ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini OC Review

Designed for small form factor mini ITX PC builds, we take a look at the new GTX 760 Mini from ASUS. Can it compete with a regular size GTX 760?

Product on Review: GTX760-DCMOC-2GD5
Manufacturer and Sponsor: ASUS
Street Price: £239.95 (At time of review)

‘The best things come in small packages’. An old saying which many use typically as an excuse for like of size rather than words of wisdom. Graphics cards in particular are generally more powerful the bigger they are. Triple slot cooling, oversized power circuit boards and lengths that typically overhang a standard ATX motherboard; these are the kind of high end cards we have become accustomed too. The size no longer shocks us because to generate all that power, the cards needed power plants the size of Chernobyl and enough cooling to keep the Sun chilled. ASUS however have spotted a niche in the market. Not everyone wants monolithic gaming towers. Certainly those who attend regular LAN parties want a system that is easy to transport yet powerful enough to compete. Anyone who has carried a full gaming tower from the car parks to the gaming halls will testify that it was a less than pleasurable experience. Strange then that with mini-ITX PC builds now common place among PC enthusiasts, there are few cards which are capable of gaming at today’s popular resolutions. Size it seems generally dictates power.

Step forward the ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini OC. The latest card from ASUS has all of the power of a regular GTX 760, arrives factory overclocked and has ASUS’ DirectCU custom cooler. Yet it measures just 17cm in length! Instead of attaching a cooler which makes the card look bigger than it actually is, ASUS have kept the reference PCB length and designed a cooler to the same size. While the cooler remains dual slot, the GTX 760 can now be used in any PC, particular those small form factor designs which previously had to sacrifice power because of size…but no more. Despite it’s size, the ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini OC makes few compromises and as you will see, easily competes with other, much bigger cards on the market.

ASUS takes its name from Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology that symbolises wisdom and knowledge. ASUS embodies the strength, purity, and adventurous spirit of this fantastic creature, and soars to new heights with each new product it creates.

This visionary approach is the reason ASUS is able to bring high-quality innovation and design to all, and the reason for its widespread acclaim. ASUS products won 4,168 international awards and accolades in 2012 – that’s over 11 a day, every day. ASUS has consistently achieved significant year-on-year growth in terms of consumer notebook units shipped too, and closed 2011 on a high with revenues hitting US$11.9 billion.

Specification

Graphics Engine
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760

Bus Standard
PCI Express 3.0

Video Memory
GDDR5 2GB

Engine Clock
GPU Boost Clock : 1072 MHz
GPU Base Clock : 1006 MHz

CUDA Core
1152

Memory Clock
6008 MHz ( 1502 MHz GDDR5 )

Memory Interface
256-bit

Resolution
DVI Max Resolution : 2560×1600

Interface
DVI Output : Yes x 1 (DVI-I), Yes x 1 (DVI-D)
HDMI Output : Yes x 1
Display Port : Yes x 1 (Regular DP)

Accessories
1 x Power cable
Software
ASUS GPU Tweak & Driver
ASUS Features
DirectCU Mini Series
OC Series
Super Alloy Power

Dimensions
6.7 ” x 4.8 ” x 1.6 ” Inch
17.01 x 12.19 x4.06 Centimeter

Based on the same GK104 found on the GTX680, the reference GTX760 contains 1152 CUDA cores at a clockspeed of 980Mhz. This clockspeed coupled with GPU Boost 2.0 will allow the card to typically boost overclock to 1033MHz. Some cards like the one above arrive in a factory overclocked state meaning core and subsequent boost clocks will be even higher. The GTX760 also comes equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 and features four 64-bit memory controllers (256-bit). This memory is clocked to 6008Mhz (effective) however if previous results are anything to go by, this tasty memory will overclock much further than reference speeds so expect to see some good improvements in our overclocking section.

Above is an 8 Core Kepler. NVIDIA tell us that 2 of the cores would be disabled either by disabling 1 graphics processing cluster all together or just one core from two of the clusters.

