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ASUS GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU Mini

That little thing is crazy, I thought the noctua one seemed thin enough. Did a waterblock ever get released for the Asus 670 Mini?
 
If I run some benchmarks til my GPU gets up to 75C, there's a little warm air coming up between the HDD and PSU and out the top, warmer air coming out the rear of the top above the CPU cooler, about the same from the rear exhaust, and hotter still from the bottom rear PCI bracket.

Hey WiSK, just wanted to let you know that I ran this same "test" again tonight, but this time on an open desk instead of inside my mostly enclosed armoire desk (M1 was a few inches from a wall on the left and rear), and the majority of heat was actually blowing out of my rear 92mm exhaust. There was still a noticeable amount of heat coming from the bottom rear, but nowhere near how it felt before. The top front and top rear were about the same.

I moved some wiring tonight, but failed to notice whether or not I might've blocked off the blank PCI bracket at all.

Dunno. Obviously flawed methodology is flawed :)
 
Hey WiSK, just wanted to let you know that I ran this same "test" again tonight, but this time on an open desk instead of inside my mostly enclosed armoire desk (M1 was a few inches from a wall on the left and rear), and the majority of heat was actually blowing out of my rear 92mm exhaust. There was still a noticeable amount of heat coming from the bottom rear, but nowhere near how it felt before. The top front and top rear were about the same.

I moved some wiring tonight, but failed to notice whether or not I might've blocked off the blank PCI bracket at all.

Dunno. Obviously flawed methodology is flawed :)

Glad you made the effort to retest this, thanks :)
 
This "tall profile" card kills me. I'd pick one up, but in the SG05, the power connector at the edge of a short PCB board is right under the spot where the SATA power and data cables go in to the 2.5" drive. The Galax card I had was a tight fit, but it had a normal PCB height, so it worked.

Making the card taller means I'd have to reverse the drive and find a way to route cables through the other side of the drive cage, which I'm not even sure I could do with the connectors supplied with the SG05's PSU.

But, looking at the card without the cooler on it, I'm wondering if the Gigabyte card is the same way: taller so they could add extra power phases to deal with possible coil whine and whatnot. At least then we'd have an explanation for the tall profile.
 
Wow, good find! If I read that correctly, it looks like CoolChip is commercially producing the Sandia radial cooler to be sold by CoolerMaster.. finally!

EDIT: And I hope they're actually making a retail CPU cooler for PC, and not just an Xbox-specific one.

In case you guys missed it, CoolChip was showing off their latest at CES. From the looks of it, they have a 60W TDP (1U targeted) part that seems pretty ready to go, and a rougher prototype of a chunkier 95W TDP part w/ additional surface area/heat pipes for the consumer market. It looks like they're aiming to hit production this year.

Video here (lots more if you search coolchip or cooler master ces 2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgnVrULqUs
 
Can anyone tell me what the height of these "tall profile" cards are? Can the M1 case fit them?
 
I recall people fitting the short GTX 760 in the M1, so this should fit.
 
Bonus to that, with them being as short as they are, you don't need to hunt down an SFX PSU for the M1 to make sure it will all fit.
 
Hello
I am desperate, can not solve this issue, implemetation of new ASUS GTX970-DCMOC-4GD5 DirectCU Mini OC

My problem is:
I built 6,8 lit SFF modifed Lian Li Q02 in 2012, using at time
gainward gtx 660 180mmx112mmx2slots, it is small media server and game SFF
http://www.computerbase.de/forum/showthread.php?t=1168971&highlight=q02

I would like to improve my gear with new GPU ASUS GTX970-DCMOC-4GD5 DirectCU Mini OC
Dimension of ASUS GPU is mentioned as 170mmx121,9mmx40,1mm,
But this GPU has a metal protection back plate and I think that 40,1mm is mentioned as dimension of total sum: PCB protection back plate till plastic cooler shroud.
I´ll appreciate whether somebody who award this GPU could provide me dimension of ASUS GTX970 mini
PCB/PCIe connector - to the top of protection plastic case/plstic cooler shroud

