Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC Mini-ITX review - Introduction

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC Mini-ITX  - Compact Gaming all the way!

We test the 17cm long Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC Mini-ITX graphics card. The product does not vary much from any other 970 other than its size. Housed in a compact design this card might just be what the doctor ordered for a small Mini-ITX or Micro ATX build. The card has 4 GB graphics memory (well, 3.5 GB), is energy efficient and factory overclocked for you. You will be surprised by how this card looks, how silent it is and how well it performs. 

The GPU used is the 28nm GM204, the two derivatives created from it are the GeForce GTX 970 and 980. Ah, you noticed? Yes, correct, Nvidia decided to skip the 800 series to avoid confusion with some of their rebranded mobile parts. Maxwell is a new and sound architecture and as such it is released with a new series name. In this article we will have an extensive look at the architecture behind Maxwell, we will look at gaming performance from Full HD to Ultra HD.

So, 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 970 GPU. With a TDP at roughly 160 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. 

Now before you read on-wards, there has been an issue exposed with the GTX 970 series; this 4GB card runs 3.5 GB of memory at full speed, and 0.5 GB at very slow speed. For the majority of end-users this is not an issue whatsoever, but it certainly created a lot of chatter on the web. We explained this phenomenon in detail here. If you care to be bothered by it, please skip the GTX 970 and go for an alternative. However, we feel strongly that the issue exposed doesn't matter enough to make a difference.

Meet the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC mITX edition. With this GeForce GTX 970, Gigabyte includes a Mini-ITX ready GeForce GTX 970 in its line-up which even features a factory overclock (albeit a little). You will also get a slightly smaller version of the cooler, which is known for good cooling performance and acceptable noise levels. This is the 3.5 / 4GB version and comes factory clocked for you at 1076 MHz with a Boost clock of 1216 MHz. The memory clock is kept at a reference clock of 7008 MHz. You can find this product under SKU code GV-N970IOX-4GB in the stores.

We will look at power and thermal characteristics and will serve you that on a silver platter with a nice photo-shoot here at Guru3D.com of course. Let's check 'r out shall we? Meet the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 OC Mini ITX Edition.