough]

the kepler chip looks amazing if they will ever release the highend version for the enthusiast market.
Gotta admit I have a bitter taste for gk110 and hopefully before xmas aligned with the 20 tesla version.
Otherwise Maxwell seems extremely close if they are still on schedule for 2013 production 2014 release. ( less than 1 1/2 year wait? )
Else the timing just seems to feed the "might as well wait" monster at these pricepoints.

It's never been easier to keep thousands of dollars from burning a hole in my pocket fer graphics cards. ( perhaps this is the year for the big ssd samsung/lsi raid instead considering the pricing is exciting )

On the other hand if this Mars preview was a dual gtx 780 instead that would be to juicy to pass up if released before Maxwell seemed to close for a buy ( sadly unlikely )
looking at how close the numbers are between the 670 and 680 seems to confirm that the top end of kepler does not have enough highend performance distance to justify the price. I really find it hard to believe the gk104 should represent that slot. Likewise, if ASUS ever sorts out the early 670 cu gremlins I suppose a 670 tri sli could also be an option that is to good to pass up if there was a price drop. ( which is depressing considering I have never considered 2nd best Nvidia an option till now )

Also...
I imagine over half the market for a MARS release would want to watercool and wait to see if EKWB is offering something blingy.
Why not just collaborate a waterblock version ( the red and black block looks like it could be a very sexy waterblock ) in the same way EVGA and swiftech collaborate on the hydros?

Nice to know that EKWB are working on a 670CU version. hopefully something exciting happens very soon!
even if it doesn't... ( there is no 780 kepler or rumors of no ivy=e enthusiast cpu board )
I am actually very excited about mature 28nm and an ASUS ROG Haswell E extrem Board and Maxwell CU III combination. ( hopefully q1-q2 2014 )

[gregsuarez]

claydough wrote:
Gotta admit I have a bitter taste for gk110 and hopefully before xmas aligned with the 20 tesla version.
Otherwise Maxwell seems extremely close if they are still on schedule for 2013 production 2014 release. ( less than 1 1/2 year wait? )
Else the timing just seems to feed the "might as well wait" monster at these pricepoints.

Thing is, by the time the GK110 rolls around, you'll want the next big thing coming 18 months from that. And then if you wait for the next big thing, you'll hear about the next bigger thing, and end up waiting for that. Rinse. Repeat. You might as well pull the trigger sooner or later or else you'll have to live with an outdated GPU, forever chasing the dragon (and you know you'll never catch the dragon).