Asus GTX 670 DirectCU Mini 2GB Graphics Card Review

Its not every day that I see such a radical change to the design of a graphics card and one that deviates by quite a margin away from reference specifications, but when Asus set out to make something that would set them apart in the market, they have made damn sure that they are going to get it right.

As seen throughout this review, the GTX 670 Mini may be a physically smaller card (and its currently the only GTX 670 of its type out there) but it still packs the same mighty punch that any other GTX 670 would do. This ability to do so comes down to a few subtle yet major changes to the way that power and cooling is handled on the board. The addition of the direct power bridge on the rear of the PCB for example, helps to reduce the temperature of the board under full load in one of the most important regions of the board, ensuring that the card won’t drop behind when the going gets tough.

Similarly the use of concrete alloy chokes and the super alloy components on the front of the board allow for a higher voltage threshold and also eliminate the ominous buzzing noise that can be heard from cards during some games and benchmarks when under extreme load. To top this all off we find a whole new DirectCU cooler with most importantly a radical new fan design that incorporates two fan technologies into one to give the best of both worlds whilst only sacrificing only a little on the acoustic front.

Moving over to the performance, its safe to say that again this is just as good as any other GTX 670, meaning that if you were to have this installed in an environment where a regular GTX 670 would not fit due to size, there no need to feel that you could be missing out on some extra performance and if this was still a worry, then give it an overclock, it’ll take it in its stride.

I know by now you may be thinking that this is all and well, but it must cost a fair amount for something that is this unique and packing a heap of new technological ideas at the same time. It has to be said that yes, this card will cost a little more (around ~£60) over a regular Asus GTX 670 DirectCU II OC, but it has to be taken into consideration that this is the first and only small form factor 670 on the market and it does feature a few new technologies as well.

Bottom line, no longer do small form factor systems have to have small graphics performance, Asus advertise the GTX 670 Mini to have a mini size and mammoth performance and it does exactly as it says on the tin.