Kepler Core
The GTX760 is equipped with a GK104 core is fabricated on the 28nm process with every component was designed with power efficiency in mind to ensure the GPU gave the best performance-per-watt possible.

While the 28nm manufacturing process holds the bulk of the power saving features, the way the new architecture works is also key to furthering Kepler’s power reduction. SMX, an evolution of the SM from Fermi is NVIDIA’s new streaming multiprocessor:

Each SMX runs at the graphics clock speed rather than 2x that speed as previously but because the GK104 has 1536 CUDA cores (8xSMX), over Fermi’s (GF110) 512 CUDA cores (16xSM), Kepler allows the GTX760 to operate at twice the performance per watt measurement compared to the GTX560.

To feed each SMX, each unit has four warp schedulers, each capable of firing off two instructions per warp, every clock. With a redesigned scheduling function, the GTX760 is a lot less complex and much more streamlined allowing the compiler to determine which instructions will be issued and can provide this information direct to the hardware block rather than going around the houses using Multi-port decode and a register scoreboard along with the dependency check before the information gets issued. This method is both quicker and more importantly, more power efficient.

Perhaps the biggest change from Fermi to Kepler was the omission of the old Shader Clock. The shader clock was getting tired as it was part of the old Tesla architecture which was implemented as an area optimisation. Because of the way Kepler executes instructions at a much more streamlined manner and at a higher clock rate, fewer copies of the execution unit need be made.

Another improvement over Fermi with the introduction of SMX is the redesigned Polymorph engine (2.0). The Polymorph engine takes card of the tessellation workload of the GTX770. The design of the Polymorph engine is to ensure that the tessellation we see on screen has little (as possible) impact on the rendering performance. What you may find bizarre though is that NVIDIA have cut the Polymorph engine count in half to 8 from Fermi’s 16 yet claim it is almost twice as quick. This is thanks to the improved core an memory clockpeed.

With both a higher core clockspeed based on older (but still very fast) GK104 core and of course that blisteringly fast memory, the GTX760 looks set to replace not only the GTX660Ti, but also offer a viable, yet cheaper alternative to the HD7950 GPU.

GPU Boost 2.0

GPU Boost caused a bit of a stir when it was first introduced because it did away with the traditional ‘absolute’ method of dictating MHz. Rather it worked by overclocking the card by different means. To achieve an overclock using GPU Boost, one increased the MHz and Voltage as per usual however the card would then ‘Boost’ when placed under load. So rather than having a fixed clockpseed, the GPU adjusts the clockspeed depending on load, ensuring the power is there when you need it rather than it being full on all of the time, thus saving power consumption and heat production by having the card overclock dynamically.

GPU Boost 2.0 is an evolution of this idea. The techs at NVIDIA have determined that GPU power was unnecessarily limiting performance when GPU temperatures was low. Instead of boosting GPU performance based on a power target, it is now based upon temperature with this temperature threshold being 80 degrees Celsius.

Because the boosting is now determined by temperature, noise levels are also reduced as NVIDIA claim the GTX cards deliver a better acoustic profile.

So to summarise, overclocking the card using GPU boost 2.0 means adjusting the temperature threshold, for example from 80c to 85c. The GPU clockspeed will then gradually increase until it reaches this new temperature and will be dynamically adjusted on-the-fly to stay within this threshold. Because of this it is much more difficult to claim one GPU is faster than another without having both working under precisely the same operating conditions.

It therefore should go without saying (but we will say it anyway) that the colder your card runs, the faster it should theoretically operate as a colder card allows overvolting and thus even higher clockspeeds.

GPU Boost 2.0 also features overvoltage control. NVIDIA make no bones that enabling this function will damage the long term operability of the graphics card and as with AMD’s overdrive, you have to acknowledge this fact before you can unlock the cards voltage control. We applaud NVIDIA for this because they have acknowledged that enthusiasts, like us here at Vortez, like to push hardware to the max and without voltage control, the whole process becomes so much more uninteresting and much more difficult.

