Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini 4096MB

1. Introduction2. Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini3. High Res Gallery (w/ Asus Maximus VII Impact)4. Testing Methodology5. 3DMark Vantage6. 3DMark 117. 3DMark8. Unigine Heaven Benchmark9. Tomb Raider (1080p and 1440p)10. Grid AutoSport (1080p and 1440p)11. Thief (1080p and 1440p)12. Metro: Last Light Redux (1080p and 1600p)13. Total War Rome II: Emperor Edition (1080p and 1600p)14. Thermal Dynamics/ IR Thermometer Readings15. Acoustics Performance16. Power Consumption17. Overclocking18. Closing Thoughts19. View All Pages

Nvidia's Maxwell hardware continues to impress me, and I still rate the GTX970 very highly even though Nvidia's reputation has been taking a hammering in recent months. I don't really want to dwell on the GTX970 memory concerns today, if you have managed to miss the reports, click this link for some background history published on KitGuru.

If you are concerned about buying a GTX970, then rest assured that under the majority of conditions you are unlikely to run into any performance related problems, especially if your main focus is 1080p and 1440p gaming.

Using that last portion of the 4GB memory is more likely at 4K resolutions, but to be honest, the hardware isn't powerful enough in the first place – you really should be looking at the GTX980, and probably in SLi. Our review of the new Nvidia Titan X is underway and this is certainly another option for 4K gaming.

The Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini is a fantastic product released to target a very specific audience. This tiny 17cm graphics card is an ideal partner for a motherboard such as the Asus Maximus VII Impact which we showcased a little in our review today. We analysed this particular board in some detail, late last year – if you missed the review, read our analysis HERE.

The biggest audience will be buying the Asus GTX970 Mini for use inside a space confined chassis – probably connected to a large HD television. This may be incorporated into a media center build, or just a small gaming rig fitted with an mITX motherboard. There are other options available and the Asus GTX 970 DirectCU Mini is undoubtedly one of the most powerful small form factor graphics cards on the market.

Performance at 1080p and 1440p is exemplary, outperforming the overclocked R9 290 in almost every game at both resolutions. Noise levels are kept relatively low thanks to the efficiency of the Maxwell architecture. The use of a backplate will help stability and as our thermal camera imaging shows temperatures are held well within safe parameters.

You can buy the Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini from Overclockers UK for £289.99 inc vat. It earns our WORTH BUYING award.

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Pros:

• Well built.
• superb performance at 1080p.
• small dimensions will suit the smallest cases.
• plenty of headroom for additional overclocking.

Cons:

• Single fan isn't the quietest.

Kitguru says: The Asus GTX970 DirectCU Mini is a high performance solution targeting small form factor cases. It is well built and can deliver super smooth frame rates at 1080p, and even 1440p.

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