Legit Video Card Reviews

ASUS ARES 4GB Limited Edition Video Card Review

Manufacturer: ASUS
Product: ARES/2DIS/4GD5
Date: Wed, Jul 07, 2010 - 11:00 AM
Written By: Nathan Kirsch -
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The ASUS ARES Limited Edition GPU

ASUS ARES Limited Edition Video Card Box

It is not an everyday occurrence that FedEx drops off box that was overnight mailed containing a $1200 video card, but that is what happened when we got the ASUS ARES video card yesterday! ASUS called it ARES after the Greek God of War and that was the right name to pick as this card features a unique design that slaps two ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPUs with 4GB of GDDR5 memory on a single PCB!  We burnt the midnight oil spending as much time as we could with the card before the NDA lifted on it this morning. To be honest we haven't even had the card 16 hours, but since ASUS wanted to give us less than 24 hours to do a full video card review this is what we could muster up for you.  Get ready to take a look at the most expensive single graphics card that money can buy today.

ASUS ARES Limited Edition Video Card Box

The ASUS ARES has been seen at various events for many months now and is a custom video card that ASUS designed off an ATI prototype video card called Petunia. The ASUS ARES is basically two RADEON HD 5870 GPUs on a single PCB and they retain their factory clock speeds and memory.  This means the card runs at 850MHz on the cores and 1200MHz on the 4GB of GDDR5 memory that the card has! ASUS completed the unique design by adding some custom heat sinks that we will go over more on the next page.


ASUS ARES Limited Edition Video Card Box

The ASUS ARES might break the bank at $1200, but it does have a rather impressive list of specifications that any video card on the market today would be jealous of.  The tagline that ASUS provided for the ARES is 'Limited Edition. Unlimited Power" and that would look like it is the case here!  Let's take a closer look at the card and then jump into benchmarking!

 

Next Page - A Closer Look at ARES


Review Index
Page 1 - The ASUS ARES Limited Edition GPU
Page 2 - A Closer Look at ARES
Page 3 - The History Behind ASUS ARES
Page 4 - ARES Retail Box and Bundle
Page 5 - The ASUS Smart Doctor Utility
Page 6 - ASUS ARES Test Settings
Page 7 - Batman: Arkham Asylum
Page 8 - Resident Evil 5
Page 9 - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
Page 10 - 3DMark Vantage
Page 11 - Unigine 'Heaven' DX11
Page 12 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Page 13 - Aliens vs. Predator
Page 14 - FurMark 1.8.2
Page 15 - Power Consumption
Page 16 - Temperature Testing
Page 17 - ASUS ARES Overclocking
Page 18 - Final Thoughts and Conclusions