ASUS Working on MARS II Dual GTX 480 Graphics Accelerator

[Solus Corvus]

Well if you guys can't cool it then you probably shouldn't buy it.

[Sn0wm@n]

You guys don't seem to understand the point of the "Mars II", let me explain.

Mars II:



Normal high end graphics card:



understand?

LOL but that chicken eat more grain

[eternal_fantasy]

Hmm the winter is coming....

[Jowy Atreides]

You guys don't seem to understand the point of the "Mars II", let me explain.

Mars II:



Normal high end graphics card:



understand?

It's all about the coque

[snoid_zero]

why are tantalum caps not used on this one?

[STEvil]

why are tantalum caps not used on this one?

Why should there be?

[saaya]

Cherry picked GPU's, awesome PCB design,
run two of them and have a third slot for PhysX.

1. how? custom bin from nvidia? i doubt it...
how do you pretest a massive bga chip like this please?
way way way too complicated and time consuming = expensive
2. awesome pcb design... better than that of highend non ref 480s? dont think so... and even if, you are only going to notice it on ln2...
3. so these are going to be dual slot only? i find that very hard to believe... and even if... quad 480 sli... with a dedicated physix card... right... why dont you just bolt 2 more 480s to the side of the case? that probably improves your gaming experience even more... its hard to measure, but its true! you can feel it, give it a try! ^^

[BeepBeep2]

1. how? custom bin from nvidia? i doubt it...
how do you pretest a massive bga chip like this please?
way way way too complicated and time consuming = expensive
2. awesome pcb design... better than that of highend non ref 480s? dont think so... and even if, you are only going to notice it on ln2...
3. so these are going to be dual slot only? i find that very hard to believe... and even if... quad 480 sli... with a dedicated physix card... right... why dont you just bolt 2 more 480s to the side of the case? that probably improves your gaming experience even more... its hard to measure, but its true! you can feel it, give it a try! ^^

I like your style of comedy.

ASUS recieves chips. ASUS tests chips. Good chips go in non reference 480's. Really good chips go in MARS 2.

As for awesome PCB design I was meaning fitting that many MOSFET's and power phases along with memory and two GPUs on a single PCB that is THAT small.

[Solus Corvus]

I'd buy 2 of these rather then 4 GTX480 just so I'd have room left over for a raid card, sound card, etc.

[SamHughe]

I'd buy 2 of these rather then 4 GTX480 just so I'd have room left over for a raid card, sound card, etc.

I thought about this too. But with that noise and heat, you better go with 4x single slot water-cooled 480s and still have space left for your raid and sound cards (assuming you'll be using classified or some other mobo that has 6 or 7 pci-e slots).

[saaya]

:P

ASUS recieves chips. ASUS tests chips. Good chips go in non reference 480's. Really good chips go in MARS 2.

how???
you either need a custom bin machine which would cost 100k us if not a LOT more than that, or youd need custom 480 pcbs with a pressure bga strap on socket. ive seen those sockets for memory chips, but thats sub 100pin and thats already buggy, getting good contact with those sockets is a huge pita... especially if you actually have to cool the chip actively somehow...
its not impossible, but i find it very hard to believe that anybody does this right now... nvidia probably has a custom bin machine, but i HIGHLY doubt any of their partners have one, or that nvidia gives them access to them or gives them custom bins...

its not impossible, but unlikely...
very unlikely...

sorry, without any infos about how asus supposedly does this, i call
the only time i can imagine something really gets binned if there are 2 versions of one product that use the same pcb... then yeah, sure, its easy and viable to bin... otherwise its just not viable...

[BeepBeep2]

:P
how???
you either need a custom bin machine which would cost 100k us if not a LOT more than that, or youd need custom 480 pcbs with a pressure bga strap on socket. ive seen those sockets for memory chips, but thats sub 100pin and thats already buggy, getting good contact with those sockets is a huge pita... especially if you actually have to cool the chip actively somehow...
its not impossible, but i find it very hard to believe that anybody does this right now... nvidia probably has a custom bin machine, but i HIGHLY doubt any of their partners have one, or that nvidia gives them access to them or gives them custom bins...

its not impossible, but unlikely...
very unlikely...

sorry, without any infos about how asus supposedly does this, i call
the only time i can imagine something really gets binned if there are 2 versions of one product that use the same pcb... then yeah, sure, its easy and viable to bin... otherwise its just not viable...

What about gigabyte's "Super Gauntlet binning" or whatever it is

How many of these things are you really expecting them to sell? They will probably be priced at 1k.

[tajoh111]

What about gigabyte's "Super Gauntlet binning" or whatever it is

How many of these things are you really expecting them to sell? They will probably be priced at 1k.

A thousand dollars would be a bargain considering two of these cards already cost that much.

Considering this is an absolutely unique product(not a existing product with pumped up ram), this is going to be very expensive for Asus to make.

The cooler on this chip is going to have to be the mother of all air coolers if it makes it to production. Honestly they should sell it for 1400 MSRP and put a good water block and a premade water cooling solution ALA corsair h50.

[antiacid]

Mars is cold.

Mars II is not.

[saaya]

What about gigabyte's "Super Gauntlet binning" or whatever it is

good question.. i wondered what they mean by that for a while...
they never explained it either, and since there is only one product based on that pcb, i find it hard to believe they really bin them...

[SoF]

3. so these are going to be dual slot only? i find that very hard to believe... and even if... quad 480 sli... with a dedicated physix card... right... why dont you just bolt 2 more 480s to the side of the case? that probably improves your gaming experience even more... its hard to measure, but its true! you can feel it, give it a try! ^^

racing games should feel great with that wind in your hair from those two outside mounted 480's

Mars II - well somehow I hope we can set one under ln2 on GC 2010 like we did with Mars I back in 2009 but apart from that I would never consider buying it myself...I would go for some solar cells first

And for the question "What was first - chicken or egg?":