So, because GTX760’s boost clock and voltage level are now tied to the GPU’s temperature, the voltage can be dialled higher which in turn will allow the GPU to attain higher clockspeed values. Obviously, increasingly board voltage, as with most other products, will gradually degrade the GPU through electron migration causing a premature death of the GPU. Voltage support will be offered on a board partner by partner basis however, we would be extremely surprised if it wasn’t enabled in every GTX760’s VBIOS.

We will see how GPU Boost 2.0 performs in our overclocking section later in the review.

GeForce Experience

GeForce Experience is a new application from NVIDIA that optimizes your PC in two key ways. First, it maximizes your game performance and game compatibility by automatically downloading the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers. Second, GeForce Experience intelligently optimizes graphics settings for all your favorite games based on your hardware configuration.

Some enthusiasts will view (excuse the pun) altering settings to get the very best from a game one of the ‘fun’ elements of owning a powerful graphics card. Others just want to play their game of choice without the endless testing and benchmarking to determine what settings work best. Many don’t have the inclination or indeed the time to learn what effect each setting has upon the games visual elements.It soon becomes a bind when upon a new driver release those settings which were great before can be bettered (or lowered) for a better gaming experience. FXAA, TSAA, MMAA or simply AA. Low, medium, high, ultra texture settings along with overall visual settings can be all too confusing when configuring a games visuals and while it would be easy to just crank everything up to maximum and hoping for the best, this all too often results in choppy, unplayable gaming ruining the gaming experience.

NVIDIA’s GeForce Experience removes much of the guess work when configuring a game thereby giving users the means to jump straight into the game with the best optimised settings for there hardware.

This handy utility will also keep your GPU updated with the latest driver that can be set to automatically download, ready to be installed as soon as they are available and also it gives you access to the beta drivers.

How does it work?
GeForce experience requires an internet connection which, once connected to the NVIDIA Cloud datacenter will download optimal game settings that are tailored to your PC based upon CPU, GPU and monitor resolution.

Low end hardware will have the visuals reduced to improve framerates while high end hardware will inevitably have higher settings assigned. This is all done with a click of a button which ensures that the game not only looks great but perhaps more importantly, plays smoothly.

Testing of the settings are done by NVIDIA themselves who benchmark the game, set a framerate target to ensure smooth gameplay then adjust the settings to ensure both framerate and smooth gameplay are optimised.

In our own tests, the utility worked well and is great for those who want to jump straight into the game with the minimal of fuss and furore of adjusting GPU settings.

Our one complaint is that the supported games list requires expanding. While most of the popular ga

Features

ASUS Exclusive Innovation
Small form factor PCs based on mini ITX motherboards are a popular choice for gamers and home users. Their compact cases are much easier to transport to LAN parties than a standard desktop PC, and stylish designs with comparatively low power requirements make them a natural choice for home theater PCs. The ASUS GeForce® GTX 760 DirectCU Mini is designed to maximize the potential offered by mini ITX motherboards by delivering high performance graphics. It uses an innovative DirectCU thermal design that combines a heat-spreading vapor chamber and the CoolTech Fan, which uses wide-angle airflow and venting to cool critical graphics card components.

Small Form Factor for ITX Builds
DirectCU Mini measures just 17cm in length-making it the perfect choice for compact gaming PCs.

DirectCU Mini
Superior cooling and acoustics are created with exclusive DirectCU thermal design and fan assembly. Award-winning DirectCU now includes custom vapor chamber technology and the new and advanced 360-degree CoolTech axial fan. Even in DirectCU Mini form, the proprietary design delivers up to 20% cooler temps and three times quieter performance than reference.

Direct Power
Small size but big in power. Proprietary DirectCU Mini features a custom PCB and VRM design featuring Direct Power technology. This provides high quality and reliable power delivery to the GPU, whether for gaming or overclocking. In addition, superior efficiency reduces PCB temperatures by 17%.

