ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU Mini review - Article

ASUS GTX760-DCMOC-2GD5 GTX 760 DirectCU Mini - Small, smaller ...

In this article we review ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU Mini edition. It is a compact performance graphics card designed primarily for small form factor PCs with mini ITX motherboards. This tiny dual-slot card measures just 17cm and features the NVIDIA GTX 760 GPU. 

The GeForce GTX 760 is a re-spin product, meaning NVIDIA took an older GPU, rebadged it, tweaked some parameters and injects it back into the market at better price-point. You might like that, or not. But the fact remains that the GeForce GTX 760 is to be considered a mainstream to high-end product, yet comes at a competitive price with the very same chip used in the GeForce GTX 670 and GTX 680. And also a year ago, they where the second and top high-end graphics cards. As such the card remains very interesting in terms of performance. See the GK104 GPU itself being used will have two shader cluster disabled. This gives the GK104 GPU 1152 CUDA cores to work with, with in total, 96 texture and 32 raster operating units. The GPU being used is actually tagged as GK104-225 A2. The graphics card also has slightly slower clock frequencies than big daddy GTX 680. However the GTX 760 comes with a Boost clock which is set at 1033 MHz. The core clock frequency (for the reference products) is 980 MHz with the 256-bit DDR5 memory clocking in at 6008 MHz.

With a TDP at roughly 170 Watts the card won't draw too much power either, but it surely packs power, it is silent and the GPU core temperatures remain completely under control. Board partners will be free to launch their own SKUs, all pimped  and beefed up, and that's where we start the next chapter.

So meet the ASUS GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU Mini edition. With the GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU Mini, ASUS includes a Mini-ITX ready GeForce GTX 760 in its line-up which even features a factory overclocking (albeit a little). You will also get a slightly smaller version of the DirectCU cooler, which is known for good cooling performance and acceptable noise levels. This is the 2GB version  that comes factory clocked for you at 1006 MHz with a Boost clock of 1072 MHz. The memory clock is kept at a reference clock of 6008 MHz. You can find this product under SKU code GTX760-DCMOC-2GD5 in the stores.

Have a peek and then please go to the next page where we'll continue this review.