ASUS GTX 970 DirectCU Mini Rushkit

Over the past number of years Mini ITX PC has became tremendously popular, with many PC enthusiasts wanting to pack increasingly powerful hardware inside increasingly tiny spaces. ASUS have created the GTX 970 DirectCU Mini to address this market, offering Nvidia's powerful Maxwell based GTX 970 in a form factor which many would typically associate with a low end GPU.

The GTX 970 is definitely not a low end GPU, with this GPU offering performance which is easily the best in class for such a small form factor, but is still able to remain cool an quiet under load?

The specifications are exactly what you would expect from a GTX 970, it only requires a single 8-pin GPU power connector, which makes this GPU one of the least power hungry GPUs in this performance bracket. Honestly AMD do not even come close in this regard. 

Specifications

GPU Core: Nvidia GTX 970
GPU Base Clock: 1089MHz
Minimum Boost Clock: 1228MHz
CUDA Cores: 1664 Cores
Memory Clock: 7053MHz
DVI Output: x1 (DVI-D)
HDMI Out: x1 (2.0)
Display Port: x1 

In terms of length this GPU doesn't even outreach a Mini ITX motherboard's PCB, meaning that this GPU can fit in any Mini ITX case, provided that it supports dual slot GPUs. 

This GTX 970 looks at home with the ASUS Maximus VII Impact. If both of these were in the same rig you would get gaming performance that could rival most full tower gaming PCs on a much smaller scale.

Power and Thermal Testing

We are not going to be putting the GTX 970 through all of our usual tests, but with a GPU so small it has a lot to prove in terms of noise levels and thermal performance. As many of you may wonder, for good reason, how can this GPU remain adequately cool when most other GTX 970s are much larger? We quickly took the GPU and placed it in our test bench for this reason, to see how hot the little thing can get under load. 

Thermally the GTX 970 Mini performed very well, under full load we were only able to get this chip to 74 degrees, mare than adequately cool for all your gaming needs. In terms of noise levels I can say that this GPU is acoustically similar to all other GTX 970s that we have tested, meaning that it is exceptionally quiet.

ASUS have done a great job making such a small, yet powerful GPU, which has a cooler which is able to perform so well.

Conclusion & Video

The ASUS GTX 970 DirectCU Mini does exactly what it advertises, it is small, cool running and is able to compete with any other GTX 970 with ease.

If you want a small GPU which packs a punch much harder than anything this size should, the GTX 970 DirectCU Mini will make you proud. Right now there is no card which better suits a Mini ITX PC, with the nearest equivalent on the AMD side being an R9 285, which has much less performance and VRAM. AMD will really need to pull their socks up on power consumption before they will be able to compete with Nvidia when it comes to compact cards like this. 

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