OC-selected 1072MHz core
1072 MHz Boost clock for better performance and outstanding gaming experienc

GPU Tweak
Real-time intuitive graphics tuning
Shows detailed specs and actual card status with GPU-Z
Monitoring widget provides real-time detailed multi-parameter info
Automatically checks and updates drivers and BIOS versions

2GB GDDR5 Memory
On-board memory for the best gaming experience & the best resolution

NVIDIA® GPU Boost
Push the breathtaking performance of the GeForce GTX graphics cards to new levels with NVIDIA GPU Boost. This technology dynamically maximizes clock speeds to bring out the best performance in every game.

NVIDIA® Adaptive V-Sync
Get more than just faster frame rates. Get ultra-smooth gaming every time with NVIDIA gaming innovations – Adaptive Vertical Sync. This technology dynamically adjusts Vsync to current frame rates for maximum playability.

PhysX by NVIDIA
Play games with advanced effects such as blazing explosions and lifelike characters with 10X faster switching between graphics and physics processing, enabling more complex effects to be rendered in real time.

NVIDIA SLI Ready
SLI Support
Multi-GPU technology for extreme performance.

NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ Surround Ready
Transform hundreds of PC games into stereoscopic 3D and enjoy immersive full HD 3D gaming across three displays at an incredible 5760×1080 resolution.

PCI Express 3.0
Delivers double the bandwidth per lane of PCIe 2.0 for faster GPU-CPU communication. Full DirectX 11.1 API support

Microsoft DirectX 11.1 API (feature level 11_0)
Brings new levels of visual realism to gaming on the PC and get top-notch performance.

Microsoft Windows 8 compatible
Gives you access to advanced computing experiences with the latest operating system so you get more done with your PC.

Packaging & Accessories

As you would expect from such a small card, the packaging is equally small. It has the similar packaging design to other cards from the ASUS range with the three red talon scars atop of a glossy printed metallic finish. There is a small breakdown of the DirectCU cooler beneath which ASUS claim that this card is ‘Perfect for ITX’ which is clearly the target market for this product.

Flipping the box over we find that ASUS have displayed the perfect mix of information, pictures and diagrams with the important features available in multiple languages.

Sadly, the included accessories were not the best. With only an instruction booklet and utility CD, users who have a VGA monitor will need to purchase their own adaptor as there is none included with this product. Thankfully though, ASUS have had the foresight to consider those without an 8pin GPU power cable as they have included a twin 6pin-8pin power cable adaptor.

First Look

Aside from the size of the card, the first thing that strikes us is the size of the fan. Rather than opt for a small noisy fan, ASUS have employed their advanced Cooltech fan. This fan, which takes up the majority of real estate available, is framed by a stylish matt black plastic shroud with glossy highlighting.

The rear of the card is nothing too striking save for the Direct Power badge (more on this later). What we were placed to see however is that ASUS have used a matt black power circuit board (PCB).

From a profile view, we can see that there is a large cut-out from the shroud which acts as an air duct, feeding the fan before being exhausted out of the rear of the card as hot air.

The input/output area is standard NVIDIA with both DVI-D and DVI-I along with a single DisplayPort and HDMI 1.4a.

The power input is a strange choice and a break away from the reference design with a single 8pin socket instead of a twin 6pin design. Thankfully ASUS have included an 8 pin adaptor so even if your PSU does not have the required 8pin plug, two 6pin plugs will suffice. To indicate that all is well with your power input, there are two small LEDs which tell us that either the power supply to the card is good (Green) or bad (red).

Finally, if you require a boost in performance then this card can be coupled up to a further two GTX760s thanks to the twin SLI tabs.

Closer Look

To keep the heatsink and thus the core cool ASUS have used their new and advanced 360-degree CoolTech axial fan. Even in DirectCU Mini form, the proprietary design delivers up to 20% (claimed) cooler temps and three times quieter performance than reference.

