Boards heading into the market shortly. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/04/03/asus-directcu-mini/1
Ooo, Looks good, but why should we pay more for something that's smaller? That simply boggles the mind. Sam
Same reason something like the ultra-slim Xperia Tablet Z costs more than a brick-thick tablet of equivalent specifications: it costs money to make something smaller while retaining the same features. The Asus GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II 2GB needs two whackin' gert fans to keep it cool; the GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini makes do with one fan, despite having the same hardware. Sure, Asus has saved the cost of a fan and however much plastic and metal went into the part of the cooler that extended past the PCB - but it's spent cash engineering things so the card doesn't overheat with just one fan. Add into that the fact that mini-ITX users who need a high-performance GPU are a smaller market than those with larger cases and room for full-length cards and you've got your answer.
It's not just the mini-ITX case lovers that will benefit from this card, think of haw many scratch builds could be made where the whole card could be hidden behind perspex etc... Just waiting for when water-blocks become available for it too...
They're already available: under the cooler, all GeForce GTX 670s are 17.5cm long. The new Asus is a reference design PCB - it's just the cooler that's new. Full-coverage waterblocks for the GeForce GTX 670 - which make it a single-slot 17.5cm-long card - have been available since shortly after the board launched.
I can see ITX and MXM GPUS coming together in the future. Dual 680MX vs a single 670 MINI. Who would win?
Nice card, probably going to buy one despite the old age of the 670, that is if it doesn't cost a stupid premium.