ASUS Unveils ROG RAIDR Express SSD At CES 2013

We just stopped by and visited with ASUS and we were able to see the new ROG ARES II video card and the RAIDR Express PCIe SSD. The limited-edition ROG ARES II graphics card (just 1000 being made) uses two AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition GPUs and has a new hybrid thermal design that combines liquid and air cooling. You can see the water cooler that was jointly designed by ASUS and Asetek in the image below. ASUS Says that the ROG ARES II outperforms the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 690 reference card by a significant 13%, yet its operating temperature is an incredible 31°C lower.

You can also see the ASUS RAIDR Express PCI Express SSD in the demo system below the video card. This means that ASUS is entering the enthusiast/high-end storage market! Pretty big news there as ASUS will be going up against big named companies like Intel, OCZ, Fusion-IO and others. ASUS said that the ROG RAIDR Express delivers significantly faster data transfer speeds and game loading times than SATA-based SSD storage, thanks to the greater bandwidth of its PCI Express interface. We asked ASUS if they would be coming out with a 2.5″ consumer SSDs and they said they are not headed in that direction. Good stuff was seen at ASUS and we’ll be having full coverage of what we saw later today!