Asus is a lot like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory at the moment. The gates are closed but we can clearly see the smoke rising out of the chimneys. We know their Oompa Loompas are hard at work.

Luckily though, you don’t need a golden ticket to find out what’s really going on inside, as Asus HQ has sprung a leak. Rumours are abound that they are working on an incredibly powerful dual-Hawaii GPU, the Radeon R9-290X-X2…

The Previous Incarnation Of Asus' ARES - ARES II

The new dual-GPU monster is expected to be the continuation of its high-end ARES series, namely the ARES III. The specs of the card are enough to make to make your eyes water and your wallet take a long walk off a short pier. As it is already the Radeon R9 290X runs hot enough to heat a small housing project, so it comes equipped with Asus’ own AIO liquid loop system to stop it overheating. The radiator mounts onto the card and in theory keeps it cool and quiet.

Specs-wise the Asus ARES III R9-290X-X2 (truly rolls off the tongue) comes locked and loaded with 2816 stream processors on each of its two Hawaii XT cores, for a combined

total of 5632. Along with is it’s packing 176 texture mapping units, 64 ROPs and 8 gigs of VRAM, running on a 512-bit memory bus. This should be capable of maxing out pretty much any game under the Sun, and would certainly make a good choice for those brave souls attempting to join the 4K revolution.

The price point of this beast is expected to be in the region of $1500, so this is most definitely a high-end product and we don’t expect a great number to be made. It’s not just the cost of the card to take into account either, as the ASUS ROG ARES III R9-290X-X2 requires 3 PCI express connectors and pulls a whopping 500w TDP. This is equal to around £130/$218 running costs per year in the UK.

Asus is thought to be planning to release the ARES 3, codenamed Vesuvius, sometime in Q2 2014.

Click here to see a comparison as to how how the new R9-290X-X2 stacks up against the Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan in SLI.

What do you make of this monster of a new card?

Be sure to let us know!