Although ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics card with two graphics processing units (GPUs) onboard is the fastest graphics card available today, it does not feature full-speed Radeon HD 5870 chips, which is why such cards cannot offer maximum possible performance. Asustek Computer has decided to correct the situation and release its own limited edition board named Ares, which will be the first factory-overclocked Radeon HD 5970.

Asus Ares graphics card will feature two ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics processors running at 850MHz with 256-bit bus and 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at 4800MHz, reports Overclockers.at web-site citing its own sources. It is logical to assume that the board will come equipped with proprietary print-circuit board, cooling system and, perhaps, some exclusive features. The new board will offer rather tangible performance improvement compared to the original ATI Radeon HD 5970 thanks to increased clock-speeds.

ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, had to reduce clock speeds of ATI Radeon HD 5870 GPU and memory to 725MHz/4000MHz on ATI Radeon HD 5970 graphics board in order to limit default power consumption of the graphics board. However, since dual-GPU graphics cards rely on multi-GPU technologies that may not work in certain games, the model HD 5970 may end up slower than the single-chip model HD 5870 in certain titles.

It is logical to expect Asus Ares to be another limited edition graphics board from Asus not meant for the mass market. Previously Asustek Computer released Asus Mars graphics card that featured two Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 GPUs. Only one thousand of Mars graphics boards were made and their price was too high even for performance enthusiasts.

Ares is ancient Greek god of warfare, whereas Mars is Romanian god of warfare.

Asustek Computer did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: ASUS, ares, ATI, AMD, Radeon, Cypress, Evergreen, 40nm, Mars