Again, we see the dreaeded sticker of doom. Remove or destroy this stick and you will invalidate the warranty of the GPU. ASUS clearly do not want you to remove the cooler as the only way to do so is to break this sticker which covers one of the spring loaded screws holding the GPU to the heatsink.

After removing the heatsink (thereby ending the cards warranty), we see that the DirectCU mini cooler is made up of a vapor chamber which has direct contact to the GPU core. The TIM used was like glue, so much so that it took much more ‘persuasion’ than usual to break the seal between Core and heatsink. Removing the TIM was also very difficult as it had set like concrete! Thankfully our sample had very good contact with the core so if our example is anything to go by, you should have little need to break the warranty and replace this TIM.

The PCB is the same size as the reference design and a similar layout. Half of the memory is on the core side while the other is exposed on the rear. The VRM is furthest away from the power socket and has also been tweaked slightly.

The voltage regulation module is a 4+1 power phase design and is made up of ASUS’ ‘Supper Alloy power’ modules. These allow for 30% higher voltage threshold. Dedicated SAP CAPs and alloy chokes ensure those crucial overclocks are reached without the resonance/buzzing of traditional power chokes.
The Direct Power design acts as a highway between components and the GPU. Rather than having a single route which causes electron congestion, the Direct Power allows for alternate routes for a cleaner power delivery which lowers impedance (-56%) and thus PCB temperature (-7.4c).

The memory modules are HYNIX and carry the product code of H5GQ2H24AFR R0C which means while they are the same ones used on the reference design, they overclock exceedingly well.

The final piece in the jigsaw is the beating heart of the GTX760, the 6 x SMX GK104 core.

Test Setup & Methodology

How we test graphics cards

Testing a graphics card is an extremely lengthy process. We sometimes see reviews where a graphic card has been tested using out of date equipment, out of date games and out of date drivers. While the latter can be excused due to the sheer amount of driver updates making a thorough review impossible we will however notify the reader when we have used a different driver to the normal for example a pre-release driver. For the most part however we will always use the same hardware and where possible the same drivers unless a newer driver rectifies an issue we have encountered or significantly improves performance to such an extent that continuing with an outdated driver is not feasible.

Frame Time Analysis
We have also seen the emergence of frame time analysis. We covered this in a separate article here: GPU Reviews: Why Frame Time Analysis is important so we won’t go into the reasoning again but to summarise, our testing comprises both FPS testing and perhaps arguably more importantly, frame time analysis. We also look at overall performance by equating averages across the games and finally before concluding our review we take a look at value for money.

HardwareWith the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

High End Graphics cards on test:

ASUS GTX760 DirectCU Mini OC 2GB GDDR5
(Forceware 320.49)
Inno3D iChill GTX 780 HerculeZ X3 Ultra 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
ASUS GTX770 DIRECT II CU OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
MSI GTX760 Twin Frozr Gaming 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GIGABYTE GTX780 Windforce x3 OC 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GAINWARD GTX780 PHANTOM ‘GLH’ 3GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
INNO3D GTX760 ICHILL HERCULEZ 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
GIGABYTE GTX770 WINDFORCE 3X OC 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.49)
ZOTAC GTX760 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.39)
NVIDIA GTX760 2GB GDDR5(Forceware 320.39)
]NVIDIA GTX760 2GB GDDR5 SLI(Forceware 320.39)
SAPPHIRE DUAL-X HD7950 3GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 13.6 beta)
CLUB 3D HD7970 royalAce 3GB GDDR5 (Catalyst 13.6 beta)
GAINWARD PHANTOM GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5 (Forceware 320.18)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 4GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN 6GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN SLI 12GB(2x6GB) GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
NVIDIA GTX680 2GB GDDR5 (Forceware 314.22)
AMD HD7970 3GB GDDR5 (AMD CAT 13.3 beta)

Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 Pro
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200W
Hard Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
If you are a regular reader of our reviews you will know we like to test the latest hardware with the latest games and benchmarks on the market. Here are the games we have chosen:

Battlefield 3
Crysis 3
Far Cry 3
BioShock Infinite
DiRT: Showdown
The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

