A few days ago, leaked images of the so-called ASUS ROG MARS GTX 760 surfaced. It’s a dual GPU graphics card based on the GK104 silicon, basically two GTX 760 put together. But now its official and full specifications of the ASUS MARS760-4GD5 as well as reviews are out. The ASUS MARS 760 is an Asus exclusive GPU. NVIDIA hasn’t released any “GTX 760 X2” or any dual GPU based on two GTX 760 cards. Asus designed this card to compete (and even outperform) the GTX 780 and GTX Titan. Let’s find out more about this new graphics card below.
Asus GTX 760 MARS Dual GPU Graphics Card
In a gist, the Asus GTX 760 MARS features two GK104-255-A2 chips, each having 1152 CUDA cores, for a total of 2304 cores in all. The number of cores is similar to the GeForce GTX 780 which is based on the GK110 silicon. It also features 64 ROPs and 2304 TMUs, GPU base clock of 1006MHz and Boost Clock of 1188MHz. I’m not really sure why the model name is MARS760-4GD5 when in fact it has 6GB of GDDR5 memory, clock at 1501MHz (6Gbps effective), and is running on a 512-bit memory interface (256-bit per GPU). Anyway, Asus claimed that their GTX 760 MARS provides 7% more performance than the GeForce GTX Titan. The rest of the specifications can be seen below.
The ASUS GTX 760 MARS uses an ROG exclusive PCB designed to accommodate the two GK104 chips and 12 Phase Digi+ VRM. Like Asus’ top of the line graphics card, the GTX 760 MARS also features Super Alloy Power chokes, black solid state C-Caps, MOSFESTs and POSCAPs. This means that users can still very much overclock this card, pushing it to its limits. The card draws its power from a two 8-pin power connectors giving us a hint that this card is a hungry-for-power card. This card has a single SLI connector, making it possible to do a Quad-Way Multi-GPU setup.
The Asus MARS GTX 760 Dual GPU isn’t cooled by a custom liquid cooler, like ASUS ROG ARES or the Poseidon, but it is cooled by a DirectCU II cooling system which is commonly used in all mid to higher end Asus graphics card. There are also other features like LED indicator (the MARS logo) and many more. So how about the performance? Let’s check them out below.
Asus GTX 760 MARS Benchmarks
Based from the reviews from that I read below, the ASUS ROG MARS 760 scored 50,000+ points in 3DMark Vantage, around 16,000+ points in 3DMark 11, and around 10,000+ 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark. On game benchmarks, the Asus GTX 760 MARS outperforms the GeForce GTX 780 easily, and often times (if not most) the GTX TITAN as well. The game benchmarks done by the reviewers also show that it is almost on par with the GTX 780 Ti. And just like top tier GPUs today, the MARS GTX 760 is capable of handling 1600p or Ultra HD 4K display. Now what about the price?
Asus ROG MARS GTX 760 Price
The Asus GTX 760 MARS Dual GPU is reported to have a retail price of £519.99 which is around $830+ USD. If we compare that with the current Asus GTX 700 line, it sits somewhere in between the GTX 780 Ti and GTX TITAN. An Asus GTX TITAN is still currently at $1000, despite delivering a rather disappointing performance. Meanwhile the Asus GTX 780 Ti is currently priced at $699 and the GTX 780 at $520. Getting two Asus GTX 760 and do an SLI configuration is also a cheaper method since the Asus GTX 760 DirectCU II OC is currently priced at $249 only.
Note: Prices are subject to change without notice. Most of the times prices drop, and/or offer special discounts specially when the competing AMD released a similar product at a relatively cheaper price.
If you ask me, I would rather get a GTX 780 Ti since it’s cheaper and offers more performance than the GTX 760 MARS. Or buy two Asus GTX 760 and do an SLI configuration. But the Asus ROG MARS GTX 760 is a special graphics card, and it’s not geared towards the regular consumers. There is a “level of kudos” in ownership, some would rather call it as “bragging rights”. For the full and more detailed review of this card, you can visit the sites below.
Asus GTX 760 MARS Reviews
Full reviews can be found on Kitguru and Overclock3d.
