Asus Ares Dual Radeon HD 5870 Monster Card

When this package arrived early this week, I thought it was a whole gaming rig considering the size of the box that came with it. All I know is that it’s codenamed Ares. Go take a peek after the jump.



The Asus Ares came in with this huge box/packaging — almost the same size as a mid-tower PC case or a box of a 22-inch monitor.



Unboxed, you get another packaging — this time, a locked, metal briefcase. I had to decipher the number combination but I tried 000 first and, fortunately, it worked.



Inside the briefcase is this gigantic graphics card — the Ares, a dual Radeon HD 5870 video card that comes built-in with 4GB GDDR5 RAM. That’s 2GB per GPU. Wicked!



Asus Ares specs:
ATI Radeon HD 5870 X2
4GB GDDR5 RAM
850MHz Engine Clock Speed
3200 Stream Processors
4GB 1200MHz GDDR5 Memory
256-bit x 2 memory interface
HDMI Output
Display Port
DVI Port



It’s supposed to come with a gaming mouse as well but it wasn’t in the briefcase already when I opened it. Probably the guys who reviewed this before me forgot to put it back.

I’m thinking this card would eat my power supply alive. The box says it requires at least a 750W system power supply in order to work. And if you’re wondering how much each of these babies cost — how does $1,200 sound?