ASUS MARS 760 4GB Video Card Review
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The ASUS MARS 760 is a very unique video card as it’s basically a GeForce GTX 760 2GB SLI setup on a single dual-slot PCB. The ASUS ROG design team did a great job with this card as it ran great, uses all high-end components and even has some overclocking headroom left. This card is likely overbuilt as it has the ASUS DIGI+ VRM with 12-Phase Super Alloy Power is more than enough to power this card If you are gaming on a single monitor at 2560×1600 or lower the ASUS MARS 760 is a true powerhouse that was easily able to run every game title that we threw at it. ASUS is targeting the 2560×1440 gamer that wants something over the top with the MARS 760 and we feel that they were able to hit the nail on the head.
When it comes to cooling performance the ASUS DirectCU II cooler did a great job keeping both GK104 GPU’s cool and we hit just 73C on our open air test bench after a long gaming session. You can certainly hear the fans at that point, but it isn’t something you’ll hear if you have your gaming headset on or speakers cranked up. The beefy cooler also allows you to overclock and we are very happy with our overclocking results. We were able to take the base GPU clock up from 1006MHz all the way up to 1131MHz, which meant we were seeing 1241MHz in the games thanks to NVIDIA GPU Boost 2.0 technology. Having a pair of GPU’s running at nearly 1250MHz on a single PCB is no small feat!
Two things really bug us about the ASUS MARS 760. The first is the fact that the MARS 760 has just 2GB of frame buffer for each NVIDIA Gk104 Kepler GPU. We feel that if you are going to spend over $600 on a video card today that you need more than 2GB of GDDR5 memory. To be fair to ASUS, even if they put 8GB of memory on this card it might not have helped that much as we’ve reviewed GeForce GTX 760 4GB cards in the past and the additional memory didn’t do much for a non-SLI setup. The second area of concern is when ASUS brought this card to market. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 was released by NVIDIA in June 2013 and if this card would have come out in the summer of fall it would have been amazing. Sadly, the launch of the ASUS MARS 760 was delayed several times and will not be available to purchase until sometime in January 2014 for around $649.
Over the past two months there have been a ton of changes in the high-end graphics market along with significant price cuts by NVIDIA. The AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB at $599, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB at $519.99 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB at $699 are all very close in terms of performance, have more frame buffer and were found to use less power and you don’t have to mess with NVIDIA SLI profiles. The ASUS MARS 760 is still weeks away from being launched though, so maybe ASUS will drop the price down a bit. Right now you can buy an ASUS GTX760-DC2OC-2GD5 video card for $249.99 shipped after rebate, so making your own 2-card SLI setup would run $499.98. The ASUS MARS 760 gives you that setup in a single card, but you’ll be paying a premium for it. Is it worth waiting for this card to come out sometime in January and spending an extra $150? That is a question that you have to answer.
ASUS did a great job on the MARS 760 4GB graphics card and it should be of interest to those gaming on a single monitor and want a high-end enthusiast card that is far from the norm. We can easily recommend this card to those gaming at 2560×1600, 2560×1440 and lower that want to have a custom made card like this.
Legit Bottom Line: The ASUS MARS 760 is an excellent card for some gamers, but we just wish the price tag was a bit lower and that it was already available!