ASUS unboxes its "pocket rocket" GTX 970 DC Mini graphics card

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PC components maker offers a full spread of pictures from box shots to cooler-less board.

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Read more.

Hmm, nice one Asus. The 970 looks to be a pretty decent performer, so this'd be an ideal graphics engine for a SteamBox I'm thinking.

Finally people can say "is that a 970 in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" :P

Not quite sure if this one has a rear exhaust or not? The boxes that these things are aiming for aren't known for great airflow; and yet the cards this size from other vendors don't have exhaust cooling either. I don't know whether it will be a problem in reality, but it's something that's making me hesitate on a MiniITX build.

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Originally Posted by Netvyper

Not quite sure if this one has a rear exhaust or not? The boxes that these things are aiming for aren't known for great airflow; and yet the cards this size from other vendors don't have exhaust cooling either. I don't know whether it will be a problem in reality, but it's something that's making me hesitate on a MiniITX build.

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If you look at the box picture it shows cooling slots on the backpane.

Now THAT is impressive!

I was expecting to see that it would have less RAM, but the box clearly states 4GiB still. Using fewer, denser modules then perhaps?

However it's done, I'm sure it'll carry a price premium, but for those who need a small-but-powerful card, this is amazing.

Very good for HTPC.You can now download 2gb rips and use chroma upscaling.

Perfect for a small Steambox! With a small case such as a Silverstone SG08 Lite, those cards will fit very well inside them and the case is quite small too. The GTX970 is a very decent card and on a typical TV (1080 HD) it's more than enough for max details on everything to date with a high fps.

What's the release date on the card?

It's dual slot though, there aren't many (any?) small (sub-10L) cases that take dual slot cards but there are some that'll take 20-25cm long full height single slot cards.

You're right - the Silverstone SG08-Lite I picked is one such case that can take cards up to 12.2" and can take dual slots (and it can even take an ATX power supply, but you're better off going with a SFX PSU).