I contacted already ASUS Europe (Sales, Marketing, ROG); Unfortunately nobody can provide me this information, becasue all of them are using same source of information (ASUS official measurement 170x121,9x40,1mm).
Becasue my SFF case is very tight, specially in area PCIE to the bottom (GPU placement), correct mm dimension of GPU is very important, without this value It will be very difficult to think about further improvement of GPU.
Hope you can support me in this matter
Many Thanks and regards from Vienna
 
^^ Also now in-stock at Amazon for the same price, but with free shipping..

http://www.amazon.com/Asus-GTX970-DCMOC-4GD5-ASUS-Graphics-Cards/dp/B00RL2SLAG/


Kinda wish I'd waited so I could've had actual rear vents and a nice backplate. Ah well, my Gigabyte's still working very nicely.

Can't believe there's still no english reviews out for this one yet. But I betcha damn well these dipshit tech sites will jump to be first to review the über-practical foot-long 960 Windforce with 3x fans..

g0mtpho.jpg


:rolleyes:
 
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Can't believe there's still no english reviews out for this one yet. But I betcha damn well these dipshit tech sites will jump to be first to review the über-practical foot-long 960 Windforce with 3x fans..
[...]
:rolleyes:

Most PCs are still in the Midi-Tower size, and that card is going to be pretty quiet, I'd suspect.
 
Maybe.. but if they were going for quiet, you'd think a giant heatsink of the same size could passively cool the 960 silently without the three large fans.

It probably could, but the people this card is targeted at are the same guys that use 1000W PSUs on their single GPU and 100W CPU because it is "The real shit", or the guys that put a mITX board in their 60L tower case and call it SFF. (I'm exaggerating, but a lot of people that build a PC don't know anything about the matter at all, they just rely on part pickers so they don't forget anything)
And even when they are a bit more sensible, using a purely passive GPU always feels like a risk. So many will opt for the one with fans, either because then they are on safe ground, or because they think that a larger card has to be better, which statistically isn't that wrong, but of course isn't true either.
 
..because they think that a larger card has to be better..

It's usually this :D

With the tiny 970 cards out, the only reason for buying a ≤960 is to save a little money imo.. though a short true single-slot 960 would be pretty cool.
 
It probably could, but the people this card is targeted at are the same guys that use 1000W PSUs on their single GPU and 100W CPU because it is "The real shit", or the guys that put a mITX board in their 60L tower case and call it SFF.
I think this card is targeted at people who
a) stick it into a shitty case without proper ventilation
b) overclock the shit out of it
c) only sleep easy if the GPU doesn't break 70c in Furmark on the hottest day of the year

Guys like us, who want small and/or silent are far and few between.
 
Guys like us, who want small and/or silent are far and few between.

Small, relatively cool and quiet, and as *powerful* as possible given the size.. I'd buy a tiny ITX-style 980 today, if they could make one :D
 
I just bit it and ordered from Amazon. Had some discover cash so it sealed the deal. I'll have it Friday.
 
A short 980?! *swoon*

At least a short PCB should be doable. Cooling is a completely different story. You'd probably need a 2.5 slot cooler to do that at least half-silent, and I don't think many mITX cases actually have 3 slots. The M1 would work, and my custom design, too, but that's probably about it.

My bet is that we're not going to see an mITX 980 in the next few years
 
At least a short PCB should be doable. Cooling is a completely different story. You'd probably need a 2.5 slot cooler to do that at least half-silent, and I don't think many mITX cases actually have 3 slots. The M1 would work, and my custom design, too, but that's probably about it.

My bet is that we're not going to see an mITX 980 in the next few years

We'll never see it. Even as the TDP lowers, there's no feasible intersection in the Venn diagrams of MITX and high-end GPU's such that a short *80 would make viable sense. As for the 2.5 slot cooler argument, a waterblock is a better fit, but yeah, I don't see that happening, it's too narrow of a market. These cards will stay full length for sure, with the odd *70, *60, and *50 being the short PCB's.
 
