We've got our hands on the first ARES card in the country, complete with briefcase and some puzzling inclusions.
ASUS have been touting their ARES graphics card for quite some time, and though we last saw it at Computex (not to mention our recent ASUS Insights Night), we've yet to get our hands on one. That is, until today.
It arrived in a gigantic box with a heft that suggested we had received a whole system instead of a single card; but packed within that box (and another box) was a large sturdy briefcase, nestled in foam.
Within the briefcase, itself sealed with clasps but no combination, lay the ARES - powered by two RV870 cores clocked at 850MHz, with 4GB of GDDR5 at 1200MHz through a 256-bit memory bus - a design very similar to the ASUS Mars from yesteryear.
The cooling system for the card is impressive, using more copper than the Statue of Liberty, and weighing almost as much. It's visually attractive, but also breaks the standard height spec for expansion cards and is hideously wide and long, though its performance should certainly be significant.
ASUS have also thrown in a mouse and a bunch of cables, which we don't quite see as justified in a card that already costs US$1200, but in all it's an impressive package.
Jump into our gallery of pics to see the ARES and its briefcase, as we slam it into our testbed for a full write-up in an upcoming Issue.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012