ASUS ROG MARS 760 x2

[Analog]

Welcome to my review of the ASUS ROG MARS 760 x2, I believe that is the official name of the video card, or at least that it is what it's on the box. Anyway, I would like to start the review with a brief explanation of why I  bought this card, because I am sure that there will be a lot of criticism towards my choice, not only because it's a dual-gpu card, but also because there are higher-end single graphics card solutions out there. (or is it?)

 

 

I bought this card, because I kind of destroyed my old MSI GTX 770 Lightning. Due to excessive overclock and BIOS flashes the card started showing artifacts and was crashing in games. That forced me to file an RMA and after a couple of weeks the retailer told me to chose a new card, since the old one was beyond any chance of repair. Since I had bought my GTX 770 at launch I paid for it around 430e, a price for, which now I could easily buy a GTX 780. But the GTX 780 isn't that much more powerful, especially compared to my super overclocked GTX 770 so I decided to step up to something better. The problem was that the cheapes GTX 780TI was 615e, money which I am just no willing to spend on a card. Here is where the ASUS ROG MARS 760 x2 comes in. It's only 510e and is significantly more powerful than a stock GTX 780TI, at least benchmark wise.

 

 

Specs:

 

Graphics Engine - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760x2
Bus Standard - PCI Express 3.0
Video Memory - GDDR5 4GB (2GB per core) Bummer 
Engine Clock - GPU Boost Clock : 1072 MHz GPU Base Clock : 1006 MHz
CUDA Core - 2304
Memory Clock - 6004 MHz ( 1501 MHz GDDR5 )
Memory Interface - 512-bit
Dimensions - 11 " x 4.38 " x 1.6 " Inch 

Power Consumption - Just a bit under 500W

 

Since there are numerous unboxings and reviews out there I will share my experiences with the card. The card itself is pretty cool. The custom aluminum shroud and lid MARS logo on the side do really make it awesome looking. It looks exceptionally well when paired with a ROG motherboard, in my case the Rampage IV Gene x79. The entire ASUS red/black theme is insane.The ROG logo on the backplate is in the correct position as well, I am mentioning this because some manufacturers (Gigabyte) obviously don't know the orientation of a video card when installed in a case. there is also no sagging at all thanks to the backplate and entire aluminum shroud. 

 

One thing that I don't like though are the two horrible green LEDs that show whether the PCIe connectors are plugged in properly. That is the stupidest thing ever. Why do we need those? If the connectors are not plugged in the card won't start, simple as that... 

 

 

 

Performance wise I have no complaints. The card is rock solid and performs really well, especially with the latest Beta driver from nVidia - 337.50. There is quite a significant performance gain in many of the games and benchmarks compared to the older software. The benchmarks are done with the card at completely stock speeds, with no overclock whatsoever.  

The 2GB of VRAM can be an issue for future games though. I would have liked to see a 4GB of effective VRAM being implemented on such an expensive card. 

 

 

 

In terms of overclocking at lest my card doesn't have that much potential. This is manly because the card runs quite hot at stock speeds. Both cores go as high as 80C (the built-in threshold), however if I start overclocking I would get as high as 95C, which is too much for me and just not worth the extra 1-2 FPS. Having said that, I must acknowledge that the airflow to the card is somewhat restricted by the HDD cage, which I do plan to take out in the not too distant future. Despite the lack of overclocking potential, my card does boost quite well, even maybe too well. At idle it sits around 1076MHz on the core with 50C on both cores, but when under load it goes as high as 1200MHz with up to 80C on both cores, without any tinkering in the GPU Tweak. This is quite impressive for a dual-gpu card.    

 

Now a few words about the GPU Tweak. It is horrible, especially compared to something as perfect as MSI Afterburner. The fact that the button "Sync Across Both Cards" doesn't work from time to time is unacceptable. In addition to that, the graphs cannot be cleared... You are forced to restart the program to clear them... Really ASUS?! Is it so hard to make it like the Afterburner?

 

Conclusion:

 

Pros:

 - Looks outstanding

 - Has a unique design

 - Performs really well for it's price

 - GPU Boost 2.0 works perfectly

 - No sagging

 

Cons:

 - Runs hot, really hot

 - Only 2GB of effective VRAM 

 - Practically no overclocking 

 - Pricey 

[WinNut]

What case is that?

[Analog]

What case is that?

 

The 350D from Corsair. 

[xToFxREAPER]

Fantastic choice! my friend just got one recently as well, i would compare my firestrike score but i havent bought 3dmark so i only get basic runs

[Askew]

This is exactly the type of card I would never buy, but cool review I'm not slating your preference.

[AMD Lover]

 

What Rainmeter theme is that?

[Analog]

Fantastic choice! my friend just got one recently as well, i would compare my firestrike score but i havent bought 3dmark so i only get basic runs

 

I haven't bought it either

 

What Rainmeter theme is that?

 

It's a custom theme, which I made, combined from 3 other themes.

[Totally-A-Hero]

can you SLI this with another mars in the future?

[Analog]

can you SLI this with another mars in the future?

 

You could, if you are insane enough.  It is not something, which I am considering, especially because of the 2GB of VRAM. 

[Totally-A-Hero]

You could, if you are insane enough.

You would have to buy a new case! 

