Compact gaming systems have proven to be pretty popular in recent years. Still, surprisingly, Nvidia opted to equip its GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics board with a cooling system that makes it 242mm long, way longer than a small Mini-ITX case can accommodate. Fortunately, not all of its partners have followed suit, and Asus has released one of the industry's first GeForce RTX 3060 Ti cards for Mini-ITX PCs.
The Asus Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini carries Nvidia's GA104 graphics processor with 4864 CUDA cores running up to 1710 MHz. That's coupled with 8GB of GDDR6 memory using a 256-bit interface. The card uses a proprietary PCB that is taller than Nvidia's design and uses a single 8-pin power connector instead of the 12-pin on the RTX 3060 Ti Founder's Edition cards. Display outputs for the Dual-RTX3060TI-O8G-Mini include three DisplayPort 1.4 outputs as well as one HDMI 2.1 port.
The Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini's dual-slot cooling system is fairly typical for Mini-ITX cards: it consists of an aluminum heatsink with heat pipes as well as two axial-tech fans that stop spinning when the GPU temperature drops below 55°C.
Like the rest of Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti-based graphics cards, the Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini consumes up to 200 Watts of power, so gamers will need to ensure that their PSU can provide enough juice.
At present, the Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini is probably among the highest-performing Mini-ITX graphics boards on the market. Meanwhile, GPU makers have historically have managed to build 250-Watt Mini-ITX GPUs, so over time, we might see something even more powerful.
Asus has not announced the pricing of its Dual GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini, but expect it to be in the same ballpark as other custom GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Mini units.