We also take into consideration the benchmarkers out there so have included 3 of the more popular synthetic benchmarks available:

Unigine: Valley
Unigine: Heaven 4
Futuremark 3DMark Firestrike

Let’s see how today’s graphics card performed…

Temperature, Acoustics and Power Consumption

Power Consumption

To test for power consumption we use the included iPower Meter found with our Thortech PSU. As system load figures obviously differ from idle it is extremely difficult to get an accurate figure of system draw and then simply take this figure away from the overall amount because each game will generate varying levels of CPU and hard drive activity. Dynamic power adjustments which fluctuate in game will also affect accurate power figures thus rendering any such power consumption calculations redundant at worst and approximate at best.

We will therefore take our system readings averaged over a benchmark run of Tessmark (100% load) and after 20 minutes of being idle in Windows 7. These can then be used as a comparison to other graphics cards to determine how much more or less power you can expect a GPU to consume.

Power consumption was near identical with the other GTX760s on test so while the ASUS card may well be more power efficient in turning that power into performance, it certainly gives us no distinct advantage over other cards when direct power consumption is measured.

Temperature

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we would normally run Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained however we found that this throttled the card and resulted in spurious results. So we set Heaven running continuously for 20 minutes and used this as a temperature result as the card did not throttle with this application.

Again, we see very little difference between the ASUS card and other custom cooled cards. This time however this is a good thing because when you consider the other designs have much larger cooling solutions, the ASUS card performs equally well with just a single fan and smaller heatsink.

Acoustics

Normally we would expect a small, powerful card to sacrifice size for noise. This simply is not the case with the ASUS card because not only is it small, but it actually rather quiet. Sure things do liven up a little when the fan rises above 50% but during a 2 hour gaming session, we hardly noticed it.

Let’s see how the card performs in our suite of benchmarks…

Futuremark 3DMark Fire Strike (Synthetic)

Fire Strike is the new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is Futuremark’s most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.

Unigine: Heaven 4 (Synthetic)

Heaven Benchmark with its current version 4.0 is a GPU-intensive benchmark that hammers graphics cards to the limits. This powerful tool can be effectively used to determine the stability of a GPU under extremely stressful conditions, as well as check the cooling system’s potential under maximum heat output. It provides completely unbiased results and generates true in-game rendering workloads across all platforms.

Unigine: Valley (Synthetic)

Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user.

Battlefield 3 (FPS)

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next installment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

Crysis 3 (FPS)

Crysis 3 from Electronic Arts is the fourth instalment of the Crysis franchise and sequel to Crysis 2. It uses the CryEngine 3 gaming engine which is perhaps the most advanced gaming engine to date and therefore the most demanding. The meme ‘Can it run Crysis’ has never been so apparent…

Far Cry 3 (FPS)

Far Cry 3 is a tropical survival shooter video game from Ubisoft Montreal and Massive studios. It’s open world design has similar traits to it’s forbear Far Cry 2 but it does it all so much better. With stunning visuals and settings to bring a PC to it’s knee’s, this game is so much more than the ‘just another console port’ it was reported to be.

BioShock Infinite (FPS)

Set in 1912 during the growth of American exceptionalism, BioShock Infinite is a thrid person shooter developed by Irrational games and published by 2K Games. It is the third instalment of the BioShock franchise. the game utilises the Unreal Engine 3, modifying it with their own lighting engine to present a visually stunning experience like no other.

DiRT: Showdown (FPS)

DiRT Showdown is the new arcade racing game from the team that brought you the award-winning DiRT series, uncaged in 2012. Pick up and play controls combine with electrifying events, frenzied crowds and stunning graphics to deliver high octane, dive in and drive thrills from event one.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (FPS)

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

Gaming Experience (Frame Time Analysis)

Here we take a look at both average (black) and 99th Percentile (coloured) response times of the graphics cards. It is highly unlikely a user will notice any micro stutter (also incorrectly referred to as lag but the effect can be interpreted to be similar) at anything below 30ms but every gamers perception differs.