We'll never see it. Even as the TDP lowers, there's no feasible intersection in the Venn diagrams of MITX and high-end GPU's such that a short *80 would make viable sense.

We used to think this about the *70 as well. Remember the GTX275, GTX470 and GTX570 were 220W cards. Then came the GTX670 with a surprisingly short PCB, 170W power draw and performance close to the top cards of the time: 680 and 7970.

Maybe there won't be a short 980, but perhaps in the future the introductory Pascal GP104 might have such a significant power reduction that all the reference cards don't need to have long PCBs.
 
If anyone needs reference. Here's some specs.

absolute bottom of card to absolute top is 34mm (thickness, if sitting on protector on a hard surface). About 4mm between bottom of pcb and bottom of plastic back protector. without pci connector, the card is 100mm tall x 166mm long. including the pci connector it is about 119mm tall. anything else let me know.
 
dino - how's the noise, subjectively speaking? I've got cash waiting to be spent on a vid card since I returned my first 970, and I'm thinking this guy might be the ticket for me.
 
dino - how's the noise, subjectively speaking? I've got cash waiting to be spent on a vid card since I returned my first 970, and I'm thinking this guy might be the ticket for me.

that is one of the most important factors to me, ill have it in and stressed tomorrow and let you know. otherwise very solid build, backplate is plastic but feels solid. Heatsink is well crafted. I'll give performance info tomorrow as well as heat/sound.
 
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that is one of the most important to me, ill have it in and stressed tomorrow and let you know. otherwise very solid build, backplate is plastic but feel solid. Heatsink is well crafted. I'll give performance info tomorrow as well as heat/sound.

What case are you going to put it in?
 
@techboydino
thanks a lot for this information, I appreciate it
looks like I should be able to set asus in my Q02 mod as well
just have to solve pcie connection to gpu
that free space for connector 8 pin measured from pcie femallemto to side pannel, is about 7mm
I have to modify gpu or make some bridge between will see
hope sound and heat test will be satisfied too
thanks again and have fun with asus
regards from vienna
 
Mini Review.

Coming from a Zotac 660Ti this thing is a beast. I'm running it with a i5 3570K and 16GB of memory. Resolution is 1920 x 1080.The Asus GPU Monitor is set at defaults, I changed nothing as far as tweaks on the card, clock speed, memory, voltage, fans, etc.)

I did some synthetic benchmarks even though I don't really care about those numbers, but for those who do here is the results on PCMark 2014. My case is currently a TT Core V1, hardly small I know but it's the holdover as the Compact Splash gets completed. Not sure if I will be watercooling this card, but needed the small size anyway to fit it. I don't plan on OC'ing the card unless there is something i cannot play at the graphics I want.

sorry, can't get the images sorted, the links work though..
970bench1_zpsbb272a80.jpg

970bench2_zpsfe8634b8.jpg


The real test for me was how did it run on Farcry 4, and how loud was it during gaming. I turned the settings to no less than very high, and some on ultra. Otherwise the defaults. So consider it safe to say it was all on Very High. The fan is mostly inaudible over my case fans during idle and when not gaming. I tested the sound at different speeds and found 50% to be the tolerable spot where it's mainly the sound of air passing not really any motor humm, buzz, or annoying fan sounds. When running FarCry solid the GPU did get to roughly 100% use, the standard temp was around 70-80 degrees and the fan never broke 50%. So overall mission accomplished for me.

I'll consider my buyers remorse at 0% right now. I'm very happy with it.

-The card is very solid and well built
-I hear very minimal coil whine or buzz (only on certain cut scenes and one of the pcmark tests did I hear it at all.
-The fan does disperse warm air in all directions. It pumps out some heat but nothing i would not expect on a card this small.
-It's relatively quiet, especially compared to other itx cards I've used in the past.

Hope this helps someone, any questions feel free to give me a shout.
 
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