ASUS ROG MARS graphics card

Remember the graphics monstrosity from ASUS that we mentioned at the tail end of last month? Known back then as the ASUS MARS 295 Limited Edition, the graphics oddity squeezes a pair of GeForce GTX 285 PCBs side-by-side in a single enclosure to create a graphics card that's effectively quicker than Usain Bolt.

It's immensely impressive, and benchmarks begin to quiver when two are put together for some quad-SLI action.

The theoretical performance can't be denied, but perhaps the best summary of the card came from HEXUS.community member Format who in no uncertain words said "Bloody hell. I wonder how much that will cost? £650 at launch?"

A logical guess, considering that a single 2GB GeForce GTX 285 can be had for around £330, but we're afraid you're a little off the mark. The card, now known simply as the ASUS ROG MARS and given the model number MARS/2DI/4GD3, is available to pre-order from SCAN.co.uk for a tidy sum of £1,030.98.

We're talking a whole lot of money, but then again, this is NVIDIA's fastest single-GPU, doubled, and connected invisibly via internal SLI. ASUS is said to be producing only 1000 of them, and they'll each provide the following:

• Two 55nm GPUs clocked at 648MHz each
• A total of 480 stream processors, clocked at 1,476MHz
• 4,096MB of GDDR3 memory, clocked at an effective 2,484MHz and accessed via dual 512-bit interfaces
• 2,125 peak GFLOPS
• A peak fillrate of 41.47 Gpixel/s
• Bragging rights until the next big thing comes along