Comment

The graphs above may appear very daunting however, what you want to see is a smooth line (not fuzzy) with very few peaks and troughs. While you are unlikely to notice peaks and troughs below 30ms, any peak above 30ms may be seen as a stutter during gameplay. This will however depend greatly on your own perceptions. Multi card setups are more likely to show frame lag due to the nature of cross communicating to render frames.

Average and 99th Percentile response times (Frame Time Analysis)

Value For Money

We make a simple calculation for this set of results. For each game we add all of the resulting FPS totals together and then divide by the four sets to give us an overall performance figure. While the figures alone do not give you an accurate picture of how the card will perform in any given scenario, they do tell you, when averaged, which GPU is the more capable across all of the benchmarks and settings tested.

Overclocking (GPU BOOST 2.0)

For overclocking our NVIDIA cards we will be using EVGA’s Precision too (ver. 4.1) as this gives us all of the options we require. Should you desire, ASUS’ own GPU Tweak is equally good.

Above is a screenshot of GPU-Z showing the reference (factory overclocked) speeds and reference boost clocks. We have also included the ASIC rating of our sample. The ASIC rating basicly tells us how good the overclock will be. The higher the ASIC rating, the better the overclock is likely to be, particularly on air cooling at a given voltage. Average ASIC readings for our GTX 770s range from 70% to 80%. As you can see from the screenshot above, today’s sample is very much within that average.

In truth, we are still dubious as to the real value of this reading but time will tell. As we have been asked on numerous occasions to include it in our reviews we felt it only right to show it although please take any of these values with a pinch of salt until we can confirm whether it does actually mean a higher or lower overclock will be achieved.

The overclock for the ASUS GTX 760 Mini was average. It wasn’t quite as good as the competing custom cooled cards yet easily outclassed the reference designs. Despite our very best efforts the best we could manage was an extra 101MHz on the core. This could be down to a number of factors, not least because the GPU arrives pre-overclocked. This overclock however resulted in a none too shabby 1241MHz BOOST speed. Couple this with the extra 521MHz memory overclock and the overall overclock performance of the GPU was very good.

After settling on our stable clockspeed which was verified by multiple runs of Unigine Heaven and 3DMark we benchmarked the overclock and compared it to stock results with Unigine Heaven 4.0 to evaluate the benefits of overclocking the GPU.

Conclusion

As custom cooled GTX760s go, the ASUS card is nothing extra ordinary for the every day user. It has average cooling performance, average overclocking and average overall performance when compared to the competition. What you need to bare in mind however that is this card was not designed as a ‘balls to the wall’ speed demon. It was designed for gamers who wish to use a SFF PC. For this purpose it fits the job perfectly. It is small, quiet and yet does not sacrifice power as without physically seeing the card, you could easily be forgiven for thinking this card was the same as any other overclocked GTX760 on the market. Herein lays the ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini OC’s strength: Small but powerful.

It has to be said that there are better GTX760s on the market for those with space in their PC enclosure; not least ASUS’ own full fat version of today’s sample which as it happens is also cheaper at just £215.99 compared to the £239.99 you will pay for the card in today’s review. So who would pay more for a ‘lesser’ card? A valid question and one which is easy to answer: SFF users. You see a card like this is the answer to the prayers of anyone who requires the power a regular PC can provide but also desire a smaller enclosure be it for LAN parties or due to a lack of desk space. Whichever category you see yourself aligned, we are happy to report that your prayers have been answered because the ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini OC is both a capable performer and small enough for all but the tiniest of PC enclosures.

With this is mind and considering whom the card is aimed at we are happy to give today’s review sample a Gold award.

To summarise:
The ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini OC packs a heavy punch despite its diminutive size. A card that performs with the best yet small enough to match SFF requirements.

Pros

+ Small (17cm in length)
+ Quiet
+ Comparative GTX 760 performance
+ Good looking

Cons
– Expensive
– Too few accessories