Mobile Updates: Lenzfire

06 June 2012

Lenzfire

ASUS Redefines History of Motherbords with its New ZEUS Motherboard

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:31 AM PDT

Now I’m going to say you about a strange motherboard, about which you could not have heard of. It’s ASUS Zeus Motherboard which is designed with a strange concept that integrates dual high end discrete graphic cards on the motherboard itself, that too without any fans for cooling. ASUS displayed this Zeus motherboard in Computex 2012 trade show.

ASUS utilized two PCI-Express 3.0 slots for this integration. The two GPUs are connected through the two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 links of the processor, while the third PCI-Express 3.0 x8 link is used for connecting other on-board components. These dual GPUs will be powered from a pair of 8-pin and 6-pin PCI- Express connectors. Outputs of these GPUs are available at mini-Display Port and HDMI. I think ASUS may bundle HDMI to DVI adapters with this motherboard.

Two onboard HD 7970 graphics on ASUS Zeus

Specifications of ZEUS, Sandy Bridge-E Dual GPU

Has LGA 2011 socket – compatible with Sandy Bridge-E CPUs with X79 chipset
Has 8 x 8 DDR3 RAM slots – supporting up to 128GB, (serious upgrade from 64GB limit for unregistered DIMMs of Sandy Bridge-E HEDT platform)
Processor is powered by 10-phase Digi+ VRM
Supports USB 3.0, eSATA, analog, digital audio, and Thunderbolt etc,.
Has 8 SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, 10 SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, 2 eSATA connectors, 12 USB 3.0 (8 on back panel, 4 via headers), 8+2 channel HD audio and Gigabit Ethernet.

Though ASUS has not reported what kind of GPU it is going to use, there is high probability for AMD HD 7970, as NVIDIA does not recognize the compatibility of this platform with PCI-Express 3.0. Zeus is definitely a concept design from ASUS. Though we doesn’t know when this motherboard will be avilable in market, that’s not the matter here, the thing is when it will become available, it will cost no way cheaper. Also it will not be available in high quantities too.

Source

Verge

ASUS Announces MARS III and ROG MATRIX 7970 Graphic Cards

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 08:33 AM PDT

ASUS has announced its impressive motherboard ZEUS just few hours ago. It is surprising to note that along with ZEUS motherboard, ASUS has also announced its new video card MARS III.

ASUS MARS III

The new video card ASUS MARS III will be a successor to the previous MARS and MARS II.

Features

Two Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 GPU
2GB of GDDR5 memory with 256-bit bus
Three 8-pin PCIe connectors are provided on the card(which implies that it will draw 525W of power from the SMPS)
There is a Red button to run cooling fan at 100% speed. This provision is meant for overclocking
Next to Sapphire HD 7950 Flex Edition, MARS III is the card that has 3 DVI headers for display outputs

Sadly, there is only a single SLi connector which limits things up to only 4-way SLI. ASUS has not yet revealed any details about its clock frequency, price or image, but we still expect that the above details will be revealed soon in Computex 2012.

ASUS ROG MATRIX 7970

The new video card ASUS ROG MATRIX 7970 is completely customized based on the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GPU, which is powered by two eight-pin connectors (reference versions have one eight-pin connector and one six-pin).

Highlights

6 monitor outputs compatible with multi-monitor mode (called Eyefinity setup)
ASUS has provided switches for overriding fan-speed, voltages and also an one-push safe-mode button
LEDs to show voltage
Two BIOS ROMs, one with the factory-Overclock settings, and the other with a failsafe BIOS, which can be toggled by flicking a small switch on the top of the card

ASUS has not yet revealed any details of this graphic card too.