Asus Ares Dual HD 5870 4GB

<<Linkeh>>

Crazy card, at a crazy price of £1200. As far as I can remember, that's even more expensive than the Asus Mars (that was the 2x GTX 285 card).

It's got a pretty tasty triple-slot heatsink on it, which claims to make a 600% cooling improvement over the 5970 reference cooler.

It also has two 5870 cores under there. I assumed previously that the 5970 was just two 5870 cores stuck together, but presumably they're not quite 5870's - perhaps some slightly cheaper version?

This is for serious enthusiasts, obviously, but my guess regarding the performance of this monster is that a dual 5870 card would out-perform two 5870's in crossfire, partly due to drivers but also to do with the fact that the Asus Ares is effectively just one graphics card. I may be wrong. It'd take some beating anyway, as it claims to be 32% faster than the stock 5970.

Even the packaging on this one is pretty fancy; It comes in a metal case and is bundled with the Asus RoG mouse:

Attachment 465Attachment 466

Here's their closest competitor, the Sapphire HD 5970 Toxic 4GB, at only £970 - <<Linkeh>>

If I win the lottery any time soon, I'll be getting two Asus Ares cards for sure. And a 2 bajillion Watt PSU to power them...

it takes up 3 expansion slots lol you be lucky to get 2 in one pc

I'd get it, but it's ugly, at least the mars card looks sexy. That just looks like its been modded by a 12 year old

Doesn't look like it exhausts out the back of the case.... that's a LOT of heat to have milling around in your case.

Originally Posted by NickyBoyJunior

It also has two 5870 cores under there. I assumed previously that the 5970 was just two 5870 cores stuck together, but presumably they're not quite 5870's - perhaps some slightly cheaper version?[/COLOR] [COLOR=Silver]

The GPUs used in this card use exactly the same configuration found on the Radeon HD 5870, while core and memory frequencies match those of the Radeon HD 5850.