Braving an impending typhoon and intermittent rain, scores of gamers arrived last Saturday, August 27 to Taipei’s Guanghua Digital Plaza at the heart of the city for the official public unveiling event of the Republic of Gamers MARS II, co-organised with NVIDIA. Just to recap, the MARS II graphics card is a very limited edition super-card, featuring an all-custom design with dual NVIDIA GTX 580s, 3GB of GDDR5, ASUS DirectCU II dual 120mm fans and copper heat pipes, plus Super Alloy Power components. This flagship leviathan laughs in the face of even the most demanding benchmarks with prodigious power, and as such went down a storm (no pun intended) with those on hand to experience it.
The girls with MARS II and pro WCG 2010 champ Sen
The launch coincided with the Taipei leg of the World Cyber Games championship, of which ASUS is the exclusive hardware sponsor. The competition was intense, and all official games titles ran on ASUS GTX 560 cards without a hitch.
"Girls? What girls?"
Of course, this being a gaming event the lovely showgirls were out in full force, making sure everyone had a very pleasant time. It was really fun, and watching Crysis 2 run in DX11 with everything cranked up to max as intended was a nice bonus. The event was a great time for all, and certainly helped demonstrate the tremendous power of this insanely over-specced graphics card.
A true beauty and the beast moment
Despite obvious competition for attention, Crysis 2 never looked better
Take a look at some of the photos we’ve snapped and maybe get ready to order your own MARS II? Hey, there’s only a few of them to go around so you better hurry!
The ladies were having a wonderful time on stage
Official ASUS hardware ready for gaming duty
The WCG in progress
Giveaways and swag always welcome
Our delectable MC!
MARS II needs (dancing) women
Small wonder the media were so enthused
The MARS II retail box kindly showcased
Showing off the box offerings and the card itself
Sen discussing the benefits of MARS II power to gamers
Thanks to everyone who came to the event, the wonderful showgirls, the folks from ASUS and NVIDIA, and of course the engineers who came up with this behemoth of a card!
Suds McSoapdish
Thirty years ago, toddler Suds got his first taste of just how enjoyable technology can be when his parents gave him an Atari 2600. He soon picked up on the wonders of the Commodore 64, and the rest is history in the form of a long list of consoles, 80’s home computers and PCs built and assembled with great fervor. Writing and technology gradually moved up from hobbies to professions as Suds became the man he is today, and although he’s worked and traveled the world and experienced many things, technology, especially computing and gaming, has remained a solid constant.