[Analog]

You would have to buy a new case! 

 

I think I could get away with using this one, though I will have to move the second card to the last PCIe slot and populate the first one as well so that there are 2 slots between the cards. 

[nsyedhasan]

How hot does the card get?

[Analog]

How hot does the card get?

 

It's all in the review man, 80C at stock, up to 95C when overclocked. 

[WinNut]

The 350D from Corsair. 

Explains your member title. 

[Anthony10]

Oh gosh that is pretty

[Enderman]

Congrats! You now own a state-of-the-art video card!

[Lays]

Good review, although unsure about the 4gb of vram, you'd struggle to make use of anything over 3 while maintaining playable FPS.

[Analog]

Good review, although unsure about the 4gb of vram, you'd struggle to make use of anything over 3 while maintaining playable FPS.

 

It's 4GB of total VRAM, effectively 2GB per core. I would have liked to see this card be 8GB, 4GB of VRAM per core, because in my mind that frame buffer is the only thing that could cause bottlenecks in the future. 

[Lays]

It's 4GB of total VRAM, effectively 2GB per core. I would have liked to see this card be 8GB, 4GB of VRAM per core, because in my mind that frame buffer is the only thing that could cause bottlenecks in the future. 

 

 

What I mean is:

 

You're held back by GPU horsepower, not by vram.  The most you'd be able to use is 3gb while having 20-30 FPS.

 

two 760's is roughly one titan, and a titan struggles to maintain above 20-30 fps while using 3gb of vram.

[Sky Daddy]

It's 4GB of total VRAM, effectively 2GB per core. I would have liked to see this card be 8GB, 4GB of VRAM per core, because in my mind that frame buffer is the only thing that could cause bottlenecks in the future. 

I'd take a msi lightning 290x over mars 760 8gb/4gb, since it performs similarly if not better. (compare results from these reviews)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/MARS_GTX_760/1.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Lightning/1.html

 

It is always better to go with a single card unless you absolutely need the extra horsepower, in which case you buy a titan z/295 if you don't have the room for two cards.

[Ahimoth]

Nah man, top choice. Looks amazing, quality brand, little bit of extra bling on a card can't hurt and it performs great. Good review.

[Analog]

I'd take a msi lightning 290x over mars 760 8gb/4gb, since it performs similarly if not better. (compare results from these reviews)

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/MARS_GTX_760/1.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Lightning/1.html

 

It is always better to go with a single card unless you absolutely need the extra horsepower, in which case you buy a titan z/295 if you don't have the room for two cards.

 

True, but not quite. First of, the 290X Lightning is significantly more expensive than the Asus Mars 760 and is not even close in performance. It does beat it in specific games, but all round the Mars is faster, it's faster than the TITAN Black at only half the price, especially now with the latest drivers, which gives it a tone of performance... 

 

Now, there are indeed some rare occasions when SLI doesn't scale that good, though they are not that many and usually not AAA titles, which are the ones I care about. 

[ZacDaMan72]

I haven't bought it either

 

 

It's a custom theme, which I made, combined from 3 other themes.

Could you upload it? Might get me back in the rainmeter game...

[VSG]

True, but not quite. First of, the 290X Lightning is significantly more expensive than the Asus Mars 760 and is not even close in performance. It does beat it in specific games, but all round the Mars is faster, it's faster than the TITAN Black at only half the price, especially now with the latest drivers, which gives it a tone of performance... 

 

Now, there are indeed some rare occasions when SLI doesn't scale that good, though they are not that many and usually not AAA titles, which are the ones I care about. 

 

I noticed you reported currencies in euros, so I can understand this. But to this pondering in the US, the ROG Mars 760 is pretty much the same price as the MSI Lightning 290x. Now having said that, the Lightning 290x is pretty disappointing given all the hype and the cost so the best option would be 2 R9-290 cards instead. Even new 290s have been popping up for $300 in the US making 2 of them less expensive than either the two options above and way, way more powerful.

 

Having said all that, this is a great member review. I don't think I have seen this card in anyone's hands other than reviewers so it is always nice to see actual performance numbers. I knew that cooler wouldn't be able to handle 2 GK104 cores and your overclocking experience confirmed it. For the heck of it, can you remove the side panel and place an external table top fan blowing air right at the card?

[Analog]

Could you upload it? Might get me back in the rainmeter game...

 

Nope sorry, but I can tell you that I used a combination of the themes Enigma, NovaSev. 

 

I noticed you reported currencies in euros, so I can understand this. But to this pondering in the US, the ROG Mars 760 is pretty much the same price as the MSI Lightning 290x. Now having said that, the Lightning 290x is pretty disappointing given all the hype and the cost so the best option would be 2 R9-290 cards instead. Even new 290s have been popping up for $300 in the US making 2 of them less expensive than either the two options above and way, way more powerful.

 

Having said all that, this is a great member review. I don't think I have seen this card in anyone's hands other than reviewers so it is always nice to see actual performance numbers. I knew that cooler wouldn't be able to handle 2 GK104 cores and your overclocking experience confirmed it. For the heck of it, can you remove the side panel and place an external table top fan blowing air right at the card?

 

Yeah, I could do that. I have a couple of 140mm fans lying around. I'll do that in the weekend and post some results.