Asus Working On Smaller GTX 670 With DirectCU Cooler

By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

Asus is working on a smaller version of a GTX 670 that will still have a DirectCU cooler.

Asus is working on a smaller version of the GTX 670, which is for mini-ITX systems that need more graphics power than what's otherwise available.

Nvidia's reference design for the GTX 670 was already quite short, but many manufacturers chose to put bigger coolers on it anyways, where a lot of the rear of the card is just plastic. Regardless, Asus has designed its own custom PCB, which is just 17 cm long. Not only this, but Asus also designed a custom DirectCU Mini cooler, which is not only shorter in length, but is also only a two slot cooler rather than a massive three slot cooler. Lastly, the card only has a single 8-pin PCIe power connector, allowing users to use just a single PCIe power cable. It's hard to imagine such a beastly amount of graphics power in such a cute little card.

Asus is still figuring out if there is a market for this card, so there is no word yet on pricing or availability.

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Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

22 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Spooderman
    I always looked at the PCB for the 670 and thought "Wow, that's small!" The coolers they had always overhung the PCB for cooling purposes, but it always amazed me that a 670 could be about the size of a 640 or a 630 (not counting width here) Looking at this article makes we want one now that it's more practically sized for something like an HTPC.
    Reply
  • GabZDK
    How is ASUS exactly getting away with one 6-pin??
    I mean, that has to have an impact on performance, right??
    Reply
  • lp231
    GabZDKHow is ASUS exactly getting away with one 6-pin??I mean, that has to have an impact on performance, right??
    That's actually a 8 pin, not 6 pin.
    Reply
  • gamingboy
    This would kick ass for a living room gaming PC.
    Reply
  • kitsunestarwind
    Looks like I have found myself a new GPU upgrade for my Mini-ITX system
    Reply
  • seinfeld
    finally they are making the cards higher. instead of longer. all cases have the same height for cards. its just the length between cases is different. so it makes sense to go this way!
    Reply
  • hakesterman
    " How is ASUS exactly getting away with one 6-pin?? I mean, that has to have an impact on performance, right?? "

    It's an 8 Pin connector not a 6 pin and no it won't effect it because it draws the rest of the power needed through the motherboard PCI slot.
    Reply
  • spentshells
    That pic is pretty sweet!
    Reply
  • nieur
    as AMD and nVIDIA are not releasing next line of their graphic cards.So to maintain the sells manufacturers are
    forced to do something different
    Reply
  • UltimateDeep
    The next Video Card(s) I would like to see in such a small factor would be an nVidia GTX 680, GTX 690, GTX Titan, AMD Radeon 7970 (GHz) Edition, AMD 7950 (Boost)....and When the hell is AMD releasing the Radeon 7990?!
    Reply