Today we are looking at a new video card from ASUS – The GTX 670 Direct CU Mini. This is a compact graphics card that should be powerful enough to play the latest Direct X 11 games on a 1080p monitor. This cute little card only measures 170mm and requires a single power connector. We will find out how it handles and whether it is worth the considerable asking price.
With the release of the latest GTX770 and GTX780, it seems a weird time for ASUS to send us a sample of a ‘last generation' card for review, but they are clearly targeting the diminutive little solution for a high performance system with limited physical space. Building a Mini ITX rig? then look no further.
The PCB of the GTX 670 Direct CU Mini measures only 170mm. It is certainly a feat of engineering if the company have been able to provide adequate cooling inside such a small physical footprint. Previous reviews have highlighted excellent cooling performance from the Direct CU cooler, so we are very interested to see how this adopted, constricted model handles under load.
The Asus GTX670 Direct CU Mini is slightly overclocked, from 915mhz on the reference model to 928mhz, with a core boost speed of 1006mhz. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 1,502mhz (6Gbps effective) and is connected across a 256it memory inteface. It has 1344 CUDA cores onboard with 32ROP's and 112 TMU's. The GK104 core is built on a 28nm manufacturing process.
A nice idea, but very expensive for what you get.
I think for what it is designed for its good, but with that premium they will be lucky to sell a lot of them. Saw this reviewed before and was impressed but the price is still sky high.
Id love this for my media system, perfect size, but I can’t afford that – they should bring out a 660 version.