The ASUS GTX 760 DirectCU Mini is the solution for anyone who wants to build a mini-ITX system that can still handle serious gaming. Based on the GTX 760 GPU, the card can play all games at up to full HD resolution. A few months ago, in April, ASUS released their GTX 670 DirectCU Mini which is pretty much the same card as the one reviewed today, only with a different GPU. Compared to the GTX 670 DC Mini, the GTX 760 DC Mini is around 3% slower, which, for all intents and purposes, means their performance is equal. The overclock out of the box gives the card a 3% performance advantage over the reference design GTX 760. It would have been nice to also see an overclock on the memory for a little bit of extra performance.
The cooling solution on the GTX 760 DC Mini does a decent job at keeping the card cool. With 72°C under load, the card has enough temperature headroom to avoid the 80°C temperature limit in even a small and badly ventilated case, but fan noise is unfortunately a bit high. I can understand that keeping such a card cool under load is difficult, but the cooler can be quieter in idle. NVIDIA cards emit very little heat and run in their idle state during Blu-ray playback, so keeping idle noise low would also result in low-noise output while watching movies. If you absolutely must have a low-noise, mini-ITX solution, the ASUS GTX 670 DC Mini would be a better choice because it is a bit quieter. But you had better hurry as the GTX 670 is at the end of its life-cycle—it will only be available while supplies last.
Overclocking of the card yielded slightly lower clocks than other GTX 760s we tested before, but the difference is small, and the DC Mini certainly does not target overclockers, but it's still good to know that you can easily unlock some extra performance via overclocking—14% in our case.
ASUS has told us that their GeForce GTX 760 Direct CU Mini will retail at similar pricing as their normal GTX 760 Direct CU going for around $260 to $270. This is a very reasonable price, especially for a mini-ITX product, which usually comes with a hefty price increase. I can certainly recommend the GTX 760 DC Mini for a mini-ITX system, but I'd recommend looking at full-sized cards if you have room to spare because those cost the same and come with higher clocks, and better thermals and noise.